4 Successful Ways to Incentivize Employees to Use Crowdsourcing

5 frogs sit on a log. 4 decide to jump in.

How many frogs are left on the log?

All 5.

Deciding isn’t doing.

Perhaps you’ve
encountered that old riddle previously, or maybe it’s new to you. Either way,
the point is evident. You’ve got to start. Otherwise nothing changes.

Crowdsourcing
can have huge benefits for companies and employees at both the individual and systemic
level. But getting there can be difficult at first. Here’s how to build
incentives into new program models to motivate employees and encourage
participation. In other words, here are some ways you can get your team to jump
in.

One: Frame Participation as Skill Building

Help employees
understand the skill building benefits of crowdsourcing. Learning how to work
in the gig economy is a necessary work skill and crowdsourcing programs give project
managers first-hand experience.

Two: Make Starting Easy

Encourage a
“Try It Once” approach to make participation feel easy and less like a have-to
commitment. Send the message that it’s okay to start small and try one project.
Once employees learn and experience the benefits firsthand, they are more
likely to feel comfortable trying it again.

Three: Recognize and Reward Employees

Show how much
you value employees who try crowdsourcing by recognizing their efforts or
project results in intra-office newsletters or sharing information and progress
during staff or company meetings. Offer rewards for employees who try
crowdsourcing. Some companies offer small cash amounts to go toward funding the
project, but even a T-shirt can be motivating.

Four: Inspire with a Future-Looking Approach

Help employees
understand the big-picture need to work this way. Share the benefits of collaborating
with diverse people worldwide who have skills to contribute, the importance of keeping
up with customer demand, and how new methods can deliver better solutions that
work for more people. Help employees see the benefits of change, to doing
things differently, to constantly being curious and learning.

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