Suggestion Box

February 12, 2008 4:17 AM

I have been charged with developing a employee suggestion system. Has anyone seen a organization do it right? My challenges are in eliciting valuable suggestions ( not complaints ), recognizing contributions, and defining what suggestions are good versus those that are bad. Has anyone seen a system that actually works, gets people engaged, and gets results?
posted by kaizen to work & money (14 comments total)

Unfortunately, any system that elicits employee feedback in any form is invariably going to get complaints. This isn't a bad thing, necessarily. Complaints aren't invaluable. They often point to overlooked issues/bottlenecks/problems that no-one has properly addressed. Some people can see problems a lot clearer than they can see any viable answers to the problems.

The worst thing you can do is impose a "Don't bring us a problem unless you have the answer" attitude. That will kill a lot of the input (including good ideas) that you might otherwise get.

That's not to say you shouldn't try to position the system as positive feedback system. I'm just saying you should make sure you don't firewall any complaints you might also get.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:40 AM on February 12, 2008

Maybe make it a dialog. Model it after ask.metafilter somehow.

That way besides just complaining, you can utilize the hive-mind to actually solve problems instead of just pointing them out.

One way might be to have an open suggestion period....then tabulate those results and reduce duplicates...then have a list of condensed questions/complaints/advice that all employees can reply to.
posted by ian1977 at 5:04 AM on February 12, 2008

I was on the fringes of a suggestion scheme which invited people to write in and offered cash rewards for any ideas adopted, so long as they were not suggesting things it was part of their job to be suggesting anyway. That didn't work well at all: there were many disputes and tons of admin and paperwork. You would also get hemmed in with petty suggestions so that every time you changed anything there would be ten people claiming that what you were doing resembled what they had suggested two years ago, and where was their reward?

Somewhat better more recently has been a scheme where the only reward is to help implement the idea (if accepted). People with good suggestions get a mentor to help them sell the idea to management at a regular 'beauty contest' and if successful, implement it. Frankly, I don't think this has produced all that much really good stuff, either, but it is much more positive in terms of morale, etc.
posted by Phanx at 5:13 AM on February 12, 2008

Respond quickly and regularly, even if it's more just to acknowledge a selection of the comments you've gotten rather than because you're able to immediately -do- something about them. Be as transparent as is reasonably possible about what you ARE doing with these suggestions - who have selected suggestions been passed on to, what's happened to them since then, etc. When I was a corporate type the one thing that made me more cynical than anything else about those 'employee suggestion systems' was when you just -knew- 2-3 months would go by at least before anybody got around to -maybe- doing -something- vague about 1 or 2 of the tens or hundreds of suggestions that had accumulated over that time, but that really odds were that the most that would happen even then was that someone would say "hey, good suggestion!" and that'd be the end of that. Shouting into a black hole, anybody?

Of course, that's not to say you ought to take time out of everyone's busy schedules to force them to see what you're doing with the suggestions - that is, I'm not suggesting regular mandatory "all hands on deck" meetings or anything. If you guys have an internal web page, you might carve out a spot where you can regularly address comments or suggestions, start off by posting the Top Suggestions of the Week (or month, or whatever), and as time progresses and your program takes off, make sure you track what happens to those Top Suggestions of previous weeks - if people see that not only will their comments be read, but might also have a chance of actually being taken up and somehow addressed, I suspect that would help motivate people to actually feel it'd be worth their time to submit ideas in the first place ...
posted by zeph at 5:24 AM on February 12, 2008

I am a consultant that specialises in cultural change, and one of the most common client ideas we see is to put in a suggestion box. Our almost universal experience has been that putting the system in will lead to a decrease in morale.

This is usually because when the company makes the staff's life miserable, they can deal with that, but if they solicit input as to how to make it better, and don't follow up, the employees feel cheated. They have now invested their effort (however little) to in their eyes improving the place by making a suggestion, and things haven't improved. The organisations that do make it work almost universally set up some regular feedback/dialogue so that people can see that their suggestions have been received and understand the progress that is being made on them, even if it is to say that an idea is not feasible for the following reasons.

As to how you do it, there are a number of ways that work - ranging from a box, to a blog with comments, but the transparency above is the key to making it work.

One other thing is not to set up too many rules - people generally feel like they are being treated as kids. Better to just ask that people respect the system and use it as intended, rather than to specify in detail, "No swearing" etc.
posted by csg77 at 5:24 AM on February 12, 2008

Years ago a company I worked for tried to kick start a new suggestion program and took into account that most employees would feel that no one really cared what we thought. To get it going good, all employees were asked to write down the "ONE stupidest" (yes, that is exactly how it was worded) thing we did and one idea to fix it.

It was a real success! The ideas came pouring in and while many were useless, many great ideas were implemented.

