Employee Involvement / Prediction Markets

[qualitymanager]

Hi All,

The search didn't turn up any thread titles for "Employee Involvement", "Involvement of People" or "Prediction Markets" so I decided to post:

Prediction Markets Add Employee Input to Business Forecasts

Sounds like a modified Delphi technique to me, but the article says some companies have gotten good support from staff - always helpful for changing culture, new business process implementation, venturing into new markets, etc.:

Does anyone in your organization listen to the opinions of employees below the middle-management level? Are those employees willing to offer opinions? For many organizations, the answer is no, on at least one count, if not both.

...

As with other tools based on the idea of collective knowledge, not everyone within an organization will appreciate the transparency of the markets and their ability to cut through internal politics, says Siegel.


“Certain levels of a company don’t like that because traditionally they’ve been able to control and spin information,” he said. “Senior-level people love it because they are always complaining they don’t get good insight into information, and lower levels love it because they are being allowed to participate. It’s that middle management layer that sometimes gets caught in the crossfire.”

Prediction markets give people an opportunity to express opinions they might not otherwise because of fear of recrimination or other political pressures, says Young. “The last thing people involved in a project want to say is, ‘We’re not going to make it.’ There’s a lot of political pressure to say, ‘We will make it no matter what.’ But the people on the ground have a pretty good idea of what’s really happening.”
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[Bob Bonville]

QM, in a past life I held a position known as Suggestion System Administrator with a large Aerospace Manufacturer. Not sure how these type of systems are used these days but I can speak from first hand experience that they pay for themselves, but require a lot of work.

In a way, the Preventive Action aspects of ISO/AS are similar in nature by virtue of the fact that in many systems, the use of the Preventive Action Request is open to all employees.

Many of us think that ideas are like children, our own are the best however, in a diverse culture with a mandate for improvement, organizations need all the help they can get. Management that recognizes this potential well spring of creative ideas will be among the ones that survive.

Bob