Collective intelligence, or the pooling of the skills of each team’s employees, presupposes a new way of managing and promoting trust and benevolence. However, implementing this management meets employees’ well-being expectations by advocating relations between colleagues or developing a feeling of social utility. Promoting collective intelligence is a powerful lever for improving the quality of life of its employees.
Recreate Conviviality In Workspaces.
The rise of digital communication technologies has facilitated exchanges, business work, and remote collaboration. Workspaces have thus become dematerialized and increasingly virtual. If they allow employees to be more efficient and productive, teleworking or remote job entails a risk of isolation through the loss of contact and the failure of links between employees.
To remedy this, employers must develop ideas to promote the organization of moments of conviviality between their employees. For example, the team can get together for the lunch break thanks to Ticket Restaurant.
Playing sports at work is also a great way to maintain the bond between colleagues. In addition, sports activity can save 14% in net profitability for employees, according to a study by the Goodwill Management Institute on the economic impact of physical and sports activity (1). Individual practice shared between colleagues can be organized during breaks or after work. To promote team cohesion, in person team building games are also an excellent way to recreate conviviality.
Promote Meeting Times Between Employees.
Collective intelligence presupposes that employees can exchange. To promote this transversality, sharing the workspace is a good solution. For example, the flex office system brings together teams, skills, and generations. Result: a decompartmentalization that leads to informal exchanges but also more motivation. These can even lead to interdepartmental projects.
More formal, creative, or brainstorming-type reflection meetings are also an opportunity to share collective moments. These times bring together employees and managers around common themes. Today, the strategy and the decision-making concerning the future are no longer carried out solely by the management but increasingly involve the employees. Having the teams cooperate in project construction makes it easier for the employees to adhere to it. It is also a request that more and more people are making.
Exploiting employees’ aspirations is also an exciting lever to encourage employee meetings and exchanges. Some companies have launched internal stock exchanges to support individual stocks. In the crowdfunding model, everyone can participate in financing a personal project led by a colleague. On the border of the private sphere, these campaigns also make it possible to decompartmentalize the teams by encouraging exchange around common non-professional interests.
Also Read: How To Manage Situations With Conflicting Employees?
Digital Transformation As A Support For Collective Intelligence
Collective intelligence is based on pooling skills and information within a team. To do this, the interaction between the group members is essential and must always be as instantaneous as possible. Collaborative platforms such as corporate social networks (such as Slack) facilitate exchanges and the sharing of information, documents, and ideas. Shared software also allows several people to write the same paper without being together or doing it simultaneously.
This facility optimizes the working time of each employee. In these working conditions, the number of meetings decreases without disappearing: only the essentials are kept, and they become more efficient.
Collective intelligence can only work if everyone learns to perform better in complementarity with others. Putting digital transformation tools in place is not enough to create collective intelligence. It also requires knowing how to change vision—placing each employee at the center of its operation questions the entire internal organization and management.
The rise of a telework policy has shown, to both employees and managers, the strength of the collective and the need to come together to work effectively. Today, the company can rely on the collective intelligence of its employees to solve complex problems or advance a strategic project without necessarily calling on outside expertise.