Creating A Participative Business Decision Making Culture Within Your Collaboration Network
Creating a working environment which is truly collaborative and includes every employees contribution is a challenge many businesses have been striving to achieve. In this quest, social networking and collaboration software platforms have been one of the most effective solutions in enabling this. We’ve talked about how it brings about transparency in daily working, encourages participation and allows people to contribute to the business without the common boundaries like titles and positions which are often issues preventing this kind of a culture. We’ve talked about how internal collaboration platforms can help improve communication and make project management more efficient but there is one small feature which as small and often insignificant as it may seem has the power to use a platform like this to make everyone’s opinions count and create a working culture where each decision counts.
Polls within an internal employee social networking environment can be used to create organization wide surveys and gather opinions on just about any decision needed to be made. It can be a poll to gauge how employees will react to a new HR policy change, a poll to get everyone’s opinion on the new paint scheme for the office, a poll to understand what has been the most effective selling strategy or absolutely anything else. One normally tends to avoid getting too many people involved in the decision making process not because they don’t want to know others view but because it’s too impractical and inefficient. Meetings, phone calls or emails with groups of people can be time consuming and it’s just easier to exclude them and make decisions unilaterally. However, that isn’t always the best way to do things and ideally basing these decisions on multiple views is better. Within a collaborative platform since everyone is already in one place metaphorically speaking, it’s easier to put ideas to vote and consider everyone’s views before making decisions.
This kind of an environment which is now completely possible to create is not just about having a democratic business process. It fosters a participative culture where each employee knows their contribution is valued and considered in the working of the business. It reduces barriers between departments, positions and levels and induces the feeling that everyone is important to the business and decisions are made with them contributing in some way if it finally goes in another direction. In the long run, this can create a good working atmosphere reduce problems of attrition. All things being equal, everyone would prefer working in an environment where they can play an important role and their contribution counts for something.
Polls may not always be used to their full potential. When they are, they could change the way you work.
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