Alternative ideas for encouraging employee initiative, beyond "suggestion box"

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When I was growing up, my neighbor used to reward her children with food every time they did something good. Clean their room: a bag of M&M’s. Behave in church: a trip to the ice cream stand. They struggled in school because they didn’t have a good sense of internal motivation. Without a carrot, why perform?

Most of us learn about self-motivation at an early age. It feels good to be good and it feels good to do good work. When we start fooling around with what comes naturally, we get ourselves in trouble. Unfortunately, the reward systems we create in our organizations can often backfire.

Consider this letter from a reader:

Dear Joan:
"I may have read in one of your articles that you think a suggestion box is a bad idea. However, we are committed to having one and have recently been more generous with our rewards for suggestions.

As you might have guessed, we are now getting more "suggestions" than ever, which is good and bad. My question to you is what is a good way to define "suggestion" so we don’t keep getting things that should be brought to the attention of their manager instead of waiting to put it in the box so they can get a reward. As an extreme—and hypothetical—example, "We’re out of toilet paper in the men’s room. Where’s my $50?"

Answer:
Suggestion boxes were started years ago as a way to get input from employees. It seems like a good way to get employees’ ideas. The problem is most people ignore them. In other cases, disgruntled employees drop in nasty comments. Companies have to up the ante with more money to get employees’ attention.

"So what’s wrong with that?" you might ask. The fatal flaw is exactly what you pointed out in your letter. Instead of encouraging more communication and employee participation with their managers, employees are encouraged to go around their boss to get a reward.

Ideally, employees should be generating ideas within the context of their jobs. The more initiative they show, the greater the rewards. Those with the most ideas and creative energy to implement them should get more money at raise time (or spot bonuses) and more chances to get involved on task forces and other career enhancing opportunities. It’s the manager’s job to find ways to tap his or her employees for positive suggestions.

I think a suggestion box lets the managers off the hook. It says, "Don’t tell me your ideas. Go tell the system. Then sit and wait for the bureaucracy to push your suggestion to a person or a committee to evaluate. The more suggestions the committee gets, the longer it will take, so be patient. And don’t be surprised if you’re not happy with their response, since they don’t have the ability to get into a two-way dialogue with you about the pros and cons of the idea or how it could work."

With all of that said, if you are still going to have a suggestion box, here are some suggestions. Spell out that the suggestion box is only for suggestions outside of the scope of an employee’s job. Explain that suggestions that can be implemented by the manager/ employee, working within or across departments, will be sent back to the employee, with a copy to the manager.

Some companies now have "Workouts," where employees propose ideas to management in a face-to-face setting. At Workouts, decisions are made on the spot to pursue the idea or scratch it. Perhaps a spin you can put on your suggestion box is to invite all the people who have submitted ideas to come to a Suggestion Session with the Suggestion Committee, so individuals can present their ideas and hear immediately if the idea is worth taking to the next level. This would also be a quick way to sort through the volume of ideas and educate employees about what kinds of ideas qualify for a reward. In addition, it would discourage frivolous or sarcastic suggestions.

If you don’t have a committee, and there is someone who is assigned to wade through the suggestions and route them to appropriate people for a response, the program is probably doomed. Overworked people don’t spend much time on a routed suggestion they are not vested in and will find ways to avoid approving it.

As an alternative, why not create a pot of money for managers to use for rewarding employees throughout the year for their contributions. At the same time, tie part of managers’ raises and promotions to their ability to generate and implement new ideas from their employees.

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