Seasons Greetings

The executive of ideasUK would love to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

A big thank you to all our members who have taken part in the Idea of the Year Award as well as those who have attended our networking meetings and annual conference.

2009 has been a great year and 2010 promises to be just as good if not better!

Our offices in Cardiff will be closed from Wednesday 23th December to Monday 4th Janaury 2010. If you do send anything via e-mail during this time it will be dealt with when we return.

Regards

Andy Beddows,
Chairman

Conference Charity Raffle 2009

Each year, ideasUK holds a charity raffle at its annual awards dinner. This year we the beneficiary for the money raised was Macmillan Cancer Support.

Every year 1 in 3 people are touched in some way by cancer whether that be directly or through a friend or family.

Macmillan are a source of support, helping with all the things that people affected by cancer want and need. It's not only patients who live with cancer, so Macmillan also help carers, families and communities. Macmillan guide people through the system, supporting them every step of the way. They fund nurses and other specialist health care professionals and build cancer care centres. But Macmillan give so much more than medical help.

People need practical support at home, so Macmillan provide anything from some precious time off for a carer, to a lift to hospital. People need emotional support, so they listen, advise and share information though their cancer support specialists, website and trained professionals.

People need financial help to cope with the extra costs cancer can bring, so Macmillan give benefits advice, and grants for anything from heating bills to travel costs. Together they listen, they learn, they act to help people live with cancer.

This year we raised £640.00 through the raffle and Jorn Lovstrom, Vice Chairman or ideasUK is seen here presenting the cheque.

A big thank you to all the organisations who donated a prize this year, without your help we would not be able to support a charity each year.

Yet Another Award for ideasUK Chairman

ideasUK Chairman, Andy Beddows had one more reason to celebrate at the recent ideasUK Conference.

The executive committee had been planning and scheming throughout the conference in preparation for hijacking Andy at the end of the awards ceremony and presenting him with the first ever ideasUK Lifetime achievement award.

After all the awards had taken place, Graham Holt took to the stage and the look of confusion on Andy's face was plain for all to see. After all, Andy had developed the awards night format with the MC for the evening and everything was supposed to be finished.

The look however, turned from confusion to embarrassment has Graham began to explain about the lifetime achievement award and gave a little background to the work that Andy does behind closed doors to ensure ideasUK maintains its position as the worlds leading organisation for Employee Driven Innovation.

After the award was presented it was time for Andy to say a few words and fighting back the tears he managed to thank everyone involved but a special and heartfelt thanks went out to his wife Judith who has supported all the work he has done with ideasUK over the past 10 years.

Speaking after the award, Graham commented ' There is no one more deserving of this award than Andy, he consistently shows that ideasUK flows though is veins and works tirelessly for the association.'

This is the second award that has been presented to Andy this year, during the Ideas Arabia conference in May he was presented with the first International Achievement Award from the Dubai Quality Group.

As a committee, we would like to thank Andy for all his hard work and just mention the fact although he has been given this award, we do expect more of the same in future...........

Conference Feedback

Every now and then you read something that really makes you sit up and take notice.

I would like to share with you some feedback from our recent conference by one of the Idea of the Year Finalists.

I was lucky enough to attend the Ideas UK Conference in Chester, an annual event which brings together organisations from across the world to celebrate innovation, share ideas and reflect upon our experiences as an innovative organisation in challenging times.

Setting off from Bristol at 6.00am full of anticipation, everything was on track until the train grinded to a halt outside Hereford. After an hour, we were advised an incident had closed the line ahead and we would be reverting back to Hereford. It now seemed unlikely we would make the 11.00am start and when confirmed that a coach would be taking us to Shrewsbury (over one and half hours away) so we could reconnect to the rail network I did start to worry. However, a quick call to the organisers soon settled my nerves and at 1.30pm we finally arrived! After a quick change and lunch with Liz Parker (Innovation and Investment Team, LBG) we went straight into a keynote seminar run by Richard Mound, IBM Global Business Services, who talked about innovation and social networking. One of the key messages I took from this was the importance of encouraging colleagues from across the business to get involved in process improvement, whether they’ve been in the company 10 days or 10 years.

