How To Encourage Workers To Suggest Innovation? 281
An anonymous reader writes "The software company where I work has an Innovation and Knowledge program that encourages workers to provide ideas for new products and suggestions to improve the work place, productivity or welfare. The ideas and suggestions are evaluated by a board that decides whether they should be implemented or not. The group of workers with more ideas participates in a raffle to receive a prize. I would like to know what other programs people have seen like this and how they differ. What is the best way to encourage workers to suggest new products to be made / researched by the company?"
Alcohol (Score:5, Interesting)
They'll also suggest a whole bunch of other, probably not so helpful stuff.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Define innovation (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's important to define what you are looking for.
At my company, we had a very similar project for a long time. I always thought innovation meant some incredible break through, or new product line. Turns out, some innovations that were accepted were changes to our coffee vendor, and tests for our new development folk (standard practice in my office, but considered innovative at one of our other sites.)
Had I know what the quality bar was at the beginning of the project, I would have submitted all kinds of stuff. As it was, I was just waiting for a really great idea.
Re:Prizes and Royalties (Score:5, Interesting)
Make it a percentage of the cost savings as a lump bonus and you'll not only get more suggestions, you'll get onces that actually have some thought and implementation plans put into them.
Re:Ownership interest (Score:5, Interesting)
Human Resource Management is where the money is (Score:5, Interesting)
How To Encourage Workers To Suggest Innovation?
1) Pay "workers" for each suggestion.
2) Ensure that each "worker" is made aware that the "worker" owns the ideas he submits to the company, and that the company will offer to license the ideas from the "worker" if Management deems the ideas "good enough" to implement
3) Ensure that the following are NOT offered as incentives: "raffles", "prizes" and (like one company I worked for offered, the "opportunity" to win the privilege of having breakfast with a Manager). This should be common sense for ANYBODY who has studied Management, the Social Sciences, Psychology, etc. But unfortunately the type of people who get into Human Resource Management don't usually have the brightest light bulbs.
Give credit where credit is due (Score:4, Interesting)
Take cues from George Westinghouse instead of Thomas Edison. Edison screwed over Tesla who then took his genius to Westinghouse who then won the war of the currents.
Raffle? WTF? (Score:3, Interesting)
Do they raffle off other benefits, like health care?
It has already been said -- if you want something of value from your employees, pay them for it. Thats how the whole "work" thing works.
Either pony up the cash or let them use the time they are already paid for to think about how to innovate.
Re:empowerment 20% of the time. (Score:5, Interesting)
At my current employer, all we get is the slap on the back. Because of the bad economy, there's no chance for a raise or bonus, but they've sent us all an email asking us to please continue working hard and coming up with innovative ideas. Yeah, right.
Any innovative ideas I come up will be kept hidden until I'm out of here.
Re:empowerment 20% of the time. (Score:2, Interesting)
My company is about the same. At one time they did have a program that was supposed to foster innovation but it seemed that most of the really good ideas got so bogged down in their "innovation" committee that nothing ever came of it. When will they ever learn that few really good ideas come out of a committee???
Re:empowerment 20% of the time. (Score:3, Interesting)
I forgot to mention they recently cut back our patent reward program. There used to be awards for disclosure, filing, granted patents, bonuses for large numbers of patents (5x, 10x, etc.), trade secret awards, publication awards, etc. They cut all that back so now there's a single patent filing award and that's it. But they assure us they'll continue to provide a mechanism for recognition, even though we won't get any money. Yeah, I'm sure people will redouble their efforts in coming up with patentable ideas.
Re:Prizes and Royalties (Score:2, Interesting)
If it is an idea I can execute on my own, like a book plot, a startup site, or a new type of spoon, then yes, I'll keep it. However, how many of the ideas people would offer at work are really like that?
