{"id":10844,"date":"2012-10-12T05:46:04","date_gmt":"2012-10-12T11:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/?p=10844"},"modified":"2014-11-17T23:06:02","modified_gmt":"2014-11-18T04:06:02","slug":"employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/","title":{"rendered":"Employee Suggestion Program: The 4 Questions You Need To Ask"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"a296a24fa2fc69ef5487857f02f111e8\" data-index=\"9\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Single Post readerboard -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:728px;height:90px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-8207522353004717\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1144967431\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>This post is part of a series on Employee Suggestion Programs within the context of continuous improvement or <a title=\"what is lean?\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/about-peter-abilla\/what-is-lean\/\">lean manufacturing<\/a>. In previous posts, I covered the following:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><a title=\"how to design an employee suggestion program\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/suggestion-box-employee-kaizen-ideas\/9825\/\">What is an Employee Suggestion Program and its Goals?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"suggestion form box template\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-how-to-create-idea-submission-form\/10260\/\">Suggestion Form Template Design<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>And today, I&#8217;ll address how to Manage Idea Generation by proposing 4 major questions to ask that will provide a good overall guide for assessing the health of your suggestion program.<\/p>\n<p>As you design or are thinking about your current Employee Suggestion Program, ask these questions:<\/p>\n<p>Our suggestion program. . .<\/p>\n<h2>1. Can handle ___ incoming suggestions per month<\/h2>\n<p>Think about the volume of incoming suggestions that will come from your employees. If there are not proper self-selection criteria built into the suggestion form itself, you will find the volume of incoming suggestions to be very overwhelming. When this happens, morale will wane and support will decrease or altogether go away for the program. So, be thoughtful about how you will manage the incoming number of suggestions.<\/p>\n<h2>2. With a response time of ___ days<\/h2>\n<p>This question is related to the first. We all know from <a title=\"queuing theory\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/queueing-theory\/\">Queueing Theory<\/a> and <a title=\"john little and little's law\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/littles-law\/8035\/\">Little&#8217;s Law<\/a> that the length of the line is a function of both cycle time and inter-arrival rate of the incoming suggestion cards. In other words,<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cycle Time: The time it takes for management to respond to the suggestion.<\/li>\n<li>Inter-arrival Rate: The rate at which incoming suggestion cards enter the system.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>If this queue is not managed, you will find your employee suggestion program headed toward failure. This is why it is so important to have built-in self-selection at the employee form so that the incoming cards are not overwhelming, leading to delays in response time and eventually breaking down trust with your employees.<\/div>\n<h2>3. And an implementation of ___% within ___ days<\/h2>\n<p>This is related to question 2. Except, the difference here is not about responding to the employee that provided the suggestion, but it is in the implementation of the suggestion itself.<\/p>\n<h2>4. With a total annual savings of ___ or ___ per person per year<\/h2>\n<p>While this is not a criteria of selection, this question is more focused on the results. In some instances, the employee suggestion will center on cost savings. But this will differ in context and in the goals of the enterprise.<\/p>\n<h2>5. or ___ number of new products were developed generating ___ in revenue<\/h2>\n<p>For other firms, some suggestion cards will lead to the possible development of new products.<\/p>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post is part of a series on Employee Suggestion Programs within the context of continuous improvement or lean manufacturing. In previous posts, I covered the following: What is an Employee Suggestion Program and its Goals? Suggestion Form Template Design And today, I&#8217;ll address how to Manage Idea Generation by proposing 4 major questions to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12327,"featured_media":10845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Employee Suggestion Program | How to Design a Suggestion Scheme<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Employee Suggestion Programs are an important part of the health of a company. This article is detailed and shows you how to develop one for your company.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Employee Suggestion Program | How to Design a Suggestion Scheme\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Employee Suggestion Programs are an important part of the health of a company. This article is detailed and shows you how to develop one for your company.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"OpEx Learning\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/get.shmula\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-10-12T11:46:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-11-18T04:06:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/employee-suggestion-program-download.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"399\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"331\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Uday Kawar\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@shmula\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@shmula\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Uday Kawar\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/\",\"name\":\"Employee Suggestion Program | How to Design a Suggestion Scheme\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/employee-suggestion-program-download.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-10-12T11:46:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-11-18T04:06:02+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/#\/schema\/person\/9335b5223b67189b35bda7d6be11c3fd\"},\"description\":\"Employee Suggestion Programs are an important part of the health of a company. This article is detailed and shows you how to develop one for your company.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/employee-suggestion-program-download.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/employee-suggestion-program-download.jpg\",\"width\":399,\"height\":331,\"caption\":\"employee suggestion program, download\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Lean Manufacturing\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/lean\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Employee Suggestion Program: The 4 Questions You Need To Ask\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/\",\"name\":\"OpEx Learning\",\"description\":\"Lean Six Sigma. Simplified.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/#\/schema\/person\/9335b5223b67189b35bda7d6be11c3fd\",\"name\":\"Uday Kawar\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Employee Suggestion Program | How to Design a Suggestion Scheme","description":"Employee Suggestion Programs are an important part of the health of a company. This article is detailed and shows you how to develop one for your company.","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Employee Suggestion Program | How to Design a Suggestion Scheme","og_description":"Employee Suggestion Programs are an important part of the health of a company. This article is detailed and shows you how to develop one for your company.","og_url":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/","og_site_name":"OpEx Learning","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/get.shmula","article_published_time":"2012-10-12T11:46:04+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-11-18T04:06:02+00:00","og_image":[{"width":399,"height":331,"url":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/employee-suggestion-program-download.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Uday Kawar","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@shmula","twitter_site":"@shmula","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Uday Kawar","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/","url":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/","name":"Employee Suggestion Program | How to Design a Suggestion Scheme","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/employee-suggestion-program-download.jpg","datePublished":"2012-10-12T11:46:04+00:00","dateModified":"2014-11-18T04:06:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/#\/schema\/person\/9335b5223b67189b35bda7d6be11c3fd"},"description":"Employee Suggestion Programs are an important part of the health of a company. This article is detailed and shows you how to develop one for your company.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/employee-suggestion-program-download.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/employee-suggestion-program-download.jpg","width":399,"height":331,"caption":"employee suggestion program, download"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/employee-suggestion-program-the-4-questions-you-need-to-ask\/10844\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Lean Manufacturing","item":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/lean\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Employee Suggestion Program: The 4 Questions You Need To Ask"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/#website","url":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/","name":"OpEx Learning","description":"Lean Six Sigma. Simplified.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/#\/schema\/person\/9335b5223b67189b35bda7d6be11c3fd","name":"Uday Kawar"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10844"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12327"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}