Next it was time for my interview with the Ideas UK judges – my idea to streamline payment transfers from closed business accounts to Customer Debt Management was implemented back last year and nominated for an award by the LBG Innovation and Investment Team and then shortlisted by the Ideas UK judges. 10 minutes later, I emerged from the room having felt like I’d done another competency based interview, but I had the International networking supper to look forward to, so no time for dwelling on my performance. We met with representatives from across the world, sharing best practise on idea and information gathering and retired late into the night having been well fed.

The following day we attended two more seminars, one which was run by Andrea Kelly (President of Harris County Hospital, USA) who reinforced the message that we need to listen to our customers and colleagues to unlock the true potential of innovation. The presentation ceremony kicked off after lunch, where certificates were issued for commended and highly commended ideas and finalists were invited to take to the stage for photos. Both myself and Tim Hiscocks (Commercial, Direct Channels – also a finalist in the competition) had our photos taken and then went to get ready for the evening awards ceremony. Entering the dining room at 7.00pm we immediately felt like stars thanks to the Hollywood theme and could not wait for proceedings to begin. Both myself and Tim were entered into the Financial Services category (improving an organisations financial efficiency) and when our names were displayed as finalists we felt really excited. However, the winning entry came from Cyprus Communications so we both congratulated each other on getting to the final and celebrated with some drinks.

However, there were three more awards to present before dinner, including the Private Sector Trophy (for the idea considered to be the best overall from the private sector). There were no finalists for this category and when my name was called out as the winner I couldn’t have been more surprised! After a shaky walk up to the stage I was presented with my certificate and trophy and had my picture taken with the Chairman of Ideas UK, Andy Beddows. As the winning organisation, Lloyds Banking Group also received a trophy and we celebrated our achievement well into the night! Trying to fit two trophies into my case was hard work the following day but they’ve now taken pride of place on my desk as a reminder that innovation can be achieved through the simplest of mediums and make a big impact on customer service.

Special thanks to those who helped make this happen, and of course Liz Parker for nominating me!

Lucy Hardy
Assistant Manager - SBLU


Innovation can touch the hearts of every employee in your organisation. Lucy enjoyed her time at the conference and took a lot away that can be shared within her business unit.

Our 2010 conference will take place in the Holland House Hotel Cardiff on the 10/11 November 2010. Bookings are now being taken so contact us today for more details!!

Another Great Conference, Another Great Idea of the Year Competition

Well that was that, our last conference in Chester for the next few years and what a conference it was!

Although we were down in numbers on previous year's it was still a conference that will be remembered for the sheer quality of speakers. All three keynote speakers were recieved well by all delegates and an interesting question and answer session followed each session.

The workshop sessions were once again excellent and who could forget the 'game' delivered by Diageo toegther with the free samples.

Put simply there was something for everyone this year and the feedback has been very positive.

The Idea of the Year Competition was once again a great Success and a big well done to Kevin Rust from BT for Winning the overall award.

The winners can be viewed in the slideshow below:





If you would like to see more pictures of the awards, they are available in the members room of the website, for access please drop us an e-mail.

A big thank you to everyone who attended and I look forward to seeing you all in Cardiff next year!

Anthony

Other Winners at the conference

As well as the Idea of the Year Award Winners being announced at the conference there are also a number of other awards given.

Accreditation

This year there were SEVEN Accreditation Awards presented

At Platinum Level

Bupa
Commercial Bank of Dubai
HSBC
Identity and Passport Service
Ricoh UK Products Ltd

At Gold Level

Boots

At Silver Level

UK Border Agency



Communication and Marketing Award

There were Two Awards made this year:

HSBC - Gold Level

Commercial Bank of Dubai - Bronze Level





Poster Competition

There were around 30 entries this year in the poster compitition and this was judged by the delegates at the conference.

This year's winner was HSBC, a big well done to you!!



Entries for 2010 open soon so watch this space!!

