Suggestion
Program Objections
by Jim Collison
Three objections
keep an employer from launching a suggestion program or from reinvigorating
a dormant program.
The major objections
I hear are these: (1) Administering a suggestion program takes up
too much management time to evaluate and implement all the ideas
submitted. (2) Most employees won’t participate and employees
won’t submit enough suggestions to justify the time and effort.
(3) Giving awards to employees for their suggestions is too expensive.
My experience
with our WOW™ suggestion program at Employers of America –
and all I’ve learned about the best suggestion programs
during more
than 25 years of investigating successful ones – convinces
me that these objections are not valid.
Employee
Idea Examples
Take the first
objection, that administering the program is too time-consuming
for management.
I know how much
time it takes because, with our small staff at Employers of America,
I’m the administrator of the WOW™ program. My records
show that I spend an average of 15 minutes per submitted idea administering,
evaluating and implementing ideas.
Some
examples of employee ideas in a suggestion program:
* The suggestion:
To sell our membership and The Complete Employee Handbook Made Easy
as a package, on our Web site, with a discount offer. Within 24
hours of the offer being placed
on the Web site, we received our first order for the discounted
package. Administration and evaluation time: Under a minute.
* The suggestion:
Replace business reply envelopes with plain envelopes mailed out
with invoices and membership renewals, saving 63¢ for each
business reply envelope not returned. We monitored returns of payments
in envelopes for a month and learned that almost all checks come
to us in the check writer’s own window envelope. So we ended
use of the business reply envelope, saving about $150 a year. Administration
and evaluation time: less than 10 minutes.
* The suggestion:
Switch from using bubble wrap to using foam sheets to protect manuals
in shipment. Estimated savings: $1,500 a year. Administration and
evaluation time: About 20 minutes. (A year later we changed the
size of the shipping cartons to eliminate the need for the foam
sheets, saving an additional $720 year.)
More
Suggestion Program Objections
As for the
second objection, employees will give you their ideas. All you have
to do is ask them, and ask them often. You also have to respond
to their suggestions quickly. And you have to thank them and reward
them.
About rewards,
the third objection. The rewards don’t have to be expensive.
In fact, they should not be. At Employers of America, we award $1
for each idea submitted and a $10 gift certificate for each idea
adopted. The most important reward is the recognition and appreciation
the employee receives when the awards are given in staff meetings.
Do you have
objections to having a suggestion program? Do you keep putting off
starting a suggestion program?
If so, answer
this question: “How much money is our business losing each
day that we put off launching one?” |
