Healthcare Corporation Innovates by Engaging Nearly 60,000 Employees in Idea Challenges

With thousands of employees dispersed around the globe, this Healthcare corporation wanted a way to empower all employees to become an integral part of solving real business challenges. The Innovation team began looking for a dedicated crowdsourcing platform that would be engaging, easy to use, and bring transparency to its new innovation program.

Since implementing Planview’s Innovation Management solution (IdeaPlace™), the company has launched multiple enterprise-wide and local challenges that have attracted nearly 60,000 global participants. Of the 5,600 ideas generated so far, more than 15 winning ideas are actively being implemented, including a COVID-specific winning idea that was launched and implemented in record time.

This Healthcare Corporation is a diversified, multinational Fortune® 50 company, offering government-sponsored health care, including Medicaid/Medicare, Health Insurance Marketplace, and Prescription Drug Plans to one in every 15 people in the U.S. With nearly 70,000 employees around the world serving more than 24 million managed care members, the organization continues to grow through acquisitions, creating a diverse and complex enterprise.

This Healthcare corporation is the largest Medicaid managed care organization in the country, the number one national insurer on the Health Insurance Marketplace, and a national provider of staffing services to correctional systems and other government agencies. It also operates internationally through subsidiaries in the UK, Spain, and Slovakia. The company was committed to increasing employee engagement to build a culture of innovation and wanted to tap into the knowledge of its diverse workforce. Without a process in place or a crowdsourcing platform to leverage, this Healthcare corporation found it difficult to implement an enterprise-wide innovation program that would reach and inspire as many employees as possible.

In 2017, the company designed a crowdsourcing initiative that leveraged Planview IdeaPlace™ to easily capture ideas from anywhere in the organization. “The size and diversity of our workforce is a competitive advantage,” says the Manager of the Innovation Program. “We chose Planview IdeaPlace because it was the best solution to add global visibility into the program across our diverse, sometimes siloed organization.”

With the understanding that the best ideas can come from anywhere, the Healthcare corporation leverages Planview IdeaPlace as its ideation portal and follows Planview’s implementation best practices to encourage all employees to engage in the innovation process. The Innovation team created six success pillars for driving their program, the first being to align topics with business strategy to focus on solving critical issues within the organization. Dedicated program resources set the strategy and vision before crafting a challenge question. Challenges may be enterprise-wide or specific to local health plans; they are launched by the CEO and marketed by designated moderators.

Employees are invited to view the challenge question on Planview IdeaPlace and use the comment and voting features to ensure the best ideas rise to the top. “People are excited to participate because the platform is engaging and similar to a social media platform or a site with star ratings and reviews,” says Manager, Innovation Program. “A large crowd will tell you what the best ideas are more effectively than a small team of VPs.”

Subject matter experts review the ideas that have the most votes, and one or more is chosen to enter the implementation phase of the innovation program. “We developed a playbook for running challenges and placed the emphasis on implementation,” says Manager, Innovation Program. “We begin with a pre-study, build an MVP to validate the solution, and partner with the appropriate company or organization to roll out and implement the solution permanently. We are blown away at the quantity and quality of ideas we are getting with the help of Planview IdeaPlace. It has become a unifier, a place where everyone can work together and have an equal opportunity to contribute.”

Overall, the use of Planview IdeaPlace to support the Healthcare corporation’s program has engaged nearly 60,000 employees, who have submitted 5,600 ideas on the crowdsourcing platform, leading to the implementation of 15 active projects. Because of IdeaPlace’s ease-of-use, they we able to speed a COVID Program Challenge that attracted nearly 10,000 employees, who generated 1,000 ideas in just a few days, resulting in two winning ideas that are currently being implemented. “It’s incredible to see how crowdsourcing can be such an effective tool as we work remotely,” says Manager, Innovation Program. “Planview IdeaPlace gives us a great way to bring people together from every area and level of the business to solve real issues by utilizing the knowledge and experience within our own extraordinary employee base.”

The Manager of the Innovation Program at this Healthcare Corporation says the success of the program bolstered by the rapid adoption of Planview’s Innovation Management solution has motivated the organization to keep the momentum going. The Innovation team plans to roll out more challenges over the next year, involve additional business areas, and use Planview IdeaPlace for other projects, including open innovation challenges which will include members and providers. Believing all ideas are assets, none will be thrown out. “Planview IdeaPlace gives us a way to archive all of the non-winning ideas as we go,” Manager, Innovation Program. “We want to extract as much wisdom and value as possible because you never know when an idea may become the answer to a future issue.”