Everyone knows that two heads are better than one. Most businesses already encourage idea sharing at work as brainstorming opens up fresh ideas, new perspectives, and creative solutions to problems. This could be done through team-building events, brainstorming sessions, quiet rooms dedicated to collaboration, or even sofas around the water cooler, encouraging idea sharing.
But rather than leaving it to chance, here are six proven ways to inspire employees to share new ideas. And it’s well worth the effort. Just think of the unlimited benefits of tapping into your team’s collective wisdom, including remote and on-the-go workers or those who need encouragement to share their ideas.
Let’s start by exploring why idea sharing is such a big deal.
How Does Idea Sharing Contribute To Business Outcomes?
Here are four compelling reasons why it’s a great idea to share good ideas.
Foster Innovation and Creativity
Real-time collaboration and joint working foster a creative, innovative culture throughout the workplace. Bouncing ideas off colleagues, sharing insights, and offering different experiences and perspectives can result in breakthrough thinking. Solving problems and generating innovative ideas become a whole lot easier, rewarding, and fun when the whole team collaborates to achieve a goal.
Add Value To The Customer
Senior managers and business owners often don’t interact daily with customers like frontline staff do. Yet, they are responsible for setting the strategic direction of the business and making budgetary decisions. However, it’s frontline customer service staff who deliver the product or service to clients. They also communicate daily with customers and so have a deep understanding of their needs, wants, and complaints.
Capturing frontline workers’ ideas, insights, and suggestions can lead to improvements that will add customer value and improve your standing in the marketplace.
Improve Employee Engagement And Morale
One key driver of employee engagement is being valued and appreciated. Having an idea-sharing platform in place sends a critical message to employees that they are valued.
It encourages staff to become actively involved in the business, increasing their sense of emotional connection and supporting a work environment that promotes constant learning, innovation, and improvement. You also benefit from an enhanced employer brand, making it easier to attract and retain the best talent.
Increased Revenue
The bottom line is that sharing ideas at work can increase revenue. Improvements in business processes, cost-reducing measures, and enhanced customer service will translate into more dollars in the bank.
6 Team-Sharing Ideas
Getting started is easier than you think. Check out these six proven ways to get everyone involved in the conversation.
Some people, especially extroverts, are not shy in coming forward with their views. However, others may lack confidence in speaking up. These six team-sharing ideas will create the right culture, ensuring all teams can jump on board.
1. Foster The Right Work Environment
Start by creating the right environment so that teams feel comfortable sharing new ideas. Idea-sharing comes from the top. Managers and leaders play a key part and should set the right tone by encouraging and valuing creative thinking.
Furthermore, ensure you allow team members the space to test their ideas, resolve issues, and find solutions collectively. This also involves making it clear that zany, blue-sky thinking and making mistakes are OK. In fact, accepting the inevitability of errors unleashes the creative process.
A supportive, trust-based team environment is critical to encouraging employees to get involved.
2. Create Multiple Avenues
Old favorites like suggestion boxes are still effective ways to harvest and capture ideas. However, a varied approach ensures you can generate even more ideas. Options to think about include surveys, brainstorming sessions, webinars, lunch-and-learns, and team chat.
3. Provide Anonymous Platforms
Some workers may feel uncomfortable voicing their insights. Perhaps their idea isn’t yet fully formed, or they think it may negatively impact their career.
One way to overcome any reticence is to include anonymous tools in your multiple avenues. Team members are free to offer feedback without fear of repercussions from managers or the company, which means the organization captures ideas that might otherwise have been missed.
4. Promote Positive Feedback
People naturally shy away from sharing their bright ideas if they think they’ll be embarrassed or receive negative feedback.
Make positive feedback an integral part of your culture of innovation. Encourage open, honest, but positive feedback as part of continuous improvement.
5. Provide Idea-Sharing Tools And Resources
Provide the team with access to appropriate tools and resources to make sharing ideas as easy as possible. Consider external resources like market research and industry best practices, as well as internal data like customer feedback.
Also, ensure the entire team is familiar with idea-sharing techniques like brainstorming, mind mapping, affinity diagrams, and digital whiteboards.
6. Celebrate The Best Employee Ideas
Take steps to recognize and reward creativity. Why not offer company swag, shoutouts on team chat, or coffee on the company for the best ideas? Sometimes, a public thank you from the CEO is all it takes.
Remember also to celebrate the act of sharing. After all, breakthrough moments only occur when workers embrace idea sharing.
Bonus Tips To Encourage Idea Sharing In The Organization
Here are some bonus best practice tips to implement in your teams.
Be Upfront About Business Goals
Keeping team members informed about the business, its changing goals, challenges, and opportunities will enable staff to contribute meaningfully. Workers need that necessary context and awareness of operational constraints to guide their thinking and maximize the impact of their idea sharing.
