The Future Of Driving Employees and Inspiring Inspiration
Typically, great products drive great companies. That’s a given.
But all of those great products begin with a great idea. And those inspired ideas are what truly allow for companies to innovate and develop into the hugely successful corporations that dot the entire world today.
Which is why it has become more and more important for companies to figure out how to inspire their employees to come up with ideas that will drive the future of the company.
Recently, several applications have started to take note of this trend. Apps like Salesforce Chatter, Kindling App and now Brainstorm have all begun to tap into the idea market, seeking to make collaboration for small and large businesses alike as painless and intuitive as possible.
While the purpose of each of these applications are certainly to streamline different creative processes across widely different industries, they also happen to do something else that’s extremely important for companies: Motivate employees. With employee motivation being arguably the most important driving factor for a company’s success, having a channel in which employees can contribute to and outsource their ideas and feel heard is extremely important. Employees, without a doubt, want to have a sense of purpose within a company.
But making collaboration intuitive and purposeful is just the beginning. The future of driving innovation within the workplace is in gamification, something that I’ve briefly addressed earlier. In fact, technology research and advisory company, Gartner, believe that over 50% of the world’s companies will have some form of gamification in order to inspire employees.
That’s a staggering percentage, surely, but it’s also entirely understandable. In light of our sputtering economy, finding ways to motivate employees beyond monetary compensation (which may not really be all that effective) is important for companies to be successful.
Like rewards programs that are frequently tied to credit cards these days, employees should be consistently rewarded in minor ways that don’t simply reward them for performing extremely well on particular project. Additional paid vacation, more flexible work hours and even the ability to telecommute are all possible rewards that can be offered in an effort to make those particular employees feel like an integral part of the company.
That’s just in the immediate future. Beyond that, I could see finding ways to simulate an office environment at home leading to more productive and more inspired workers. How? Holograms. Maybe. Or just something futuristic.
The most successful companies are the ones that find ways to motivate their employees without reaching too deep into their own coffers. That’s why innovations in collaboration and in how employers and employees interact is so important. They increase connectivity among employees, and grant those individuals a greater sense of production, purpose and loyalty towards their company.
What these systems ultimately do is create a sense of stability in an extremely volatile job market. They grant incentive to those that dedicate themselves towards companies, and give them a sense of belonging in a world where being unsure of the economic future is the norm, rather than the exception. This not only helps create happier, more productive employees – it helps create a happier, more productive world.