The Boots Suggestion Scheme

The collection, evaluation and implementation of ideas within the manufacturing areas of the factory buildings at Beeston (Nottingham) and Airdrie (Glasgow) goes back many years although records were only kept from 1986, when individual factory arrangements started to come together as a cohesive suggestion scheme. By 1993 this had been launched as a single scheme into the now familiar format of AIM (All Ideas Matter) on a single in-house software package run centrally from Beeston. The scheme had a ‘traditional’ rewards format with £25 Encouragement Awards, an Intangible Awards scale and Savings Awards (up to £15,000) based on a percentage of first year savings.


Up to 1992 the scheme format was ‘traditional’, with ideas being submitted on paper into a suggestion box. The collection of ideas then evolved with the introduction of ‘fold and post’ forms that use the company’s internal mail. Further technological advances were made possible by the purchase of an off the shelf ideas tracking software package. An in house Intranet Website was then introduced to add to the publicity & promotional options and provide up to date information for evaluators and submitters. This now allows both submitters and evaluators to have direct access to the software for submissions and for decisions on adoption. As a consequence paper usage has dropped considerably. Paper input is steadily being supplanted by on line input to the software database via the Intranet site and contributions via home e-mail.


In 2003 the pressures on the manufacturing areas increased and ‘Lean Manufacturing’ policies were introduced. Management saw that rewards for ideas cut across the way they wanted to effect lean manufacturing and the suggestion scheme was modified to remove most of the cash awards.


Up to this time the retail part of the company, Boots The Chemist, had resisted the introduction of a suggestion scheme. However, 2003 saw the arrival of a new CEO from ASDA who asked for the creation of a Stores Suggestion Scheme. Because at the time the company was downsizing and cutting costs, the scheme was set up without any rewards and rolled out to cover the whole company. Whilst a no reward scheme was well received in the new areas (without any expectation of reward), in the manufacturing departments the scheme died. However, to put this in perspective, at its peak the manufacturing scheme served around 5000 staff which is now little more than 1000 whilst retail staff number in excess of 60,000.


Since 2004 original retail scheme has expanded with the merger with Alliance Unichem and the merger of Boots Opticians with Dolland and Aitchison. Boots already had a strong recognition process, run by HR, and this has allowed AIM to evolve in a wider ideas arena. One of the key tools for our stores is their Intranet (MyStoreNet – MSN). Through this, ideas can be submitted and the opportunity was taken to also handle ‘feedback’ from that same source. The random nature of feedback, that the subjects mirror those of ideas and as we have used the same software has allowed us to exploit synergies to extract more ideas, reduce handling and provide better support for our colleagues most of whom are out in our stores.


The suggestion scheme is open to everyone, employees, contractors & in-house partners (eg IBM) in over 2500 locations, stores, warehouses and our two support offices at Nottingham and Feltham. There is an ongoing evolution of the scheme as it ‘infuses’ itself into the business. Short term projects and development often involve the scheme as a means to get creative input and through this and other activity the profile is kept high.


Whilst manufacturing ideas regularly brought in high tangible savings the nature of the retail environment keeps values low. What has been identified is that the existence of a route for colleagues’ ideas is in itself a major factor in colleague satisfaction. Management also value it as a means to improve communication, safety, working conditions, environmental impact and a greater overall involvement of each employee in the future success of the Company.


The scheme is also a model of low cost. Without rewards or expensive advertising the running costs are low, giving an ROI in excess of 5:1


For nearly 20 years Boots has been a member of ideasUK and has sponsored a trophy in the Annual Ideas Competition. We have notched up successes in poster competitions and ideas competitions and currently sponsor the Customer Service Trophy in the ideas competition. The evolution of the scheme has been done, not in isolation, but with the awareness of other schemes around the world through the association. In effect membership has varied frequently between taking and giving; taking advice and benchmarking with others and then sharing our experience for the benefit of others.


For more information contact:

Andy Beddows

Suggestion Scheme Manager

Boots
D90 East F08
Nottingham
NG90 1BS
0115 959 2653

aim@boots.co.uk

May I Suggest a Suggestion Scheme?

Here is an example of a document put together by a potential member organisation after taking part in an International Ideas Week event and talking to some of our members.

