What does stakeholder engagement mean?
Let's start with the basics! We discuss the importance of having a stakeholder engagement strategy and staying on top of stakeholder engagement trends, but what is stakeholder engagement?
Stakeholder engagement is an essential part of your project's success. It is an inclusive process by which an organization interacts with its stakeholders.
Please read our blog to learn about the 10 reasons why effective stakeholder engagement is crucial to your project's success and your organization's reputation.
But, if stakeholder engagement is an inclusive process, how do we know who we must include?
1. Stakeholder identification
According to the IFC, "Stakeholders are persons or groups who are directly or indirectly affected by a project, as well as those who may have interests in a project and/or the ability to influence its outcome, either positively or negatively."¹
Compiling your list of stakeholders is called stakeholder identification and is an essential step in your stakeholder engagement journey.
Le processus d'identification des parties prenantes est le moment où nous déterminons :
- With whom do we need to engage
- À quel titre
- In what way
2. Stakeholder mapping
L'étape suivante de votre parcours d'engagement des parties prenantes consiste à organiser vos parties prenantes en groupes appropriés sur la base des critères suivants groupes appropriés, sur la base des classifications suivantessur la base des classifications suivantes :
- Autorité/pouvoir des parties prenantes
- Niveau d'intérêt des parties prenantes
Based on Mendelow's Power-Interest Matrix, this matrix helps you identify your "key players" and decide which tactics are best for engaging with each category of stakeholders.
3. Stakeholder tactics
Once you've identified, mapped, and classified your stakeholders, the next step in the stakeholder analysis process is choosing the engagement level for each category.
The Spectrum of Public Participation, developed by the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2), is an excellent tool for identifying the best level of engagement (or participation) for your stakeholder categories.
Le spectre IAP2 identifie cinq niveaux de participation différents : informer, consulter, impliquer, collaborer et responsabiliser.
Par exemple, une partie prenante à faible pouvoir et à faible intérêt n'est pas susceptible d'influencer votre projet ou de s'en préoccuper, et peut se contenter d'être informée (souvent dans le cadre d'une communication à sens unique).
Your "" ey player" stakeholders (high power/ high interest) have a much greater potential to impact your project and, based on the IAP2 levels of engagement, may need to be consulted, involved, collaborated with, and/or empowered, depending on the circumstance or your organization's vision for engagement.
Once you decide on your level of engagement, you're ready to choose your specific engagement tactics.
Your tactics are simply your chosen method of engagement (e.g., emailing stakeholders can be a great two-way communication method).
Si vous êtes novice en matière d'engagement des parties prenantes, ce guide pratique est le point de départ idéal. Téléchargez la ressource gratuite ci-dessous !
Why is stakeholder engagement important?
Why go through all this trouble for stakeholder engagement, especially if it's not mandated?
Les parties prenantes ont le pouvoir d'avoir un impact positif ou négatif sur votre organisation, vous devez donc vous assurer qu'elles adhèrent à vos projets.
A thoroughly researched and well-designed stakeholder engagement strategy can help your organization mitigate any potential negative impacts, which is vital for the success of your projects, your strategy (like your ESG strategy), and your overall organization.
But stakeholder engagement is not just about risk management and building your reputation; it's also about building relationships.
How to build relationships with your stakeholders
Building stakeholder relationships is essential to invest in your organization's long-term success, whether in a long-term or short-term project.
Stakeholder relationships are not "one and done." You could quickly reencounter the same stakeholders in the future, so building a good relationship with them early on can help to ensure the success of your current and future projects.
Your engagement needs to be meaningful to ensure you're building strong relationships with your stakeholders. Check out our blog where we share tips you can easily implement into your strategy to make your stakeholder engagement more meaningful.
Les relations sont fondées sur la confiance
The foundation to successful relationships is trust, and to build confidence, stakeholders need to feel like their issues and concerns are valued and heard.
For stakeholders to feel valued and heard, you need to remember what has been said previously and what has been promised in the future.
Keeping a record of your stakeholder interactions, your stakeholder issues and stakeholder commitments can help ensure this is possible and, in turn, allows stakeholders to build trust in your organization.
However, trusting relationships cannot be maintained if there is no way to ensure everyone is on the same page. Trust is essential for managing stakeholder engagement.
Using cloud-based software to manage stakeholder engagement throughout the project's lifetime keeps all information in one easy-to-find place, which helps you maintain trust and build long-term, meaningful relationships with your stakeholders.
Why use stakeholder engagement software?
While using spreadsheets or a CRM to manage your stakeholder information might seem practical, these options aren't sustainable if you want to build future-focused, long-term stakeholder relationships.
Developing a repeatable and scalable process for stakeholder engagement management is essential for building strong stakeholder relationships.
This process needs to include a collaborative database of stakeholder contact details and your interactions with these stakeholders. Choosing to create this database with a stakeholder engagement software is an easy and effective way to compile and store vital information like:
- Coordonnées de la personne à contacter
- Communications
- Engagements
- Enjeux
Stakeholder engagement software allows you to report on any of this information quickly. It enables you to share it with your internal or external stakeholders, which is a time-saver and a business best practice.
Dites bonjour à Jambo™
Many stakeholder engagement management options are available today, but software explicitly made for stakeholder engagement is best if you're looking for something straightforward and reliable.
Jambo is the fastest and easiest stakeholder engagement software on the market today. Created with input from private companies, governments, NGOs, and engagement consultants, it is solution-focused and designed to meet your needs.
Jambo permet aux utilisateurs de :
- Suivre et gérer les communications avec chaque partie prenante
- Identifier et consigner le rôle de chaque partie prenante
- Suivre et gérer les questions des parties prenantes
- View issues with an easy-to-understand timeline
- Suivre tous les engagements du projet jusqu'à leur réalisation
- Gagner du temps en compilant rapidement des rapports détaillés
- Visualiser les plans de projet en téléchargeant les zones de projet et en cartographiant les lieux de consultation et les zones préoccupantes.
- Rester sur la bonne voie en assignant des tâches aux membres de l'équipe et en contrôlant l'état d'avancement de ces tâches
- Collaborer en travaillant avec différents services ou contractants externes sur le même projet.
- And much more—We're always adding new features and updates to help our users simplify the stakeholder management process!
Prochaines étapes
If you're ready to take the next step towards excellent stakeholder engagement, book a 15-minute discovery call with a Jambo expert!
Références
¹Stakeholder Engagement: A Good Practice Handbook for Companies Doing Business (Pg. 20). Retrieved from https://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/topics_ext_content/ifc_external_corporate_site/sustainability-at-ifc/publications/publications_handbook_stakeholderengagement__wci__1319577185063
