How to set up an employee suggestion scheme

1. Quotable quote

"Companies don't need management stars or heroes to thrive. What they absolutely do need, however, is an effective system for getting and implementing ideas from the people who do the work."

2. Ask yourself

It was John Hancock Field who said that ‘all worthwhile people have good thoughts, good ideas, and good intentions, but precious few of them ever translate those into actions’.

Unfortunately for most organisations, common sense and good ideas don’t automatic-ally become common practice. And there is a vast gulf between knowing what needs to be done and actually doing it.

As Peter Drucker so aptly put it: ‘Having a good idea is one thing, implementing it is another.’ He found that ‘the reason organisations have excellent ideas in them, yet perform poorly, is that the people who have ideas can’t get them implemented’.

Have you checked your company’s suggestion box lately?

3. Viewpoint

"A Fuji Electric Company plant in Japan received more than 193,300 suggestions from 1500 employees in one year alone. Granted, some of them weren’t worth a dime. But the process that encourages and reinforces people to submit such an avalanche of ideas is worth millions. …