Improve the Improvments

[lostcarpark]

At work we have an "Employee Suggestion Programme" called "Thinking Caps". However for the next coupld of weeks they are having a special promotion, with a draw at the end for TVs and DVDs. The theme of the promotion? Improving the "Thinking Caps Programme".

I quote:

• Suggested themes for new promotions


• Suggestions for improving the participation rate - Focus Groups? Training Courses? Teams? Other Ideas?


• Suggestions to improve the Thinking Caps intranet site?


• Suggestions to improve the quality of submissions


• Suggestions to improve the evaluation process


• Suggestions for better promotion of the programme


• Suggestions arising from your previous experience of such programmes elsewhere

How recursive is that?

I wonder if the promotion came about because someone suggested it.

Incidently, I submitted about ten ideas over the course of a year. The only one that was accepted was a suggestion to improve the "Thinking Caps" intranet site (which, as far as I can tell, hasn't been implemented yet).

Comments

[wag-9393.livejournal.com]

which, as far as I can tell, hasn't been implemented yet).
Yes it has. They've asked people how to do it :-/

[etherealfionna.livejournal.com]

*cringe*

I hate those things, especially the sickeningly cutesy names they give to it. Our version is "idea!", exclamation mark mandatory.

Having said that, when I was at Lucent a lot of my suggestions were taken into use - although they usually managed to miss the entire point of the suggestion when they implemented it.

[lostcarpark.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking of suggesting they order 2H pencils instead of HB pencils from now on as a cost-saving measure. They cost the same, but the harder lead lasts longer.

Okay, I nicked that one from Dilbert.

[davidstewart.livejournal.com]

It actually goes back even further. In the 1970s in the book 'Up The Organisation' the author, whose name I forget, told of how the accounts department at a compnay insisted that everyone, including marketing, switch from HB pencils to 2H. The artis in marketing of course didn't want to work with 2H so they went out and bought their own HB pencils. The accounts department saw the massive reduction in spending on pencils and claimed their policy had been a major success.