Every employee ideas program that i have seen starts with such promise.
The thought behind them is such a good one.
We have such smart people why not try and harness their creativity and energy?
Employees can drive and empower our innovation.
But………
They always seem to run out of puff.
Here’s why:
– The program itself often becomes bureaucratic
– Slow
– Expensive
– Leaders become frustrated with the ideas
– They lack energy
– Reactive
– Have low awareness
– Rarely has a overriding ambition
I have found a better employee ideas program to be this:
– One which has a specific, business goal
– Is regularly measured
– Has a focus or challenge e.g. We are looking for ideas to improve our customer service standards that we can test in the next 30 days
– And that this challenge is updated every week or month
– There is an in-built evaluation criteria that is explicit and accessible
– The program is promoted and talked about by leaders
– There is a strong recognition component and
– The program has an inbuilt learning aspect.
With this in mind, an increasing number of leaders have turned to our new Ideas Blitz tool and app.
It is fast, energising, and rather than say to employees go and be creative it gives them the exact tool to do this.
We can measure the results and it creates a buzz quickly.