As humans, we have a unique ability to predict based on our intuition, experiences, and knowledge from interacting with our environment. Our brain is simply a powerhouse. Research shows that employees possess a wealth of untapped knowledge and precise predictive capabilities that can be useful for the organization. The reason is quite simple. Employees, especially frontline employees, are the first to experience and grasp the latest developments and changes in the market that affect the organization. 

If asked and engaged, employees can provide highly relevant insights that can be used to highlight issues, spark innovation and predict the future performance of an organization. 

Tapping into this wealth of collective intelligence is made possible by the Mindpool platform as well as the questions we ask employees. But what are those questions that allow us to tap into this unique knowledge? Read along for a look into what goes on behind the scenes of the Mindpool platform.  

How do the employees know what they know? 

Organizations possess an abundance of untapped intelligence and insights through the smart minds of their employees. Intelligence that’s often overlooked, and consequently many organizations miss out on this great potential. But if used correctly, this intelligence can help drive competitive advantage. 

We often use an iceberg to illustrate the collective intelligence within organizations. 

Only 10% of information reaches management (explicit knowledge), whereas 90% stays hidden with employees (tacit knowledge).

Imagine utilizing all that intelligence, the gut feeling, intuition, sentiments, and voices from everyone in the organization for better decision-making. It can have a significant impact. 

Through employee intelligence, employees are able to understand the company’s current and future performance. This also leads employees to spot threats and discover opportunities in the ever-changing market, providing answers for how to tackle these. Tapping into this knowledge is crucial for companies that need to stay alert in an uncertain world. 

How do employees predict the future? 

Through the Mindpool platform that helps you collect, process, and act on the collective knowledge of your employees. The employees provide unique predictions and insights about future performance. On the platform, we know what, when and how to ask employees in order to get the insights that can make a difference to the organization. 

The platform offers an intuitive user experience that drives high engagement and frictionless participation. The guaranteed anonymity allows employees to share perspectives and insights openly. Lastly, having your employees engage on the platform increases inclusion as employees feel heard and engaged in setting the company direction. 

The questions we ask employees

In order to tap into employee knowledge and achieve unique, actionable insights from employees, it’s crucial that we ask the right questions. Or methodology is outlined in a lengthy version in this whitepaper. 

• Demographics: 

Firstly, Mindpool asks demographic questions to enable segmentation, grouping and intelligent insights. This serves multiple purposes such as showing a general picture of the demographics of the respondents, identifying knowledge hubs related to certain threats and opportunities in your company and tracking the progress of predictions for a certain demography on a monthly basis. For example, to determine what departments and teams are most positive and negative towards future performance, and why.  

After demographics, we ask questions related to...

• Company health: 

Positive employee engagement has many benefits for the performance of your business. The company health questions that Mindpool asks are based on tested and validated theory. We ask questions related to eNPS, Job Design, Support & Resources, Working Conditions Corporate Culture and Leadership Style. These questions allow employees to assess how it is to work at the given company, whether they feel seen and heard and are able to fulfill their potential. We ask company health questions to provide a baseline for performance assessments. 
 

• Competitive dimensions: 

When assessing company performance, one should not look at the company as an isolated entity, but as one of many players of a larger competitive environment. Mindpool asks research-backed questions that allow employees to evaluate how they perceive their company’s performance across several competitive dimensions. The questions relate to both inward-looking success drivers, such as general performance, quality of product and services, and productivity, but also outwards-looking drivers such as level of innovation and image. The assessment of competitive dimensions allows organizations to identify strong and weak dimensions that the organization can work to improve or leverage. In other words, a snapshot of employees’ perception of the organizational parameters.  

• Insights: 

After gathering quantitative performance predictions, employees qualitatively explain why they believe these fluctuations will take place. For each of the months, where employees provided a quantitative input such as “Why did you answer as you did for January?“, employees are asked to qualitatively share the reasons why they believe that performance will be as indicated.

• Actions: 

We acknowledge that insights have little use unless they are acted upon. Therefore, after gathering the performance predictions and insights as to why employees predict as they do, we ask employees what actions they recommend their company to take. These actions are categorized in the same topics that were identified in the company performance insights, ranked by perceived importance, and by effort vs. impact. This provides the managers with the answers to what concrete, tangible actions should be taken for positive development. 

We know that turning employees into predictive beings almost sounds too good to be true. And that too few companies actually benefit from engaging their employees and the wealth of knowledge that they possess. But tapping into the knowledge is worth it. 

More on how Mindpool can assist in predicting the future for your company?
 

If you’re interested in learning more about the methods behind Mindpool, the accuracy of the predictions and cases and examples, check out our Cases and Crowd Predictions right here. As always, reach out to hello@mindpool.com if you have questions or would like to test Mindpool for your company. 

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