A ‘Big Ideas’ initiative combined with a complementary scheme to reward innovation has resulted in staff engagement and productivity leaping at Speedy Services.
The Merseyside-based company, which provides equipment and support services to the construction, manufacturing, industrial, rail and other related industries, introduced its ‘Big Ideas’ programme towards the end of 2008.
The move means that its 3,500 personnel can now submit ideas about how business processes might be improved and how ways of working could be changed in order to make them more efficient. Suggestions for new products or how to enhance existing ones can also be provided via the corporate intranet, email or a hard copy document for those workers without online access.
Steve McIntyre, Speedy Services’ group marketing director, said: “The idea was to try and engage staff and recognise that you don’t want people hanging their brains up when they get to work. We were trying to get engagement throughout the entire structure because we understand that people on the frontline know their own job better than anyone.”
Once ideas are submitted, they are then filtered and prioritised by the business and customer excellence department, which focuses on process improvement. It also passes any product-related ideas on to a new products group, which has been set up to explore how to implement more innovative and sustainable practices within the supply chain.
Above and beyond
Any ideas implemented within the business lead to a £50 cash prize for the person who came up with them and the individual concerned may also subsequently find themselves entered into a wider rewards system.
Rolling ‘Red Letter Day’ awards are given to workers considered by managers to have gone above and beyond the call of duty and a management committee votes on an overall winner, who is recognised at the firm’s annual ‘AllStar Awards’ event.
Finalists are provided with a trophy and a £500 cash reward and their photograph is put up around the business to highlight their achievements. Employees themselves also vote for the winner of an ‘Unsung Hero’ award, which last year went to Speedy’s receptionist for always going the extra mile.
While the concept of the ‘Big Ideas’ initiative first emerged from a management discussion, it was the company’s HR director, Duncan Lawrence, who came up with the idea of tying it into a rewards structure following an internal survey, which showed that Speedy did not score well on staff recognition activity.
But McIntyre says: “My advice to HR would be, be careful to set out guidelines for awards’ criteria. What one manager believes is above and beyond the call of duty may be business-as-usual to another, so policies need to be crafted carefully to avoid any suggestion of bias.”
Communication
He likewise advises putting a communications programme in place using as many channels as possible when introducing an ideas’ scheme in order to ensure that workers are not only aware of it, but also choose to engage with it.
“You can’t just send out an email and hope that people will get involved. You need to get them talking about it. So managers have a large responsibility around cascading information and you have to get it on the agenda for both management and team meetings,” McIntyre says.
Another key consideration is to “drive for early wins and then publicise them so that people can say it really does pay out,” he adds.
Examples of ideas that have been implemented at the company to date include introducing movement sensors, which turn off the lights across its 350 depots when no one is around, saving it a lot of money.
Another is operating waterless urinals. “It’s a small thing that you wouldn’t necessarily think of doing, but reducing water consumption has cut costs and the odour is more pleasant than with water,” McIntyre says.
Recognition for input
The next step, meanwhile, will be to introduce a targeted ‘Big Ideas’ campaign around Speedy’s OnePlan initiative in order to generate feedback about how operations can be made more sustainable and environmentally-friendly.
Potential rewards for the best input here include a stay at the greenest hotel in Europe and/or a visit to Mauritius as it is deemed the most likely island to disappear if nothing is done to tackle global warming. “It’s about trying to connect the themes together so that staff can join the dots,” says McIntyre.
Ultimately, however, he is more than satisfied that the ‘Big Ideas’ initiative has met expectations. “It’s increased engagement and morale and understanding of the Speedy spirit, which involves putting the customer first. But it’s also been about becoming a more efficient organisation as the people who are best qualified to tune the business and make it better have been helping to do so,” McIntyre concludes.
As an addendum, Speedy Services’ activities have, in turn, been recognised by mobile phone provider Orange, which has included a tip from the firm in its newly published innovation guide.
The tip, courtesy of McIntyre, is: “We have annual awards that help us address our core business areas. We give out cash prizes to celebrate and recognise individuals that have come up with ideas, which make the business more efficient. By having a centralised initiative in place, they know we are serious about innovation and that they will be rewarded if they go the extra mile.”
