Are you frustrated by a lack of feedback in your company? Do you have a suggestion box that sits empty and unused? Or a lack of follow-up when good ideas are put forward? In this video, we share the case against using a suggestion box and discuss other effective alternatives. In it you’ll learn:
- Five obstacles that prevent suggestion boxes from being effective
- The biggest mistake that companies make when trying to increase participation
- Three steps to boosting feedback submissions and company innovation
- How feedback can improve productivity, profitability, and employee engagement
The suggestion box can sometimes be a ‘black hole’ where ideas go to die. Managers don’t have time to filter through them all, let alone follow up. Many suggestions are complaints rather than ideas or solutions. This leads to frustration on everyone’s part and can have a negative impact on overall morale. In this video, we go into detail about the obstacles that prevent suggestion box ideas from becoming reality:
- Making the effort to surrender ideas into the void
- Ideas being poor quality because submitters have no ownership in making them a reality
- A bottleneck for ideas being reviewed, analyzed and approved by a committee
- Lack of feedback means employees lose trust in the system
Because of these barriers, only a tiny proportion of ideas (less than 1%) usually make it through and actually become implemented. However, the video also discusses three practical steps to boosting feedback submissions and company innovation.
1 - Remove the bottleneck by replacing a centralized approval process with a decentralized coaching system. Managers and change agents become responsible for guiding frontline employees on how best to implement their own ideas. This leads to greater accountability, engagement, and improves the quality of ideas overall.
2 - Empower frontline employees to conduct their own experiments. Give them space and support to run small-scale tests so that they can find out if ideas are really viable. This costs the company next to nothing but develops a breeding ground for innovation and creativity.
3 - Lower the bar so that you’re no longer looking for exceptional game-changing ideas. Focus on smaller improvements that you can implement incrementally. Welcome any ideas that can have a positive impact on the business, no matter how small they may initially seem. Over time, these can grow to have a profound impact on your productivity and profitability.
Following the steps outlined in this video can help you to build a true Kaizen culture within your business. Hit like if you found this video helpful or subscribe to our channel for more lean management and continuous improvement ideas.
21 сен 2024
