Use an Employee Suggestion Form!
A suggestion is an idea that will benefit the business by solving a problem, reducing costs, improving operations or procedures, enhancing customer service, eliminating waste or spoilage, or making it a better or safer place to work.
One of the most efficient and economical ways to gather new ideas is through the use of the people who know your operations intimately – your employees. Listening to and acting upon sensible employee suggestions presents the opportunity to improve profitability (many employee suggestions relate to wasteful practices and irrational policies) and at the same time increase the level of trust and teamwork within your business.
At a time when businesses are paying consultants and advisors to find newer, better, and faster ways of doing things, sometimes the obvious slips right by because they fail to draw on inside knowledge.
Drawing on internal knowledge is easy! During monthly, quarterly or yearly employee reviews, you can use this time to also accept reviews and ideas from employees, especially if they have limited daily interaction with their manager’s boss. We always let the employee go first because they are sometimes excited about sharing their ideas and this gives us further insight into how they are doing their job. Sometimes it is not even as formal as using this suggestion form below, especially if you are a small company, however some people need the structure of the document we provide below!
Sometimes employees, especially new employees, will not actively volunteer relevant information because they are concerned about the process or if their manager will like their suggestion. If you treat that all suggestions as important and even hold a quarterly or yearly employee meeting to discuss suggestions, your innovation level and ultimately your growth and profit will begin to increase because each employee will begin to take ownership in their idea.