Why Employees Stop Sharing Ideas

2. Ideas are turned down regularly

Executives, leaders, and many employees have described what has almost always happened when they have approached their higher-ups with a good idea or a feasible solution to improve the company. In many of the cases, their leader agreed their concept could work, but then they were told to do things “the old way.” It’s in our human nature to stop trying and redirect our energy to where we believe it will do more good. Our research and reports are filled with cases of intelligent, creative people, even at the executive level, who at one point just decided to stop bringing new ideas because they felt it was a waste of time.

In many other cases, we have noticed that employees are afraid of retribution and don’t feel comfortable sharing their ideas because of the reaction their leaders might have. They would like a way to share ideas whose visibility can be controlled and add validators who can validate and give feedback on the idea in a non-offensive way.

3. Lacking the skills or confidence to share ideas

In many cases, employees don’t even know how to speak up in a way that will get them heard. They might have just started in the company or prefer to keep to themselves, and they might not even know who to turn to pitch their ideas.

If you want your teams to identify and solve problems actively or find better, more innovative solutions, then you have got to train them. If you want people to come up with great ideas that will improve your business, you need to teach them the skills to know how to do that well from a balanced business perspective while also giving them milestones to help guide their decision-making.

A great way to train your employees to share their ideas while developing a better, more inclusive company culture is to introduce them to Agreed. It’s the go-to platform for leading change and successful growth through idea sharing from inside the company. In addition, it’ll help you, as a leader, instill a better and more innovative culture that will benefit the entire organization.

When we aren’t heard, it’s much easier to go back to safe silence, and because we’re human, we tend to remember the stressful times more than the times our idea was heard. There is a vast range of reasons that explain why employees lose their confidence, ranging from toxic leadership to insecurities they’re bringing with them from home or previous workplaces.

As a leader, you need to understand what’s crushing your people’s courage and work hard to eliminate the real and imagined barriers preventing your team members from contributing their best thinking. The Agreed software can help you with that. Your teams will be more willing to share their ideas positively, where they can collaborate to have their plans backed up by real data to reach faster results.

4. Where to Share Ideas

With an ever-expanding digital toolset, it’s no wonder that most of our clients’ employees said they didn’t know where to share their ideas. These employees needed a place where they could share their ideas, invite teammates to pitch in with their own comments, and have all the information on how to draft and pitch their idea correctly.
This place was Agreed’s platform, where employees are urged to share their ideas, validators insert valuable information to the success of the idea, and executives can pitch in and give their own advice to the ideas they see as profitable.

Agreed enabled them to bring innovation into their business and give their employees a platform to share their own ideas about improving the business and be recognized for their efforts whilst profiting and expanding the company. You can check out the platform by signing up for free!