May I Suggest A Suggestion Scheme? - August 2009

This paper discusses staff suggestion schemes and some of the questions and answers gleaned from some research with organisations that currently use such schemes, for example Bupa, Diageo and Boots plus talking to the national charity that helps organisations with schemes, ideasUK.

What is a suggestion scheme?

A suggestion scheme (UK) or ideas programme (Europe/USA) is a mechanism for gathering ideas from employees to improve the business.

Who does it benefit?

If put together well, everyone! It can save the organisation hard money, make its systems and processes better & more cost effective, can make the working environment better and give employees recognition (maybe even reward) for their ideas.

Are there any rules we would need to follow?

Only where money is involved! One ‘unwritten rule’ that has been identified is that whilst you can start a scheme without any financial rewards (and add them later if you want), you cannot start with rewards and then take them away (there is hard evidence that this will kill a scheme). If you do give rewards the Taxman will let you pay so much tax free subject to certain conditions.

Do we need rules for the employees?

Some schemes have very complex rules but opinion seems to support simplicity. We should aim for less than a dozen rules. We could widen the scope in time by including the existing feedback cards as, whilst items submitted as suggestions can sometimes be no more than feedback, feedback can sometimes be a valuable suggestion.

What resource would we need to start a scheme?

With only xxx employees we are unlikely to be inundated with ideas so I believe that we could operate a scheme with the involvement of two people; an existing manager, to oversee the scheme and an existing Admin member of staff to enter idea submissions and progress letters from ideas.

Do we need systems?

Standard Life was recently quoted £xk for a software system and Boots are currently looking at systems between £xk and £xk. To be realistic we should simply put together an Excel spreadsheet to log the progress of each item. Added to this we should develop some standard letters to send: acknowledgement and final closure (used or not used), together with standard emails to send ideas to evaluators. With a little expertise in Word/Excel these letters could be personalised.

What is an evaluator?

We would need to identify some subject specialists to establish idea feasibility:

Process?

The ideas would be sent in via internal letter or email: Suggestion created > Suggestion sent via email > Entered into central database > Letter created for the contributor > Suggestion sent to subject specialists > Suggestion adopted yes/no > Further letter sent to contributor if successful


How do we promote the scheme and collect ideas?

We would promote through locally created posters (ideasUK may help us share from other organisations) and paper forms in staff areas plus the facility for employees to e-mail ideas from work or home to a scheme e-mail address. To help sustain interest in the scheme we could choose certain subject areas over the year (a monthly special every quarter).

Reward and/or recognition?

Certificates or Team Awards
• A good starting point for recognition is the presentation of for ideas that are used. This could also be extended to adopted suggestions receiving a certificate from the Chief Executive and photo put in the news letter.
Cash Reward
• In addition we could consider rewards but these would require a budget.
• Rewards could be a percentage of savings (eg 10% first year), a reward matrix (word description equated to cash) and these can be direct to an individual or into a collective ‘pot’ (‘gain sharing’) for all employees to share.
Prize draw
• All qualified suggestions would go into a hat (so to speak) and each quarter there would be a draw for three high street voucher £50 - £30 - £20

Do we give the scheme a name?

Yes, a name gives it some local ownership. Have a competition to find one or
‘borrow from another organisation: DODGI department of dam good ideas (Body Shop), GEMS (MoD), AIM all ideas matter (Boots), One Life (Bupa), Eureka (Various)

Another suggestion could be to initially launch a suggestion scheme by asking
staff to suggest a name.

Types of suggestion

Suggestions could be categorised
• Health and Safety improvements
• Reducing costs and overheads
• Improving the working environment
• Enhancing the student experience
• Improving customer service
• Improving quality

Value

Engaging with staff and encouraging them to participate would lead to increased staff morale levels and ownership, whilst giving an opportunity of enhancing staff general wellbeing.

CRB EUSA Aug 09

A Little look at Ricoh Products Ltd

The Ricoh Products Limited (RPL) Together Suggestion Scheme is not like most traditional employee suggestion programmes.

It is based on the premise that people really want to improve their work environment and contributions from every employee provide long term continuous improvement.

