8 steps to employee led improvement

Close to your customers and knowledgeable about your day-to-day operations, your staff are easily the best people to come up with business improvements that add value yet are workable and realistic. Engaging with them in a focussed way could open up a raft of opportunities for your organisation. Follow our '8 steps to employee led improvement' to achieve tangible results…

White Paper - Why people led improvement strengthens your business from inside out
Download this document to find out more about achieving successful employee led improvement

Challenge - Focus your employees on important business issues

Rather than a 'light touch' approach to asking for ideas, use your strategy as the driver for employee led improvement. Senior management should lead from the top and start by asking: we need to improve in X area, do you have any suggestions? This approach ensures that employee efforts are aligned to the key focuses of the business. It also means subsequent ideas have a pre-defined owner - key for selection and delivery.

Capture - Find the best people to help you solve your challenge

Seek out the groups of people in your business that are best suited to helping you solve the identified issues. This could be the whole business - or it might be one subset or more. Then ensure these groups have the facility to contribute and track the progress of their suggestions throughout their life-cycle.

Share - Increase awareness of the idea and it's opportunity

Create a culture of innovation; an atmosphere in which ideas are clearly visible and always available to be discussed and refined. Enabling staff to see ideas being debated raises everybody's awareness of the potential for improvement within the business - and keeps momentum going.

Qualify - Ask people to rate and comment on ideas

Hearing what staff 'at the coalface' have to say about whether an idea is feasible or not, or how a potential idea might be improved, is an invaluable part of the employee led improvement process. A part that we call 'sifting and shaping.' This is where you draw on a comprehensive body of knowledge from people who understand what is workable and realistic - and use their feedback to understand which ideas are worth pursuing.

Evaluate - Test the ideas for feasibility, affordability and results

This is where the improvements move to the next level of detail – scoping out and the development of a strong business case. But don't be too hasty to throw away ideas that don't pass the evaluation stage… Market change and economic transformation can suddenly turn an idea that was 'not viable' to 'exactly what we need.' Use this step to start building an 'innovation bank' for the future.

Select - Choose the right ideas for implementation

You have tested the ideas for viability and business benefits. You have stored those 'not for now' in your innovation bank. Now is the time to carefully choose which initiatives offer the greatest return on investment, given your resources and strategic needs, and move forward.

Deliver - Turning a vision into reality

Delivery is often the stage where great innovation can fall flat. To avoid projects failing to deliver, give each idea a clear owner who has agreed objectives and is well placed to manage the change through on time and on budget. If your firm deploys best practice approaches such as Six Sigma DMAIC, these could help you manage the project and stay on track.

Measure - Record the benefits achieved and recognise success

Understanding and recording the benefits of implemented ideas is a critical part of employee led innovation. Employees take part because they care about the business and the impact of their contribution, so do their efforts justice by recording improvements, sharing where appropriate and recognising their success. Use what you discover at this stage to inform the whole process and make better decisions in the future.

White Paper - Why people led improvement strengthens your business from inside out
Download this document to find out more about achieving successful employee led improvement

To find out how TalkFreely can help your business, please call us now on 0845 050 8444.