How can you generate collective intelligence in your company?
Companies, too often mired in power struggles or internal dysfunction, have everything to gain from streamlining their internal exchanges and processes. Read all our articles on the use of corporate social networks (CSN).
Corporate challenges
Process management
A company is the sum of its processes. The smooth running of the whole will be the result of well-oiled processes. All too often, organizational dysfunctions are detrimental to productivity: time-consuming but fruitless "meetings", information that is poorly relayed or lost, lack of exchanges or geographical isolation, time spent searching for information, unproductive e-mail processing time, poor task allocation and duplication, etc. All these hiccups result in lost productivity. These are just some of the hiccups that can lead to a loss of responsiveness.
Managing people
A company is a collection of people. Each has his or her own reasons, ambitions and expectations. The issue that brings them together - the company - can quickly take a back seat. Individual intentions then take precedence, eclipsing the general interest. This is what fuels internal quarrels and hierarchical conflicts. If everyone's skills and potential are undermined, the company no longer benefits. In form, it's all there, but in substance, it's empty. And yet, employee commitment and the human capital they represent are a key factor for the company.
The company's dual challenge
A company has to stand up to the competition. Its key competitive factors fall into two categories:
- operational: optimizing productivity - in this case, the value generated in proportion to the time spent.
- human capital: identifying, recruiting, training and retaining talent. The ability to innovate and adopt a winning business model are strongly correlated here.
Setting up exchanges
The impact of tools
Optimizing the management of both processes and individuals depends, in particular, on the tools available. On a day-to-day basis, companies use work tools. The more or less collaborative properties of these tools have a real impact on the nature and quality of internal exchanges.
Collaborative tools...
A number of companies have already set up an EDM: Electronic Document Management. They often also have an intranet. But the intranet is too often a one-way medium, where exchanges are not very interactive. Its more dynamic successor is the CSR: Corporate Social Network.
... unified in a digital workplace
Rather than multiplying work tools in a compartmentalized way, some software publishers, like Jalios, propose merging them. When the EDM is combined with the CSR, employees use a single interface. Messaging functionalities, collaborative documents and exchange spaces are combined to create a fluid, ergonomic digital platform.
Generating collective intelligence
Gathering forces
Better sharing means better working. Strengths add up and multiply. The size of a company and the number of its employees are no longer an obstacle to its performance, as long as the right tools are in place. There's strength in numbers... as long as it's wisely organized. By structuring workflows, dedicating spaces to informal exchanges, and others to process frameworks, strengths are positively pooled.
Operational competitiveness
The increasingly popular project mode requires this type of tool. On a day-to-day basis, to enable project teams, often geographically dispersed, to work together , as well as from an organizational point of view: choosing the right individuals to take part. More agile, the company is able to react and allocate its human resources efficiently. Jalios, used in particular by the Mucem (Museum of the Civilization of Europe and the Mediterranean) in Marseille, has made it possible to set up an extranet space facilitating the orchestration of each temporary exhibition. For the Bouhyer Group, an industrial player, the solution has considerably improved the feedback of safety information.
Human competitiveness
Once deployed, a digital workplace is a real lever of commitment. By creating spaces for interaction, the company gives a voice to its employees, and even to its elected representatives. For example, MACIF, a mutual insurance company, used Jalios to encourage exchanges between its elected representatives. These exchanges convey and illustrate the company's mutualist values.
When you feel listened to, and by extension considered, you're more likely to get involved. This creates a sense of respect and individual responsibility. When everyone has a role to play, collective intelligence is generated. The more agile organization invites everyone to step outside their own perimeter and expand their scope of intervention. This opportunity to develop skills, coupled with the phenomenon of recognition, are decisive keys to the professional fulfillment of each individual.
Today's digital tools are more interactive than ever. If the technology is there, you need the method to deploy it wisely within your company. Multiplying the number of interfaces and communication channels is detrimental to adoption and practicality. It's by unifying media into a global, "interfaceable" and fluid tool that companies will succeed in generating collective intelligence.
Article translated from French