RPL understands that the employees doing the work are the experts when it comes to improving their process. Suggestions from employees ultimately contribute to the organisation’s profit but more importantly they give a sense of ownership with employees having some control over their destiny.

Also these feelings of ownership and control lead to greater overall employee satisfaction and engagement. The RPL Together Suggestion Scheme is not all about the money saved but aimed more at involving everyone in achieving the long term business objectives.

The key element of the scheme is that it is simple in all aspects from submitting an improvement idea through evaluation to implementation. The responsibility for implementing the ideas, rewarding and recognising the improvement being held at the lowest possible level in the organisation. In this way RPL is able to gain a reasonable number of submissions (2.1 ideas per employee in 2008/2009), high acceptance and implementation rate (77% in 2008/2009).

Every employee in RPL can submit a suggestion, although reward payments for certain management and specialist staff is limited to suggestions outside their scope of responsibility. Suggestions may be submitted by individuals or groups. The process is very simple and available electronically or in paper form.

A one page form is employed to capture all aspects of the improvement idea. A brief explanation of the current situation or problem together with the proposed improvement idea is included. The suggestor is responsible for determining which areas they think would be impacted by their idea. These include not only tangible cost saving but equally cover intangible benefits like productivity, safety, environment and quality improvement. Employees submit their forms to their team leader or scheme representative who will review it and ensure that the idea is understood and that any additional information is included on the form.

The team leader or scheme representative plays a key role in the scheme process. In most cases (80%) the team leader can approve, implement, recognise and reward all suggestions from the team using the RPL “Fast Track” process.

The team leader evaluates & approves all suggestions using a scoring matrix, when a suggestion scores high, the form is automatically processed along the RPL “Specialist Track” where further specialist evaluation is carried out and additional awards are made through an awards evaluation panel. The best ideas are further recognised and rewarded through monthly and annual awards from the RPL Top management.

In summary the RPL Together Suggestion Scheme is designed to be simple, intended for all employees to use, designed to remove barriers common to many suggestion schemes, most of all it creates a mind set that everyone contributes to the overall success and growth of the organisation by providing their ideas. Despite this focus on encouraging the small ideas, the RPL suggestion scheme has provided some significant payback and return on investment.

Although, never the key driver for the scheme, the scheme brought in a profit of over £147,000 to the organisation during 2008/2009.

Rob Bland - Continuous Improvement Manager

10 Great Ways to Crush Creativity

We had an e-mail Newsletter this morning from our good friend Paul Sloane at Destination Innovation it was a great newsletter and I thought I would share one of articles that Paul has highlighted regarding killing creativity in organisation.

Take a look and see what you think

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/management/ten-great-ways-to-crush-creativity.html

A big thank you to Paul for sending this on to us!

Focus on.........Tops Tips from Our Members

Aligning ideas promotions with project resource - Tara Keane, Nationwide Building Society

Evaluator's often reply 'good idea, but we don't have the resources to implement this currently', or 'good idea but we have just completed a project on xxx process, so it's unfortunate timing'. At Nationwide we are trialling an approach which aims to put link our ideas scheme, Brainwaves, with our corporate projects by doing the following:

* Working with the project management department (who run the major projects and programmes in Nationwide) to run Ideas Week promotions with either the top priority projects, or the projects which would most lend themselves to input from employees via Brainwaves.

* Brainwaves has been added to the project procedures, so project managers are encouraged to search for any ideas which may relate to the projects they are working on.

* The Brainwaves team are also working directly with project managers to send them ideas relating to key project topic areas.

Hopefully when people see the benefit of incorporating employee ideas into processes they are already resourced to look at, other project managers are more likely to do this in future.

We have just started this work and will send a further blog update when we get some results.


Tara Keane - Employee Engagement, Nationwide

It's Accreditiation Time again!

Well it is that time of the year again where you should think about applying for the ideasUK Accreditation.

Last year we had four organisations who ac hived the Platinum Level - Bupa, Identity and Passport Service, HSBC and Ricoh. Already this year we have organisations who have applied and these will be assessed in the next few weeks.

