Innovation Through Employee Ideas

Let me ask you a question.

How are you going to meet the new challenges we are facing now with healthcare reform?

One powerful strategy that’s often not considered is innovation through employee ideas.

That is, creating an open and creative environment where ideas are listened to and implemented.

Let me share a story with you.

It was 1992. Martin Edelston, CEO of Boardroom, Inc, invited Peter Drucker, the management guru for Day of Consulting into his company. He had no specific goals in mind for the day. He simply thought Drucker might be able to give him some interesting insights and indeed he did.

Drucker found that most of the people he met were frustrated by the amount of time they were wasting in unproductive meetings. Drucker provided a simple suggestion. “Anyone who comes to a meeting should be prepared to give an idea for making his or her work more productive or enhancing the company as a whole in some way.”

Edelston liked the idea and decided to try it. The success of the strategy was enormous. Boardroom went from a high turnover rate, very high absenteeism and not a lot of business to personal turnover plummeting to zero and absenteeism dropping very sharply too, all in just a few short years. Boardroom’s revenue soared by a multiple of five within three years with a substantial increase in their profit margin.

So, what does this all mean?

Every person in your hospital has an endless supply of ideas, especially ones to improve their workplace. Click To Tweet

Every week, every employee should answer two questions.

What can I do to improve my work area?

What could others do that would cause my work area to improve?

It’s simple, brilliant and easy to do.

Here’s another strategy. Have everyone at a department come up with three ideas that will, one, generate revenue, two, save money and three, improve productivity.

At least 70% of corporate assets are inside the heads of people who work there. And, often, they want to share these ideas and be a part of the solution. We just need to ask them and be willing to set up a system that encourages employee suggestions which are then carefully considered and examined for implementation.

VIE Healthcare has created an interactive workshop and process we call EXCITE, which stands for Executional Excellence in Cost Improvements for Teams and Employees. Click here to learn more.

What are you doing to promote employee engagement for cost savings and performance improvements in your workplace? Let me know in the comment section below.