NFIB

Send Your Employees on a Shopping Expedition
03/ 14/ 2002

Employee suggestion systems have long been a way to improve internal operations. To give employees a completely new angle upon which they can base their suggestions, send them on a shopping expedition to businesses that are similar to yours. In today's Workshop, Jeffrey Moses explains how to simultaneously open your employees' eyes to a new way of doing business and gain a handful of great new ideas for your own company.

Employees too often work within a self-enclosed bubble. They know their tasks inside and out, but when they don't have new inspiration, there's no way for them to infuse fresh, creative ideas into their work. To give them some stimulation, allow them an hour or two off (don't send all your employees at once, of course) and have them visit different types of businesses that are similar to yours (such as retail and service businesses).

What do you expect them to learn? Hopefully, something unexpected. Your employees, who are experts at what they do, will glean tidbits here and there that could be applied to their own work. During even a brief visit they might see a number of things that could be applied to your company: streamlining work flow, making organization easier, improving customer service or ways to cut costs.

To get the plan underway, set up a brief meeting at which you inform key employees of your strategy. If possible, allot some money for this research and allow your employees to actually make purchases. When this isn't possible, have them simply ask for information about products or services. Tell them that you hope their expert status will enable them to spot anything that is done differently from the way it is done at your company. This could include things that are done better or not as well. Everything and anything could, conceivably, be educational. If some of your employees are particularly bold, they may even consider visiting your direct competitors to see how they handle operations.

If you have receptionists, for example, send them out one-by-one or two-by-two and let them see firsthand how other receptionists operate. Before your receptionists leave, you might want them to draw up a list of specific things they'll be looking for: friendliness, professionalism, knowledgeability, scope of responsibility, degree of authority to solve specific problems.

Your sales staff, in particular, can benefit from shopping other businesses with the specific purpose of learning how to improve their own sales efficiency. Encourage them to ask specific questions. This will allow them to learn as much as possible about a company's entire system.

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