Once again for 2009 we will presenting the Accreditation awards at our Gala Awards Dinner on the 12th November 2009.

So what do you have to do to get your programme Accredited?

Well first take a look at the ideasUK toolbox within the members room of the website, within section 7 you will find the areas that we look during the assessment.

Our aim is to keep it simple and give your organisation a good chance of getting to the Bronze or Silver stage. Moving to Gold and Platinum will be more challenging.

What are the benefits of Accreditation?

It may look like an organisation is doing many things right. But they may be doing the wrong things. By visiting our membership we are able to see that you are doing the right things, as well as providing assistance and guidance in improving your scheme further.

Accreditation is also a validation of the programme managers skills, there are times when it is difficult to quantify what you as a manger are doing within the scheme. Gaining Accreditation from ideasUK gives you an external validation of what you are doing and also can give you some tips and techniques to ensure your programme is running the best it can.

So are there any costs?

There is a small cost to your organisation for the Accreditation, please contact us for more details.

Another great blog for you to have a look at!

One of our sponsors for the Idea of the Year award is Institiute of Management Services, while having a little look around thier great site earlier (http://www.ims-productivity.com/) I noticed they have thier own blog which covers all aspects of increasing productivity within organisations.

Take a look at http://blogprod.blogspot.com/ there are some great posts there and some good tips and techniques that you can use within your organisation.

Why not give us some feedback?

We know that we have some regular readers of this blog and would welcome some feedback and ideas on what topics you would like us to cover in the future.

So, please don't be shy, just click on the button below the posts to leave us a comment!

ideasUK Conference 2009

How can you justify coming to a conference like this?

The answer is in two short words, Value and Experience.

Ask your HR people for some examples of external conferences and compare the costs. You will find that ours are second to none for value. It is all done in-house with a keen eye on costs. On your behalf, your Association works closely with a great team at the venue to produce a most cost efficient package.

The whole time from arrival to departure is planned out and even the ‘off duty’ time contributes to the learning & networking aim of the conference. It’s a complete & fully rounded event that gives you value in bulk! Development training doesn’t come any better!

The experience aspect comes at you from all angles. Reflecting ideasUK’s core strategy of being a true member organisation, all those putting the event together are experienced suggestion scheme professionals, so the content reflects the needs of both the organisers and attendees. In addition each year we take on board the changes suggested by our delegates.

What you see is what you get! Two full days of training, insights, networking and a reaffirmation of the core practices used by suggestion scheme / ideas management professionals. Operating in parallel to the conference sessions is the final judging of the Idea of the Year competition, creating opportunities for recognition at all levels.

The Conference & Competition come together on the final night with our prestigious Awards Dinner.

With twenty-two conferences behind us the accent over the years has been on continuous improvement, building on the success of successive years. As befitting an ‘International’ event we will again have speakers and delegates from at least half a dozen countries. Reflecting shrinking global communications, the two days gives unparalleled opportunities to discover how similar issues are worldwide and see the varied responses to them.

Outside of the formal sessions there is a great team to draw on for advice. Our Operations Manager, Anthony Denatale, myself and the Executive members and not forgetting other delegates are all available to discuss any and all issues with you.

Displays will show you what others are doing with their schemes (or let you show others!) and show you what’s current in the gift/reward arena. If you are in the need for new software there will be vendors available to demonstrate and, being amongst your peers you will
most importantly have the chance to talk first hand to users. Critical for most of us is the absence of our own internal support expertise on ideas & recognition management.

Externally as well this is not widely available, so it’s the advice and support of ideasUK, particularly with this event, which provides the greatest injection of new ideas and enthusiasm for your scheme.

Finally, don’t put attending off until next year. Keep that expertise and enthusiasm topped up! And if Chester is a city you have always fancied visiting (and certainly it is one of our nations most attractive) then do attend this year as, after a long and successful association with the venue, we are likely to be elsewhere in 2010.

I look forward to meeting you at Chester in November.

A brochure for the conference can be found here www.ideasuk.com/ideasuk-conferencesp.html

EIA Conference 2009

EIA Conference 2009 a must for anyone involved in ideas management and based in North America.