With that distinction made, the "Pay me for my idea that I can't actually make happen on my own" sentiment I am seeing modded +5 right now is in conflict with the Slashdot meme of "patents should expire for people who do nothing with them." In both cases, people want a reward for ideas they cannot execute. The difference is that patents actively stop other people from executing the ideas, but the underlying belief in both statements is still that an idea alone is worth something. Which is it?
Re:empowerment 20% of the time. (Score:3, Interesting)
With the way that most of these large companies work these days, that's actually not a big concern, at least not at an individual level. When these companies decide to get rid of people, they lay off entire teams and divisions. It's not really worthwhile to sift through employees and get rid of the average performers; it's a lot of work and time (which can be spent doing other work), and it's really bad for morale, and causes the best people to leave early on their own.
Of course, if you're a really horrible performer and it's obvious, you definitely are in danger of being kicked out (because those people are easy to spot), but that's another matter. There's a big difference in being an average performer who doesn't stand out at all, doesn't put in any extra effort, doesn't come up with any good ideas, and just does his job at the minimum level, and someone who's just plain incompetent or doesn't even get any work done. And honestly, when your company won't actually reward you for extra effort with a raise, or even continued employment if your department is cut, then why exactly should anyone strive to be a star performer?
Re:Lets see... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not try NOT having them sign a contract that says the company owns every idea that they have for the rest of their lives? Instead, any an all ideas should belong to the creator of the idea, unless they sell the rights to the company (this should be the employee's choise). The company can then evaluate the idea and if they use it, they have to pay a fee to the employee, plus 10% of any profits (if any) generated.
As someone who hates that clause in his contract, I do see the need for it.
W/ your model you run the risk of having a serious amount of litigation should there be some employee who feels that they worked on something that their company took from them. What constitutes the profits for your invention of a new door handle on a line of cars? Where do you calculate that percentage?
Re:Ownership interest (Score:2, Interesting)
The IBM lab in Toronto used to have a system like this, back before Celestica was spun off; half the lab did software and the other half was manufacturing. I recall one manufacturing guy got the maximum suggestion award for saying let's use just one stabilizer foot instead of two on each PC case.
I submitted an idea that a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggested would result in quite a bit of savings. Downgrade all the "work-at-home" sponsored phone lines from business grade to regular consumer grade. This was in the mid-90s with very slow modems, not exactly taxing to the phone system. Suggestion declined.
Then a couple of years later it was announced that they would do what I suggested. I inquired if the award still applied. It was just like when your warranty expires and your computer breaks. The two-year "statute of limitations" on suggestion awards expired, and the suggestion was implemented shortly after.
Which is a roundabout way to say, in the hardware/manufacturing world they may pay out for productivity suggestions, but don't count on it in the software business. (After all, who hasn't had an idea that would speed up some process 1000x and make some slacker in their office redundant? A slacker who serves on the committee evaluating suggestions.)
Re:Ownership interest (Score:5, Interesting)
Ideas are cheap. What you need to pay for is the idea *and* the drive to get it implemented. And where it comes to implementation, you need to reward the entire group/team, not just the individual, otherwise people will be working on ideas in isolation from each other, and your colleagues will be more interested in shooting down your ideas than helping you with them.
Just imagine our k-12 educational system, the children with ideas get rewarded by the teachers, but they have to work in isolation from each other, and often their classmates won't help them -- their classmates will ignore them, or even worse ostracize them, for trying so hard. Now compare this to a team sport for instance, like American football, when a student helps win a trophy for his team/his school, the entire school benefits, but everyone on that team/school knows who is, or who are, the individual(s) of the team that helped get the school that trophy, so that/those individual(s) get rewarded by increased personal prestige and increased social status (at least, within the microcosm of that school).
In Japan, this is essentially how Edward Demings taught it, and this is essentially how the Japanese have implemented it. Toyota workers do not get rewarded individually. The team gets rewarded first, then whoever came up with the idea gets recognized as the super-star (at least, within his team/group). Now this does not mean that competition doesn't play an important role in there either, it indeed does, but that competition and that recognition is often promoted between the teams and between the groups, and never between individual members of the same team.