CSDP's Blog:

Want some great ideas about how to better your business and corporate culture? Ask your employees!
You would be hard pressed to find people with more knowledge of the ins and outs of your daily business than your own employees, and yet they are so regularly an untapped source of knowledge.

There are many ways in which you can gather information from your crew of experts. Some fun and easy ways to do so are polls, comment boxes, and anonymous questionnaires. I do mention the word anonymous and that brings up an important point. Sometimes employees will have very strong opinions or important information about how to better company policies but will keep their mouths shut for fear of retribution or judgment. So using an anonymous system can be a great tool to get some honest feedback.

Another way to get employees to give you some great ideas is to offer incentives. Contests are one great way to get employees to participate or distributing raffle tickets to people who offer up their opinions and having a raffle.

Even old fashioned brainstorming sessions and heart-to-heart conversations can be excellent ways to encourage the flow of information. If you begin to utilize these tools to gain the expertise of your own employees you will see benefits not only to your company morale (asking employees for their opinions shows that you care about how they feel) but also to your bottom line.