Innovators challenged for International Ideas Week
Are you hassled at home, stressed at studies or whacked out at work?
What one idea would make your day better? Which one simple change could put a smile on your face and take some stress out of your day?
This year’s International Ideas Week (commencing May 14), is inviting people across the country to nominate one idea that would make their day easier. Continue reading
International Ideas Week 2012 Network Event
Employee Engagement, Greater Productivity, Better Performance
Thursday 10th May, Cardiff.
Learn from internationally renowned organisations about how employee engagement is a critical factor in their success:
The event will be run as two half day events: 9.30 -12.30 and 1.30 -4.30
For some delegates there will be the opportunity to participate in the whole day.
A key feature of the event will be taking away practical actions to implement and generating information that can be shared with others.
This FREE event is being hosted by the Wales Audit Office at 24 Cathedral Road, Cardiff Offices.
For further information and booking please check:
Numbers will be limited so please register your interest early.
Good morning, everyone and I hope you are having a good Monday?
In today’s post I just want to remind everyone that International Ideas Week is fast approaching and to find out what you are doing to promote innovation and employee engagement during the week?
I did a post a few weeks back about Ideas Week and it is available Continue reading
Well, the starting point would be to say what we’re not – We are not consultants!
IdeasUK is a not for profit, charity, membership organisation, run by our members for our members.
Our membership ranges from organisations with 250 employees up to 500,000 employees from a wide range of backgrounds and industries.
Continue reading
Choosing the Right Suggestion Scheme
The Options
There are two main types of suggestion schemes, a centralised or a decentralised scheme. Some organisations operate both models successfully.
Centralised Scheme
In organisations where there is a hierarchical management structure in place a centralised suggestion scheme is often the most appropriate system.
How it operates
Part 2
The last article (part 1) looked at the benefits of an ideas programme and why you should have one within your organisation. This second post looks at the practical steps in getting a good quality scheme up and running.
Support required within a Programme
What benefits does having a suggestion scheme bring, to both employers and employees?
The benefits to the employee are that it gives them a voice in the business and allows them to have an outlet for their creativity and to make a change to their working environment. For the employer it encourages a culture of innovation that can lead to sharing of best practice and a reduction in costs to the business therefore more efficient working and increased employee satisfaction.
It is well documented that organisations who listen to employees and act on suggestions developed become an employer of choice with a more motivated and happy workforce.
What is the best way to incentivise staff to take part in a scheme?
There are two schools of thought around incentivising staff to take part in the programme. Old school thinking was that you had to reward or ‘bribe’ people to take part in the scheme; however, this encouraged wrong behaviours within the organisation. In a well managed ideas programme, employees feel proud of the fact that they are taking part in something which can benefit both themselves and the organisation. Continue reading
I sit here writing this post wondering where the past few week have gone, they seem to have gone by really quickly.
With the conference coming up, most of our time has been taken up with the organising of the event. We have very high standards for the conference and this means sometimes burning the midnight oil to make sure things run smoothly.
The past few weeks have seen us carry out some accreditation visits to our members, and I am pleased to anounce that so far this year both the Identity and Passport Agency Continue reading
ideasUK will soon be releasing another free eBook after the success of our first download: How to Start a Staff Suggestion Scheme.
We will soon be making available our newest free download: Top 10 Best Practice Tips for Evaluating Suggestion Schemes. This will be another free eBook which will introduce ideas and tips on how to evaluate a suggestion scheme.
Keep an eye on our blog for its release date.
If you have suggestions for other eBooks, please let us know in the comments below.
Today’s guest post is written by Robert A. Schwarz
My company has worked with suggestion schemes at hundreds of organizations. Each year many organizations start a new suggestion process, while many existing suggestion systems are abandoned.
Let’s look at some examples – kept anonymous to protect the guilty.
An insurance company had installed a suggestion scheme. It was well designed, performing very well and the person heading it up had attended training and really was interested in the task. In spite of good data that showed that the process was an effective profit center, a newly hired executive vice president with strong dislike of suggestion schemes strongly opposed the process. Although the CEO had supported the process, it was discontinued. Our reading was that there was no one on the executive staff that would challenge the new VP. Those operating the suggestion system chose silence over potential loss of a job. Continue reading