My recommendation on working with it is to get a binder, and write each idea down on one sheet. Leave the rest of the sheet to fill in ways/steps to its implementation. I also would rate each idea in two ways: A scale of 1-5 on how helpful each idea is (1 being very helpful), and another scale of 1-5 on the difficulty level of getting it started (1 being easy). So a scale of 3/5 would obviously become a lower priority than that of one which is 1/1. Keep the higher priority ideas toward the front of the binder and the lower priority ones toward the back.

Good luck! Sounds like an interesting project which will be a positive experience too! ♣
posted by magnoliasouth at 5:33 AM on February 12, 2008

Also, Previously. Though this question is a good complement to that question.
posted by softlord at 5:43 AM on February 12, 2008

Here's a method we used. Collect all the suggestions and then have a small (emphasis on 'small') group review them and select the ones (top 5 or 6) that are thought to be the best and most useful. Then have all the employees vote on the one suggestion they think is the best.

This way we got buy in from all employees as they saw that were actually being part of the 'judging' process, and the people that made the selected suggestions saw that their peers approved of their ideas and agreed that they thought they would work. Finally ensure that you can actually institute the top two or three ideas that won the final employee vote so everyone can see there is an end product to the complete process The buy in from the peers was invaluable as it made everyone part of the process, not just the managerial level.
posted by worker_bee at 6:11 AM on February 12, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Watch that Newsradio episode where they implement a suggestion box that rings a bell outside the manager's office every time sometime drops off a suggestion. Avoid doing things this way. Try to keep your employees from watching that episode.
posted by Hey, Cupcake! at 7:14 AM on February 12, 2008

I can't speak to how well it works personally, but my employer has a suggestion system where employees are rewarded with cash or leave if their suggestions are implemented and help save money or improve business in some other tangible way. Of course, there are all sorts of rules and procedures to keep things fair. I have not participated, but those rewards certainly seem like a good motivator.
posted by geeky at 7:26 AM on February 12, 2008

At both my gym and my coop grocery store, as well as the dining hall I frequented in college, the person in charge of the suggestion box addressed every single message by posting it on a bulletin board with a well-reasoned response. Even the most asinine, jokey comments make it onto the board with serious answers. Answers are typically along the lines of "we'll try changing that in the next week/month/year, or "we can't change that because or this very clear reason." The (super-crunchy, natural, organic, etc.) coop last week fielded a question that said something like "Please carry Wonder Bread so I can get enough iron supplements in my diet." It was obviously a joke, but the response listed the iron content of Wonder Bread as well as giving the names of several varieties of bread carried by the store that are at least as high in iron.

I think there are a couple reasons that this system works so well:
- every comment gets answered, so people don't feel ignored
- comments are answered in public (on the bulletin board), so everyone can see that comments are taken seriously even if they don't submit one
- jokey comments are answered in all seriousness, cutting down on the temptation to overwhelm the suggestion box with jokes and reinforcing the idea that management really is trying to help
- "yes, we can change that" answers are great when accompanied by a timeline for action and real follow-through
- "no, we can't change that" answers are good too, as long as the reason given makes sense. It's easy to be disgruntled when someone ignores your suggestion or just says "no," but it's hard to be disgruntled when they explain a logical reason why the suggestion won't work. People can be surprisingly reasonable if you treat them like adults.
posted by vytae at 8:17 AM on February 12, 2008

What really works is having a consistent open dialog between managers and employees. If your staff feels as though their ideas are valued, then they'll discuss them with you. Having a manager look to the staff and say, "Help me figure out how to improve this." is going to get far better response than a suggestion box or a web form.

That works even in large organizations, but it's a bit more challenging. If you want to get the best responses, train your managers to request and respect employee ideas.
posted by 26.2 at 8:30 AM on February 12, 2008

Our company has a program called Ask the President. It isn't quite the same as a suggestion program and does attract a fair amount of idle complaints, but the fact that each of the questions/suggestions actually goes to the president of the company (or at least his staff) gives the program a fair amount of visibility and credibility. And every submittal is addressed on the company's internal website for all employees to see.

Some things that were asked for that we would have thought would never be granted where: setting up a task force with local governments to get a road to the company paved (since it goes through several jurisdictions, each government tried to say it wasn't their problem), and a suggestion to reallocate money announced for a grand lobby remodel to instead be applied to buying new ergonomic office chairs for all employees. I doubt either one would have happened without the backing of the president of the company.

If there is any way to link your suggestion program to a high enough authority to actually get them implemented, I think people will take it much more seriously.
posted by Doohickie at 9:53 AM on February 12, 2008

I don't know if this would work well in your company's culture, but maybe you could put up a site like Digg or DesignFloat where people post suggestions and their colleagues comment on them and vote them up or down. coRank is one system that helps you create such a site, though their home page doesn't make that clear. Each "contest" could run for a set period, and then management could act on the top 5 ideas, or something like that.
posted by PatoPata at 9:55 AM on February 12, 2008