Too often this committee is looking for impossible ideas: big transformations , with no risk and no cost. No feedback. But without that feedback , employees lose trust in the whole system and stop submitting ideas. Implementation drag. Each of those accepted ideas gets an implementation plan. And this after a 6 to 12 month implementation process.
How to fix the suggestion box problem Often in trying to solve this problem , management offers a greater incentive to participate. Instead, consider changing the process to embrace a true Kaizen approach: Replace the centralized approval process with a centralized coaching system. Train frontline managers, supervisors and other change agents to act as coaches for frontline employees. Help the employees close to production learn to capture their ideas.
Empower frontline employees to execute their own experiments. Give them the resources, process and support they need to run small experiments that can be executed offline. This demands virtually no resources but will help them learn whether an idea may work or not. Lower the bar. Instead of asking for big, innovative ideas, ask for any sort of ideas — especially small incremental improvements.
These ideas require no budget and no validation, but actually set everything in motion. Small ideas can prepare your team to ready to any execute larger ideas that might come into the system. This format can also be used to survey the entire team, to look for various solutions to a given problem.
In general, the suggestion box allows employees to feel more involved in their company. Suggestion boxes boost employee morale.
From the outset, emphasize to employees that you focus on constructive, results-oriented suggestions. Specify the level of detail you expect, the format, etc. Encourage your employees to make proposals by, for example, making a list of the types of ideas you would like to receive, with a few examples for reference. Time and time again I see organisations bring out the old suggestion box. So I thought it was about time that it was revealed why this old-fashioned office empowerment tactic needs to be left in the dark ages.
First of all, I have to get honest and tell you that nine out of ten times, people hate suggestions boxes. You put a suggestion in the box, then what? Who will read it?
Will it ever be actioned? And If not, why not? And if it is actioned who is going to take the credit? Unfortunately, in the eyes of your team, a suggestion box is meaningless.
Why not just let them put it in a black hole? While you may be looking to empower your people to get creative and come up with new suggestions and ideas for the company culture — a suggestion box does the complete opposite. Getting employee feedback is vital to navigating a great culture and building one that is resilient to change. But trust us, the suggestion box will not help you do this. A suggestion box, can turn people away from the company culture, generate ill will, cynicism and misunderstanding.
Emotions that will only lead your culture into a toxic place. Next, seek ideas on each one of these topics, one at a time, by posing probing, thought-provoking questions that are not limiting to the possible ideas your employees could generate. Encourage a wide variety of ideas by soliciting ideas and suggestions from employees in different levels, departments, and physical locations.
Such occasional light-heartedness maintains a high employee buy-in and keeps them looking forward to the next question you will ask. On the other hand, highlighting to your employees that participation is strictly by free choice, while emphasizing the earlier-mentioned empowerment and contribution value, will often encourage them to take their own personal initiative to participate.
Innovative ideas are the fuel of every successful company and a very important source of these innovative ideas is employees because they are on the front lines, directly interacting with both the products and the customers on a daily basis.
This is why a workplace suggestion box is so important.
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