Three Ways to Build Innovation Into a Day's Work (WSJ)

Three Ways to Build Innovation Into a Day's Work

By SIMONA COVEL

Game-changing ideas may abound at your workplace – in the minds of your employees. The hard part is figuring out how to tap into those ideas and make creativity part of the daily routine.

But regularly harnessing your staff's brainpower can provide an important edge to small businesses competing against larger competitors with bigger budgets and deeper resources.

Here are three ways small companies have figured out how to make the most of employee contributions.

1. Awards and Recognition

Allison De Meulder wanted to hear new ideas from employees at her online custom-invitation store. Her staff of 24 rarely made suggestions, but she had a feeling they had more to offer than they were letting on. "People don't always feel comfortable coming into my office," she says.

Ms. De Meulder, who is president of Tampa, Fla.-based Invitation Consultants Inc., bought a white mailbox and installed it in a central spot in the office.

Employees are encouraged to drop in new ideas and lift the red mailbox flag. Once a quarter, Ms. De Meulder and her husband, Olivier De Meulder, the company's vice president, select a winner from as many as 30 ideas. They host a catered lunch and read the top three aloud. The winner is awarded $500 cash and a sculpture resembling a glass-encased electric-blue light bulb.

"I really wanted to do something to motivate people," Ms. De Meulder says. "People are motivated by recognition."

A recent winning entry came from a graphic designer, who pointed out that free photo touch-ups on wedding and graduation announcements can consume a lot of time and energy. The new idea: Charge a few dollars for labor-intensive work, such as removing objects from a background. As a result, Ms. De Meulder says, the company made an extra "couple thousand dollars" during the recent graduation season.

Another recent winner: A vendor-relations manager suggested that brides shopping for wedding invitations should be able to save favorites and send a poll to family and friends, who can vote for their choice. That poll could be landing in the inboxes of other future brides who will need their own invitations one day. Attached to each poll is a coupon code to help drive new business.

Not every idea works. One winning suggestion proposed drop-down menus for customers searching for invitations, a tool that proved too unwieldy to implement. Despite spending fruitless time on that project, Ms. De Meulder says, "I don't give guidelines. I want free-flowing creativity."

2. Required Suggestions

When Talia Mashiach co-founded Eved Services Inc. four years ago, she instituted weekly company-wide think-tank meetings. As her event-services company grew – it now has 27 employees, most scattered at several hotels around Chicago -- meeting weekly proved impossible. Last year, it moved to a monthly meeting. There, each of the company's five teams – grouped by hotel client, plus a support-staff team– is required to present three new ideas. Some ideas are embraced on the spot; others are studied by executives in the following weeks.

Among the ideas adopted: Instead of staff working at hotels wearing their own choice of business attire, they all now wear a black suit with a black or white shirt, along with a lapel pin bearing the company logo.

"It's been a game-changer," Ms. Mashiach says. "Hotel clients talk about it. They say it creates a professional image."

Last year, an employee suggested reaching out to third-party meeting planners who work with corporate clients. Eved had been concentrating on hotels, but now works with 10 such event planners. Ms. Mashiach estimates those connections will bring as much as 25% of its anticipated $10 million revenue this year.

With the constant flow of ideas, Ms. Mashiach says she has to be careful not to discourage people when their suggestions aren't implemented – and to encourage them to keep trying. Some employees may approach her to complain that an idea wasn't adopted, "which is something we watch carefully," she says. "If they don't get the sense you're listening, it won't last," she says.

Those who see their ideas implemented are rewarded with stars, which also are awarded for other performance-related accomplishments. Each year, the top three star earners are rewarded with lunch with the executive team.

3. Online Document Sharing

The test-prep and subject tutors at C2 Educational Systems Inc. rely on stacks and stacks of books and manuals. A few years ago, when they discovered a teaching tool, or a mistake in a book, they'd fire off emails to the Duluth, Ga., company's headquarters, where curriculum staff struggled to stay on top of the suggestions.

"When we had five centers, it was doable," says C2 chief executive David Kim. Today, C2 Education has 110 centers and 440 tutors. "As we grew, it was harder to keep track."

Three years ago, Mr. Kim began posting teaching materials in Google Docs – a free online service that allows people to create, share and jointly edit documents. He and other employees encouraged tutors around the country log in to the tool to check for new resources and share their thoughts about books, classroom activities and teaching tips. Tutors can also post new materials they've found useful.

C2 tutors can log on and add teaching suggestions and other comments from anywhere. Google tracks changes and saves previous versions of the document.

While some of the updates are nuts-and-bolts suggestions -- better ways to teach fractions, for example -- others have the potential to invigorate the business. At the prompting of a tutor who said parents wanted their children to learn persuasive-writing skills, the company posted a teaching document to its Google Docs page. Tutors downloaded it over and over again, and continually made updates and suggestions. One suggestion: Start a formal debate class.

In May, the company rolled out the debate classes at 24 C2 centers. Parents pay $45 and up per hour for their children to attend. The classes are now bringing in about 10% of C2's revenues.

"Parents thought it was a huge benefit to their children, to further those debate-and-writing skills," says Mr. Kim.

Mr. Kim would like to move from Google Docs to a more sophisticated proprietary system, but so far he hasn't found the time or the money. Another potential problem: The more-innovative suggestions tapered off recently, and the majority of new posts are errors in test-prep books and other routine comments.

"We'd like to get some of that rah-rah spirit back," he says. He's considering compensating employees for the best new ideas.