Implementing an Employee Involvement Program Through an Innovation Competition

Abstract

In the entrepreneurial and corporate world of the twenty-first century, globalization has forced organizations to find ways to stay at the competitive edge by becoming more solid and strong. Organizations must understand that being globally recognized is not limited to standard logos and uniformity of corporate practices around the world. To stay competitive, the organization must be dynamic in getting into new markets, developing new products, processes or services and improving existent ones. It is on these areas that it must be especially innovative to get advantage over its competitors. Moving in this direction, many organizations have recognized that the clue to innovation is employee involvement; an involvement that translates into assertive corporate decisions, new products, services and is not limited to exclusive groups in R&D. This paper intends to design an employee involvement program in the form of an employee idea competition with the intention of being implemented in an actual worksite. The model pursues to take employee involvement a step further from the traditional employee suggestion boxes, requiring employees not only to come forward with ideas but also to defend and demonstrate their feasibility. Beyond increased bottom-line employee involvement, the program also creates an atmosphere of involvement among interdisciplinary groups in management who will be in charge of evaluating and approving ideas. The design of such program is preceded by a literature overview of the reasons for supporting employee involvement programs, the main requirements for sustaining them and of the different forms of employee involvement used by organizations.