Corporate suggestion system: great impact through idea management

What is a company suggestion scheme?

BVW is a structured process through which employees submit their suggestions for improvements in work processes, quality, safety, collaboration, customer service or costs. In essence, it's about two things:

1. Remove hurdlesso that proposals can be submitted easily.
2. Create reliabilityso that proposals are seriously examined and decisions are made in a comprehensible manner.

A successful BVW is therefore an important link between daily experience in the value chain and the organizational ability to actually implement changes.

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That is why a suggestion system is (almost) always worthwhile

In many organizations, the best ideas for improvement have already been there — they are only distributed across people, teams and locations. In addition, many standards require companies to involve their employees in continuous improvement. A well-implemented corporate suggestion system meets these requirements and at the same time makes knowledge usable for:

• Quality and error prevention — small process adjustments prevent repetitive errors and rework.
• Efficiency and turnaround times — unnecessary waiting times, search times, reconciliations and slow response speeds in everyday life become visible.
• Work safety and ergonomics — Employees often see risks earlier than any inspection.
• employee retention — Anyone who realizes that their own ideas have an impact identifies more strongly with their workplace.
• cooperation — Suggestions often reveal interface problems and create an opportunity to solve them together.
• sustainability — The use of materials, energy consumption and waste can be significantly reduced.

What is important is that the benefits do not come from collecting ideas, but from high-quality implementation and consistent feedback.

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Typical stumbling blocks and how to avoid them

Many suggestion systems start off motivated and then run into the void in the long term. The reasons for this are usually very similar:

• The response is late or never.
  
  • If employees don't hear anything for weeks, they quickly get the impression: “That's no use. ” Better: direct feedback on the next steps.
• Responsibilities are unclear.
  
  • If no one is responsible for the audit, suggestions go round and round. Better: clear roles for coordination, professional evaluation, decision and implementation.
• The decisions are incomprehensible.
  
  • Frustrate rejected ideas without any feedback Better: short, respectful and comprehensible reasons.
• A reward system provides false incentives.
  
  • When premiums depend only on savings, this invalidates ideas about safety, quality or culture. Better: Think about recognition more broadly and consider visibility, thanks, small bonuses, team budgets or implementation participation, for example.
    
• The formal hurdles are too high.
  
  • Long forms or complicated tools reduce the submission rate. Better: Integrate the suggestion system into an existing tool and keep the form as simple as possible.

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This is what a pragmatic BVW process can look like

A functioning suggestion system requires a clear process. What he doesn't need is bureaucracy. A proven minimal process consists of five steps:

1. Step: submit

→ short and low-threshold: observation, idea, expected benefit, optionally a photo or a sketch

2. Step: View and categorize

→ e.g. for safety, quality, costs, time, customers, cooperation,...

3. Step: evaluate

→ professionally and economically, but also in terms of risk, feasibility, resources and dependencies

4. Step: Decide and provide feedback

→ implement, postpone with a specific deadline or reject with reasons — feedback is mandatory

5. Step: Implement and learn

→ Who implements briefly documents results and effects and makes successes visible

An additional success factor: quickly implement small improvements as so-called “quick wins”. This increases the credibility of the system.

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Real involvement for real improvement

A BVW is strong when it reliably delivers three things: simplicity, speed and fairness. It not only collects ideas, but creates a culture in which ideas become decisions and decisions become visible improvements. This requires leadership that actively enables participation and sends a clear signal: Your experience counts — even when you address grievances. This is a prerequisite for continuous improvement.

If employees feel that their suggestions are being taken seriously, the result is exactly what many organizations are looking for: participation, personal responsibility and continuous improvement in everyday working life.

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