This year, their conference will be held in Indianapolis, on 30 September and 01 – 02 October. The conference focuses on the essential components providing educational sessions and networking opportunities with peers. The conference showcases the best in idea and innovation programs and offers excellent learning opportunities.

To view the brochure for this conference, please follow this link http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B_xWTcdqKPSENjIzNDFlZWMtNTlhNS00YzM4LWE3OWMtYjQxNGYzZDhmZTY0&hl=en

This is an excellent conference that will be of great use to anybody based in the United States and the speakers this year will take your ideas management skills to the next level.

Happy Retirement to a good friend!!!

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the retirement party of Sally Gardiner this week at Bupa house in London.

I first met Sally at the ideasUK Conference in November 2001 and was instantly hit by her passion for the Bupa ideas and recognition programme. From that first meeting, I went back to the organisation I was employed by full of ideas of on how we could copy Bupa's model. Over the next 8 years Sally was always willing to share her knowledge with anyone who was interested in Employee Engagement and I have pointed many a manager in her direction for advice.

Last year, Sally was awarded a fellowship from ideasUK for all her hard work promoting ideas, innovation and employee engagement. Sally being modest as usual was embarrassed at getting the fellowship but it was fully deserved.

I hope after taking a rest over the next few weeks, Sally will continue to be involved with ideasUK and continue to pass on the knowledge she has to the next generation of Reward and Recognition Managers.

Found another great blogging site today

A news blog to collect ideas from around the world - of where small changes have been made to the public & third sector services that have resulted in big benefits.

Take a look at this site, there are quite a few success stories from the public sector

Communication and Marketing Award 2009

Marketing the suggestion programme is vital to its success and a Marketing Plan should be drawn up identifying how marketing activities will assist with the delivery of the overall Business Plan.

All plans should of course be regularly reviewed, analysed and outcomes reported to management. This award is based on an assessment of your Marketing Plan and the effective communication of your programme.

To enter for this Award you must submit FOUR copies of your Marketing Plan, and all supporting documentation including reviews, outcomes, results and management reports to ideasUK by 31 July 2009.

An independent panel of judges, appointed by the ideasUK Executive Committee, will evaluate submissions based on the above criteria.

All ideasUK Organisational Members are eligible to participate. Entrants must attend the ideasUK Annual Conference 11th & 12th November 2009, where Awards will be presented, and display information relating to their entry for the benefit of Conference delegates (this does not form part of the judging).

Points to consider in your marketing plans:

Executive Summary (Where are we now and how did we arrive here?)

Current situation (include last 12 months of data that supports the description of your current situation e.g. a graph showing current position of suggestions submitted and any fluctuations).

Overview of marketing activity (describe recent activities and their results).

Targeting of specific segments of your organisation or the organisation as a whole

Marketing Strategy and Objectives (Where do we want to be 1, 2 or 3 years time?)

Business Plan - identifying aims and objectives of programme in relation to the organisations strategic plan. (It could be useful to project results that are more than just suggestion scheme related e.g. A strategic direction could be for a company to expand and open up more stores over the next year. One could run a communications campaign that was designed to increase suggestions targeted at this goal.

The expected results would be not just reporting of an increase in suggestion numbers BUT also what effect did those suggestions have on the strategic goal of increasing stores. More stores, less time to get more stores, better and more efficiently run new stores, etc).

Marketing Strategy - identifying the role that marketing will play. (Include any information relative to other areas of the business that you will interact with in your marketing strategy e.g. finance for expenditure approvals, human resource for company wide promotions. Knowledge of and assisting with the delivery of other quality initiatives etc.) Need to show that marketing/communications do not operate in a vacuum.

Marketing Objectives - identifying actions required in next 12 months. (Show any contingencies such as mergers, infusion of capital).

Marketing Plans (How do we intend to get there?)

Identify specific activities and consider what, when, where and how these will be delivered.

For each activity identify – Key tasks, priorities and responsibilities: Targets, timetable and budget implications: Promotional and communication tools to be used: Monitoring and risk assessment, considering external constraints. (Also include any rational of why you chose the specific activities and why you rejected any. e.g. I chose to run a poster campaign because I networked with people from ideasUK who had a similar organisation and was impressed with their results and methods).

