All businesses need to commit to innovation if they want to remain competitive in the market. One way to do achieve that is through idea management, enabling internal and external stakeholders to come up with ideas for improvement. To capture this innovation, idea management software can be of great benefit. However, there are still some businesses that struggle to understand why they should consider this, and how it could benefit their business to listen closely to every employee. Yet, if they commit to employee driven innovation, they could see their business grow exponentially.
What Is Employee Driven Innovation?
The system of employee driven innovation is one where solutions and ideas are put forward by employees. What matters about this is that they are encouraged to think outside of the box, and beyond the confines of their job description. For example, someone who works in the finance department can put forward ideas about how to sort the post in the post room. They may not know as much about that particular area of their business, but it is in this that their strength lies: they have a fresh, and outsider perspective. Naturally, they can also put forward ideas about their own departments, but it is the openness and influence on everything that makes this innovation so powerful.
Within employee driven innovation, every idea is accepted and considered. This does not mean that it automatically gets accepted, however. So considering that, why do businesses resist this concept so strongly?
The Resistance to Employee Driven Innovation
There is a big challenge to be overcome in terms of convincing everybody across the board that each individual member of staff has potential solutions within them. One of the reasons for this is because the concept goes above and beyond the skills for which each individual was hired. Rather, it encourages people to think outside of the box and to become more collaborative with every element of the organization.
What idea management software does, is enable every individual to talk about their ideas using a single platform. Through this platform, they are empowered to say what they think, rather than having to go directly to a manager or another individual in the organization. Essentially, it is a process that encourages collaboration without any form of hierarchy.
By implementing idea management software, people become more engaged with their company, which leads to greater happiness. It also has a positive effect on retention, because people feel more valued by having their voice heard. Employee engagement has huge positive effects on every element of an organization.
By enabling people to think outside of the confines of their personal job or even their department builds a great deal of trust. People have a greater morale and are more loyal to their company. As an added benefit, everybody works together, across departments that they had previously never worked with. Those are huge benefits that make a company more efficient and creates a collaborative workforce that feels happy within their business.
