Top Mistakes That Kill Employee Involvement

Executives and managers at many businesses and organizations talk the good talk about wanting input from employees. It's not uncommon to hear workplace leaders speak with some pride about their "open door policy" and about "how important it is for us to listen to our employees."

And it's not uncommon for a business or organization to start a suggestion program (also called an employee involvement program) and within a year, hear the executives and managers express frustration because "only a few of our employees ever bother to submit their ideas." And in time the people put in charge of the program conclude the program is a failure and "a waste of time."

What happens -- or doesn't happen -- to doom so many efforts at involving employees in sharing and implementing their ideas? Following are seven mistakes often responsible for the decline and fall of employee involvement efforts:

• ‍Mistake 1. The top brass skip involvement. It's skipping the old, solid-gold rule: Actions speak louder than words. When the CEO and top management in a company pass the buck on leadership in an employee involvement program, they're telling all the other people in the workplace, "Do as we say, not as we do." When employees get the message that the leaders aren't committed to an idea program, the employees' commitment falters.‍
• Mistake 2. Reward ideas with big money. Ask 10 people what employees want most as an incentive or reward, and seven of them probably will say, "More money." But study after study finds that more money isn't the most effective incentive for most employees. More effective incentives to get employees to share ideas? Such things as asking and letting employees feel their ideas are valued. Thanking employees for their ideas. Giving the employee who submits an idea the opportunity to be involved in implementing the idea.‍
• Mistake 3. Tie rewards to the value of the idea. When the size and value of a reward reflects the value of the idea, what happens over time? Most employees will tend to focus their efforts on dreaming up big-dollar-value ideas, ideas which will save the company hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. What gets missed? The employees ignore or pass up the much larger volume of low-dollar-value ideas and ideas with no tangible dollar value, such as ideas that improve employee morale and customer service.‍
• Mistake 4. Cut employees out from implementing the idea. An employee's involvement in implementing their own idea, when the employee is qualified to do so, is one of the important ways the employee experiences a sense of accomplishment and recognition. By taking an employee's idea and passing it on to someone else to implement, the employer is missing a big opportunity to reward an employee at no expense.‍
• Mistake 5. Use old-fashioned suggestion boxes. The suggestion box was a brilliant, breakthrough idea when it was first introduced in Japan by the ruling shogun in 1721. But in the last 100 years the limitations of suggestion boxes have become apparent. One failing of a suggestion box is this, too many employees see it as a complaint receptacle. Another failing is a suggestion box is passive. Today's employees respond better to active suggestion programs which provide a variety of motivating influences to encourage participation. If you do use a suggestion box for a suggestion program, don't limit the submission of ideas to this receptacle. Encourage employees to submit their ideas in any way convenient to them: directly to their supervisor, by e-mail, at employee meetings. And if you use suggestion boxes, collect the ideas from them often, at least weekly, and respond quickly to the employees who have submitted ideas.‍
• Mistake 6. Let supervisors and managers go AWOL. Let managers and supervisors ignore their leadership, coaching and evaluation roles. Instead, in highly successful employee involvement programs, managers and supervisors are the first responders. In highly successful suggestion programs, managers and supervisors are management's front line, the first to ask employees for ideas, the first to thank employees for their ideas, the first to compliment employees for their contributions.‍
• Mistake 7. Delay responding to employee ideas. Let the ideas employees submit lay around on a desk or in a drawer collecting dust for weeks or months. If they don't hear management's reaction to their ideas, employees will eventually lose interest in sharing other ideas.