Co-constructing your raison d'être with your employees means ensuring that they are involved in a vision to which they adhere and for which they feel responsible. By drafting a manifesto based on this co-construction, you formalise a shared vision and convictions. The objective: to align your employees towards a common objective and action plan.

Its raison d'être... or reasons for being!

The Management & CSR website defines a company's raison d'être as " the contribution that the company wishes to make to the main social, societal, environmental and economic issues in its field of activity by involving its main stakeholders". More philosophically, theInstitute of Desirable Futures defines it as "the expression of what is alive in us at a given moment to guide us towards a desirable future".

From these two definitions, we understand that the raison d'être covers several realities, several axes. Indeed, you can define a general raison d'être for your organisation (for example: "to ensure the food sovereignty of territories"). But you can also work on the different axes that make up your raison d'être.

Thus, several options are available to you:

• Build a generic raison d'être, which will be expressed in a global manifesto.
• Work on several manifestos that detail the pillars of your strategy. For example: the manifesto for solidarity in our organisation. You will make your raison d'être more concrete for your employees.

In order to give concrete expression to a raison d'être, a manifesto generally consists of three parts: the vision, the convictions and the intentions. As an example, we have co-constructed the manifesto of the learning company with HR professionals:

Why co-construct its raison d'être in a manifesto?

Co-construction allows you to get your employees on board. Moreover, you can reflect on your raison d'être on a regular basis (every year, every two years, etc.), to ensure that your employees are aligned.

Co-construction avoids the unpleasant impression of having a project or strategy imposed on us that we do not control. On the contrary, it federates, allows everyone to participate, and formalises a collective approach.

3 ways of organising the co-construction of your manifesto through digital

Digital tools are useful for co-constructing your purpose through a manifesto. To do this, there are several strategies available to you. They are detailed in our methodology to be downloaded:

• You can give your employees the freedom and time to participate over time. All they have to do is answer a questionnaire in a thematic group.
• Also in the long term, your employees can participate by answering a questionnaire during an event that can last from one week to one month.
• In a one or two hour workshopIn a one or two hour workshop, you can have groups of employees work remotely on their vision, beliefs and intentions.