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How To Encourage Workers To Suggest Innovation?
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?"
They'll also suggest a whole bunch of other, probably not so helpful stuff.
I think first companies need to make employees feel comfortable criticizing their superiors.
Homer: [watching vending machine] Apple... Apple... Apple... come on, Candy Bar... [looking at an apple in the machine] Hey, I know you! You're that first apple I didn't want! That sinks it! I'm really gonna get let them have it this time! [writing on a notepad next to the suggestion box] No more apples in the vending machine PLEASE!! Then Mr. Burns gets it and reads it in a demeaning voice "Oh, don't worry, there will be plenty of apples in the vending machine."
God spoke to me.
Agree with that, at the very least the idea of a raffle for a prize pretty much sucks. So I come up with an idea that could save the company thousands, or even millions of dollars. and, I get a toaster oven. nice incentive.
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.
Wherever you go... There you are. B.B.
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.
I'm going to reply to this post backwards if you don't mind.
What motivates people is recognition.
That's one of the things. A guy named Frederick Hertzberg suggested that employees are motivated by a hierarchy of needs.
They start at the very low levels: Physical Environment, Salary, Job Security, Status, etc.
Then they proceed to higher levels. Recognition is actually the second highest motivator, and it certainly is a motivator for some. But Google is actually a good example of Hertzberg's highest motivator which is achievement: people are motivated by the work itself. Self-actualization.
Google let's their employees work on their own interesting side projects for 20% of their time. It's resulted in some of their best innovations. The employee is responsible for keeping the project up to date and Google owns it, obviously.
Google's employees get to pitch side projects and suggest them to management. IOW, they get to work on what interests them. They are motivated by the actual work. Real Google products started as side projects.
My blog
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.
A guy named Frederick Hertzberg suggested that employees are motivated by a hierarchy of needs.
They start at the very low levels: Physical Environment, Salary, Job Security, Status, etc.
Then they proceed to higher levels. Recognition is actually the second highest motivator, and it certainly is a motivator for some. But Google is actually a good example of Hertzberg's highest motivator which is achievement: people are motivated by the work itself. Self-actualization.
That was Abraham Maslow.
If you are considering the "money" suggestion you should probably keep the quirks of human psychology in mind. Excluding the stone-cold-homo-economicus types(who are fairly rare in practice), most people can be motivated for almost no money, or a good deal of money; but often won't be motivated by just a little money.
A lot of people voluntarily do valuable work, or come up with valuable ideas, for essentially no money, because there is something else that hooks them. Think Free Software people, various sorts of volunteers, people who do more than they need to at work, and so on. People will also, obviously, be motivated by large amounts of money(large being a relative measure).
The middle ground, though, can be a bad idea. People think about economic and non-economic activity differently. Somebody who would submit a linux kernel patch for free might well be insulted if they were offered rentacoder rates for their work. Somebody who will voluntarily suggest a valuable process improvement just because he takes pride in his work would probably not be pleased by a toaster. This is a somewhat interesting piece on the subject.
Either you create an environment that gives people the social warm and fuzzies(this includes paying decent money; but relies on social factors) or you give people real rewards to motivate them. Nobody on a professional salary is going to innovate for condescension and peanuts. They'll innovate because the environment is good and they want to, or for real money.
It's common in "real" engineering contexts to reward the suggester with a percentage of the value of the idea. For example, a chemical plant might have a suggestion box (anyone can contribute, engineer or not) for lowering the cost of the plant's processes. For any idea they use they'll pay you 10% of the money saved, capped at $1 million. This is actually fairly common, and most plants have a history of large payouts.
Ownership doesn't come into it: no one's getting stock. But a $1 million check is still a great motivator. You just need a reward proportional to the value of the idea, plus a clear way to establish ownership of suggestions (the second guy to suggest the $1 million idea is going to be annoyed).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
An idea for a software program is not unlike an idea for a book, a poem, or a song. I suggest that if a company *really* wants innovation, that they offer 1% royalties that are not negated by loss of employment. That way, a good software developer may, after 10 or 30 years of coding, actually be able to retire.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.