It’s tough to make sure your company doesn’t fall into a rut. Your employees show up for work. They do their jobs well. They leave for the night. They come in the next day and do it all over again. This is particularly true for your employees working on the factory floor. They have a job to do, and they’re typically focused on making that happen. They’re not usually the individuals you turn to for innovative ideas to help your business become faster, smarter, or stronger. But, maybe they should be. After all, they might have that one idea that could make things move better, save you money, or amp up your profits. How can you encourage that innovation? Here are a few tips that might help.

• Make sure you have a way to capture ideas. Offer suggestion boxes or have regular meetings to capture those ideas. Maybe you could even have a debriefing session after each shift. Imagine, for a moment, you had that debriefing meeting at the end of third shift. Perhaps Joe had spent the entire shift thinking about how you could improve your static mixing capabilities. That one idea may prove incredibly useful for everyone on third shift, but without a way to tell you about it, Joe may never have mentioned it to your management.
• Encourage experimentation. If you penalize employees who are ready to try those new ideas that could revolutionize what you do, you’re only going to discourage additional epiphanies.
• Reward innovation. If Joe does report that big idea to your management, he should get a serious reward. That might encourage anyone else on third shift to start thinking creatively about their positions too. Perhaps an inline steam heater might change the way section 7 is working. If Mike knows Joe was rewarded, he’s going to be more willing to let you know what he’s thinking so he can tap into that same reward, and the bonus is that your company is the real winner in the equation.

Innovation has to be at the core of every business today to survive, and encouraging innovation among all of your employees, even those on the ground, will help your business move forward faster.

To learn more about the products we have that match Joe’s idea or Mike’s epiphany, contact us today.