Ask The Right Questions
Presenting employees with a blank piece of paper and asking for creative ideas isn’t always the best way to encourage idea sharing. Pose the right questions to focus minds and enable employees to be specific in their contributions. For example, what’s stopping us from achieving our sales targets? What challenges are our customers facing right now?
A few strategic questions can kickstart the conversation and unleash creative sharing in the workplace.
Make It Fun
It doesn’t always have to be serious, work-related issues on which team members are asked to contribute ideas.
Introducing a light-hearted element stops the process from becoming dull. Ask workers for their views on a team-bonding exercise, which sodas should be stocked in the office refrigerator, or even which local deli has the best pastrami sandwich.
Provide Regular Feedback
It’s essential to feedback to staff on how their ideas and suggestions have produced results or led to real change and progress.
For example, if a cross-departmental team was charged with raising the company’s social media profile, ensure staff know which posts have been the most popular, which have led to conversions, and how many new followers the company has acquired following their effort. Seeing the tangible results of their ideas will encourage employees to ideate and innovate even more.
Say Thank You
Team members put time and effort into their ideas, so it’s only fitting that the organization acknowledges that with a thank you. It could be lunch vouchers, a token gift, or a congratulations from the CEO. This small gesture makes a big difference in boosting morale and the company culture.
What Is Idea-Management Software?
Technology has made sharing ideas at work much more manageable. With flexible and remote working, today’s workplaces have changed considerably over the last twenty years.
In the modern workplace, an idea-sharing platform that replicates the traditional social network in a virtual sense is needed. An intranet serves as an idea-sharing platform and delivers other untapped business benefits.
Encouraging Ideas With An Intranet
The integrated office intranet has several advantages over other idea-sharing platforms, including:
- Document management system for simpler file storage and sharing both internally and externally
- News blogs and newsletters for enhanced internal communication
- Online quizzes and surveys to canvas staff views
- Company or team calendar to keep staff informed of key dates and events
- Automated online forms to streamline business processes
- Knowledge management systems to manage and transfer corporate knowledge.
All workers can access the intranet from any device, and users sign on only once. There’s no need for multiple screens and various apps—it’s all there in one platform.
The intranet has many other essential features that support the sharing of ideas at work.
Online Employee Profiles
Full employee biographies that showcase areas of knowledge and expertise help to facilitate the exchange of ideas between employees. For example, Paula in Accounts may need assistance with an issue in Excel. A quick search through the employee directory can reveal sources of help in other teams.
Employee Idea Exchange
Setting up a virtual employee suggestion box on the intranet is possible. The difference with the intranet is that all employees can see what’s being put forward, contribute, and expand on the idea.
Moreover, the intranet’s idea exchange increases accountability, as management can easily give staff feedback on the outcomes of their suggestions.
Another option is a bright ideas blog, or wiki, where staff can communicate, connect, and share insights, or ask questions on work-related issues.
Collaborative Workspaces
These shared intranet workspaces allow for more advanced idea sharing and collaboration.
For example, a cross-departmental project group charged with reviewing the company’s marketing channels sets up a closed intranet project space. Access is restricted to the project team members only by a series of rules. Team meetings are held online to share information and brainstorm ideas. With automatic notifications, problems and solutions can be discussed in a team forum.
Social Intranet
The sharing of ideas is essentially about social networking, and the intranet makes it possible to replicate social networks online. The intranet comes with several integrated social features, including:
- Follow-me functionality
- Individual activity walls
- Site or team activity walls
- Notifications and subscriptions
- # channels
- Add a friend
24/7 Remote Access
The intranet’s open-all-hours nature means staff can share ideas and collaborate anytime and anywhere. All that’s required is a smartphone and a Wi-Fi connection.
And so, regardless of location or time difference, the intranet is a platform for idea sharing and social networking. The intranet breaks down the barriers caused by distance or information silos and helps reduce the amount of time staff spend attending or traveling to meetings.
Idea Sharing Made Easy With An Intranet
Encouraging staff to share their ideas, knowledge, and insights fosters innovation in the workplace and ultimately helps increase profits.
A simple-to-set-up and easy-to-manage cloud intranet facilitates the exchange of ideas so all staff can contribute. The intranet is accessible 24/7, even to freelancers, contractors, and remote or on-the-go workers.
However, unlike other idea-sharing platforms, the intranet includes many tools supporting more efficient and effective operations across the board.
About MyHub
We are a top provider of beautifully designed intranet software that connects employees to information, resources, tools, and each other, whatever their location.
Explore how a MyHub intranet can revitalize your company’s idea-sharing process with our free demo or 14-day no-obligation trial. Sharing ideas is really a whole lot easier with an intranet, so get in touch today!
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