Everyone who has worked in a big company knows it:
You have a good idea and want to see it become reality. What do you do? You take CIP formulary and fill it out. Write in your name, department, describe the current situation and what should be changed. You take this formulary and place it into a suggestion box believing that someone will find your idea just as great as yourself.
One week passes by and you start to wonder if anyone has seen your idea at all. On the second week someone from HR department contacts you asking about that idea. So you explain it and try your best to clarify all the benefits this change would bring. Great conversation, you think by yourself. Another week passes and you get an letter stating that the idea can unfortunately not be implemented this time. But that you should continue to bring good ideas to continuously improve our company.
Sounds familiar? How motivating is that? What a motivation any employee would have to give any idea with such a system?
Wrong Motivation for Continuous Improvement
If you think the suggestion system of your company is wrong, then I have good news, most companies have this kind of practice. They give away hair dryers, books, tools, hats and many other gifts to the employees that submit good ideas. Even money is given to ideas that can prove to have a positive effect on the companies profit. What has not been understood by these companies is that giving a good idea is not something special which should be rewarded. It is something the company should do as integral part of how it operates. Rewarding good ideas with prices or money can replace the joy of seing the process being improved by the joy of receiving a gift. The motivation starts to be on the wrong place.
What is even worse is giving the responsibility for the decision, if a idea should be implemented or not, to a central committee which in most cases don’t have any direct relation to the person who gave the idea. The responsibility of taking this decision should be from the employee together with his direct leader. They both can be supported by management but the joy of improving something should stay in the area from where the idea came from. In this way, if an employee had a good idea which he can not implement by himself, he talks to his leader. His leader can understand best the situation and take the decision for implementation or not. If the problem is not from his area, then the leader takes responsibility to align with the related departments. If there is an meeting with a other department, the employee who gave the idea should also have the possibility to join if he likes to. The decision is then made directly by the involved persons and no central Continuous Improvement Committee is needed.
Also something to keep in mind before stimulating the generation of improvement ideas is that you must have a clear target for your company or department. Don’t forget to communicate the target every day. This target must be cristal clear and represent the why we go to work every day. Once your company or department has this clear target, the evaluation of an idea becomes easy. Does the idea contribute to achieve the goal of the organization? If yes, then implement it, if not, then don’t implement. This clear goal is what makes it motivating. No hudereds of ideas are needed and the rejected ideas will also be much less than before.
I have seen in many companies how a suggestion and idea system can be demotivating.
And that’s the problem of gathering many (not focused) improvement ideas:
The employee gives away the responsibility to evaluate and implement the idea to some sort of CIP committee. The evaluation of the idea takes too long time. Reasons for rejected ideas can not be well understood. The joy of improving something gets replaced by the joy of gaining a reward.
Motivation
If you want an advise: Transfer the responsibility to collect and evaluate the improvement ideas to the direct supervisor. Give them the freedom to decide if an idea should be implemented. Give them support to implement cross department ideas. Evaluate the ideas according to a clear department goal. Involve the employee in all steps. Celebrate the success of the team.
Maybe then a suggestion box will no longer be needed.
Interested in the topic? Then check out the following content for a truth about reward and punishment related to creativity and problem solving: https://youtu.be/rrkrvAUbU9Y
