How Idea Management Increases Employee Engagement
Do you ever wonder how a company such as Apple Inc. would be performing if it remained operating on the first idea that led to its establishment? For a company to experience growth, it needs to develop new ideas that will keep its employees motivated and customers satisfied.
When employees feel disconnected, there is a probability of experiencing performance decline, lack of interest to learn, and low-quality production. To increase employee engagement, you must ensure that they are interested in what they do and have challenging, innovative ideas that will keep them motivated.
Increased employee management births great ideas that enhance innovation. As an employee engagement strategy, idea management strengthens the company’s competitiveness and offers value for customers while reducing operational and production costs. Similarly, the employees become active, more engaged, and creative.
According to Desai Jatin, the author of innovation engine: Driving execution for breakthrough results. ( Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc 2013) 65 % of employees state that creativity and new ideas increase employees’ engagement. Therefore, it is vital to encourage your employees to develop new ideas such as improving an outdated system, participating in volunteer activities, and more.
What is Idea Management?
This is the process of finding and implementing new ideas that solve existing problems and identify new opportunities. To succeed, a company needs to have a procedure for idea management that helps make decisions aligned with the organization’s goals and strategies. Besides, it creates transparency and ensures every person is accountable.
Why is Idea Management Important for Organizations?
With increasing advanced technology trends, businesses have to embrace different idea management techniques to achieve success in today’s world. For instance, with the Coronavirus occurrence, most businesses were forced to adopt new ideas to enable their employees to work from home.
Moreover, the desire for change and increased growth offers an excellent avenue for businesses to be innovative. About 50% of Americans agree that innovative ideas have immensely contributed to technology growth in the past 50 years. And for these reasons, companies that practice proper idea management have experienced increased employee engagement, which helps meet customers’ demands.
It is clear that for a company to remain in operation, it has to collect and manage different ideas that will help it to succeed in innovation.
Ways that Idea Management Can Increase Employee Engagement
“Your number one customers are your people. Look after employees first and then customers last.” — Ian Hutchinson, author of People Glue
To ensure implementation and ultimate management of ideas, a company must ensure that its employees remain engaged at every stage. Let us now dive into some of the ways idea management can increase employee engagement.
Improves collaboration
Having straightforward idea management techniques improves collaboration among employees and managers. Furthermore, collaboration may also lead to better ideas that may increase employee engagement at work in the future and encourage teamwork.
Most companies ride on employee collaboration to reduce total costs while improving efficiency among teams. Collaboration not only creates a conducive working environment but also encourages team bonding and creates an educational platform. Due to collaboration at work, employees learn more from their workmates and bosses.
Build genuine relationships
Another way that idea management increases employee engagement is by creating genuine relationships among all organization members. Everyone thinks and operates differently from the other. This stage is when the management needs to understand each person’s different characters and treat them differently.
Some employees may receive an idea and implement it instantly, while others may take time to comprehend what the idea is all about. As a leader, you need to develop ways to ensure that all employees get engaged in the process.
Building an authentic relationship with employees helps them to be more productive because they know someone cares.
Fosters knowledge sharing
Knowledge is a critical core-competence that improves performance in most organizations. Knowing the organization’s goals helps to avoid confusion among employees.
When employees are allowed to participate in ideation, they share their knowledge, which may benefit the company’s innovation, competitiveness, and productivity.
Most positive ideas are generated during employees’ discussions, which is the basis for acquiring new ideas. Besides, knowledge sharing does not only foster good relationships, but it also improves communication, which increases employee engagement.
Effective knowledge sharing promotes the gratis flow of ideas that helps one team gain more skills from a fellow employee or another team. This will not only motivate one employee, but the entire workforce will be more engaged.
Moreover, you can also encourage employees to attend conferences, workshops or invite guests to motivate talks that may impact them with more knowledge. This will not only improve their productivity levels but also enhances their morale.
Promote transparency
Transparency is one of the best strategies for creating a successful company. No organization can thrive without implementing this policy. It displays a positive culture that boosts employee’s loyalty to the company.
Moreover, workplace transparency provides an avenue for employee satisfaction and recognition. Recognition excites an employee and makes them see how their opinions and contributions help the company achieve its goals.
When employees are allowed to make their contributions in the ideation process, they feel recognized and valued. This enhances their esteem and motivates them to work even harder, increasing employee engagement in the company’s activities.
What’s more, they also develop a positive about the company and generate more creative ideas which are priceless in the current developed world.
Encourages inclusiveness
One way that proper idea management helps increase employee engagement is by encouraging their inclusion in ideation.
With most companies having employees from different religions, ethnicities, and ages, ideation encourages them to contribute regardless of their background. Every employee’s idea adds a specific value to the company.
Managers should also ensure that everyone’s opinion is heard. Besides, each person’s idea should be respected and only be disregarded for concrete reasons.
