Process Improvement and undervalued resources

Process improvement is something every company says they want, but few are willing to do anything about suggestions that might actually improve processes. Hard thing to believe, but it's pretty simple, really. Think of it this way... you've spent years working at a company, and haven't come up with any wonderful ideas. Then this person comes in and suggests something that might improve the company. That's a rather hard pill to swallow, but what management needs to understand is that a fresh vision is sometimes what is needed to improve the company. It's never a guarantee, but it can help.

All this idea of process improvement goes back to the second point I want to make: undervalued resources. The biggest undervalued resource in most companies is the same thing: people. People are by and large the most undervalued asset in a company. In one of the companies I work with, there are 700+ employees, yet those employees are treated pretty much like dirt. They are seen as a replaceable cogs. Hate to break it to that company, but those cogs have a wide range of experiences that produce different ideas in different areas. But if you don't encourage process improvement, then those employees feel their time is wasted. If they think their time is wasted, then they won't even attempt to try and improve anything. From the perspective of the individual, what difference does it make?

So what can a company do? To that, I'm not sure. The age old idea of the suggestion box isn't a bad idea, but it needs improved. I would suggest leaving some sort of contact method for any produced ideas. That way, regardless of whether the idea is adopted or not, management can let the employee know that they actually looked at the suggestion. Combine that with a reason the idea was or was not adopted, and you've got something that encourages employees to actually suggest things. There needs to be two way conversation if a company actually wants to improve their processes. If the conversation is one way, then there will be no future suggestions. Lack of a response will discourage future suggestions. If there is no response from a suggestion box, it might as well be a trash can.