Do Employee Suggestion Boxes Actually Work?

Do you think the typical suggestion box system works? Or does it do more harm than good?

Why does it matter?

Workers who interact directly with customers or processes are the most precious source for ideas and innovation. For many companies, however, the method of tapping into their insights hasn’t changed much.

Many workplaces still use an employee suggestion box to tap into the insights of front-line employees. This well-intentioned system to drive employee engagement actually offers no value in high-performance workplaces and actually results in more disengagement.

Though the "write-it-down-and-hope-someone-reads it" idea box has been around for centuries, only in the last few years has the traditional suggestion system been studied. These are the problems that plague the average employee suggestion box:

• Few ideas come forward.

• Feedback is poor.

• Very few ideas come to fruition.

• Employees who provide suggestions using this method don't know what happens to it. They probably think that their ideas may not have reached the right person, or it nobody read it.

• Organising and strategising on these suggestions takes up a lot of time.

• The person collecting these suggestions also has no idea which ideas actually matter to the employees unless they manually count how many people suggested it.

For these reasons, suggestion boxes have developed a bad reputation. But, if implemented and managed properly, this system is quite effective in engaging employees and driving innovation at companies of all sizes. 

The suggestion box has endured decades of existence.

The advantages of modern idea management programs

For many companies, getting employees involved in understanding and improving their job is critical to the success of a company. Unlike the traditional suggestion box, modern suggestion management systems can help leadership understand how much innovation is taking place around the company’s business objectives.

For instance, if a core objective is cost-cutting, an idea management system can help leaders know how much innovation is taking place around cost-cutting. An idea management system can also help determine where employees are engaging.

 A properly implemented idea management system can also improve:

• Productivity by finding ways to do more with less, do it faster, or do it with fewer resources while reducing waste;

• The quality of a product or service;

• Safety at an organisation; and

• Customer satisfaction.

How to set up a modern idea management program

There are a few things to consider before and during the implementation process. Here are some ideas you should keep in mind:

• Use an online suggestion system. It makes it simpler for workers to share ideas. It also affects how often a worker shares an idea. The easier it is to use, the greater the chance that the employee will use it often.

• Allow the ideas to be seen by everyone. Ideas from groups of employees are known to improve the quality and value of the ideas to the business.

• Give feedback. The lack of feedback is the main reason why employee idea programs fail. Once you manage to collect employees' feedback, you can evaluate them, provide feedback, and good ideas will move forward and be implemented.

• Frame a constructive conversation. By concentrating on specific topics, you create a constructive conversation that helps workers understand what type of ideas to share and you ensure the ideas they share align with your organisation's main goals.

• Create a team to manage the suggestions. Make sure the team is made up of decision-makers that can evaluate and respond to suggestions and move them forward to implementation.

If there's already a type of mechanism for gathering employee ideas in your organisation, see how the idea management program is working. If you’re unable to get back to employees in a timely fashion, you are probably doing more harm than good. Use this as a chance to re-evaluate your suggestion system.

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Source: The Innovation Enterprise

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