Crowdsourcing ideas from employees

Most insurance organizations don’t realize how much expertise and insight their people can bring to a product, process, or service. In fact, most times employees aren’t even given a channel for feedback on a company’s offerings. But, your people have so much more to contribute – how can you leverage these resources that are already on your teams? Crowdsourcing.

Crowdsourcing allows you to turn to your own employees for ideas—they are the experts, the individuals on the frontlines day-in, day-out. Unlocking your team’s potential and getting everyone across the organization involved in an innovation program will garner small and big wins and encourage greater collaboration and contribution from your staff.

Create a community and facilitate a culture of creativity

To boost the number of great ideas your organization generates, build an innovation program that encourages creativity, risk, and collaboration. Reach out to employees, find out what ideas they have to improve the industry. They may be able to come up with products, services, or operational processes that significantly improve the way you do business. Unlocking their potential with an innovation program will garner both big and small wins and encourage greater collaboration and contribution amongst your staff.

Here are some valuable tips on how to start your own innovation program:

• Brand the program: Define the vision behind the program and create a unique name that reflects its objective and connects with staff.
• Establish an idea submission process: Allow all employees to contribute to the new program with a streamlined idea-submission process.
• Give great gifts and incentives: Employees want to be compensated for their time and ideas. Make sure you offer an incentive to encourage participation. Gift cards and catered lunches are great places to start, but don’t forget to crowdsource what employees want!
• Implement mini brainstorm sessions: Continuously help employees generate ideas designed to improve a business process or operation by eliminating waste. Training on the 7 Wastes  (overproduction, waiting, transporting, inappropriate processing, unnecessary inventory, excess motion, defects/mistakes) can be particularly helpful for idea generation and employee motivation.
• Keep the conversation going: Staying in contact with employees on the innovation program via email, online newsletters, meetings, and innovation boards across all departments helps to keep the program relevant. If employees feel their ideas are being sent off without a review process or recognition, they’ll lose motivation.
• Implement a platform or project management system: Using a platform to share best practices, ideas, updates, and allow for new inquiries will enhance the program’s image and foster a culture of creativity. If employees are able to review and track their idea generation, they will be more inclined to continue contributing in a valuable way.

The insurance industry is evolving with innovation driving change. Be a part of that change with crowdsourcing from the people that know your business best.

Start with the Innovation Lab

We want to help you integrate the best practices, streamlined processes, and new technologies into your sales and operations. If you’re not sure where to start with your own innovation program, work with our Innovation Lab helps turn ideas into action, improving productivity and company culture. Together we can create a program that works for your organization.

Learn how you can enhance the performance of your teams by contacting ReSource Pro now.