Back sometime around 1999 or 2000 I was watching a CNN show
having to do with business innovation and leadership. They featured a story on Dana Corporation and
how they are SERIOUS about gathering feedback from employees - and encouraging
ideas. I did a quick Google Search just
now and found an article on this. If
this is your cup of tea- you might enjoy this:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1997/06/09/227502/index.htm
So, my idea in this post is really to follow the example of
companies like Dana in the late 1990's (I hope they still have this type of
culture, I just don't know). Here are
seven specific things a company can do to truly capitalize on its "human
capital" and gain a competitive advantage:
1.) Have a quarterly
employee satisfaction and idea-generating survey and present the findings and
ideas in the company meeting. Try to
choose an idea you are going to implement in each quarterly meeting so your
employees know you take it very seriously.
Have an award prize for whomever's idea is implemented- and anyone who
enters their idea gets to be in a random drawing for another prize.
2.) Have
company-sponsored interest groups people can join and contribute to with a
couple of high-impact hours per week.
These could be rotating membership groups in order to keep fresh ideas
coming. Some sample groups could be:
a.) Morale and retention committee
b.) Competitive advantage committee
c.) New products and potential acquisitions committee
d.) Have a cost-cutting and waste-finding cross-functional
part time committee who finds many creative ways to identify waste and
cost-cutting opportunities.
e.) Low-hanging fruit profit-finding committee
3.) Have company
email automatically shut-off at 7pm nightly and stay off all weekend in order
to help families keep a balance and keep employees more rested, fresh, and able
to contribute
4.) Establish email
rules about copying people, replying-all, etc in order to cut down on excessive
email and wasted company time
5.) Assign managers a
4-hour block of mandatory proactive time each week and make them report back
what they did during that time, make firm rules about not checking email,
answering phones, or responding do anything during that time.
6.) Have a CEO/employee monthly coffee talk - a group of
random employees gets picked to have coffee with the CEO and his close
staff. No topics are forbidden and
respectful sharing is encouraged.
7.) Have an annual company service day in which teams get to
choose how to contribute labor and resources to local charities. Teams film their work and submit them for
production and display in the company meeting.
There is so much more that can be done in the realm of
company life, health, growth, and competitiveness- we need to slow down, be
intentional, listen to people, and force proactive time.
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