Measuring and Reporting (What happened, where are we in relation to our goals? What do we do now?)

The outcomes of the Marketing Plan should be reviewed quarterly in tandem with the Business Plan. Assess how targets have been achieved and what adjustments are necessary to ensure continued success. All activities and outcomes should be included in management reports.

In developing the Marketing Plan it is important to undertake a SWOT analysis to identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It is also essential to consider the needs and expectations of customers (i.e. the people in your organisation who use or have a stake in the suggestion scheme). Be sure to ask them what they want and regularly review.

Why is management support crucial for the success of your ideas programme?

The stronger and more active management support, the stronger and more active the suggestion/recognition scheme becomes.

How can leaders/managers demonstrate support?

Leaders/ managers should be involved in setting goals and targets for the suggestion scheme and ensuring these are communicated within the organisation. The goals and targets for the suggestion scheme should link with those of the organisation.

Involvement in recognition events; actively encouraging employees to participate in the programme, ensuring regular reports on the programme are included in team briefing.

Encouraging a culture, which fosters creativity and innovation, inspire change and recognise and reward people for their efforts.

Ways to gain support for the programme

• Gather benchmarking information – show how successful other organisations are
• Highlight benefits gained from implementing employee ideas – financial and non financial
• Include information about programme in all briefing forums to ensure profile is maintained.
• Include in job specification/requirements
• Evaluation/implementation responsibilities should be included in job requirements and be included in annual appraisal
• Use the ideasUK Toolbox Accreditation in planning and reviewing procedures. Scheme credibility is enhanced by the effective use of business plans with targets, measures etc.
• Report regularly to management on all outcomes of the programme.

International Recognition for ideasUK

His Highness Sheik Ahmad Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority and Chief Executive of Emirates Airlines Group, presented an award to ideasUK Chairman of ideasUK, Andy Beddows, 'In recognition of his significant contribution in the field of suggestion and reward schemes'at the conclusion of the 4th Annual Ideas Arabia International Conference in Dubai.

On stage for the presentation were also Dr. Wafi Dawood, Chairman of Dubai Quality Group (DQG) and AbdulQader Obaid Ali (Dubai World) & Ideas Arabia Chairman.

Other Conferences

29 September - 2 October 2009 sees the 67th Annual Training Conference at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Indianapolis, IN, USA. Attendance for ideasUK members is at EIA member rates; please call the if you are interested in attending

The 23rd ideasUK Annual International Conference, 2009, will be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Chester 11th & 12th November. We look forward to welcoming presenter s, finalists and vendors from around the world to share their knowledge and most importantly their experience to help our delegates in their day job.

For more information of associations around the world log on to www.ideasworldwide.net/

Conference Report Dubai

Our sister association Ideas Arabia held its 4th Annual International Conference in Dubai during April, titled 'Innovation: From Victim to Solution', with local, regional and international participation.



Organized by Ideas Arabia, a Subgroup of Dubai Quality Group (DQG)Dubai Quality Group (DQG). The conference aimed to help organizations to redesign, innovate and suggestions schemes within the constraints of the new economy.



It explored how companies can access the collective ideas generated from various work teams in organisations to design strategies for a more effective economy.
'This year's conference was of special significance because it adopted the principle of innovation as the start point towards an effective and constructive work in organisations.



In a departure from the usual conference format, the morning of the second day was devoted to one large brainstorming exercise involving all the 200 delegates and speakers. The activity was broken into various phases, included input from a team of experts and culminated in groups voting for the best ideas. The whole session proved a practical and enjoyable way to reinforce the reality of innovation as discussed on the previous day by speakers.






Final judging of the Ideas Arabia Idea of the Year took place during the conference and the event concluded with the announcement of the winners in six categories and Idea of the Year. The awards were presented by His Highness Sheik Ahmad Bin Saeed Al Maktoum. Ideas Arabia also inaugurated national and international lifetime achievement awards. The first national recipient was Shawqi Sajwani known for his hard work in the Gulf in the promotion of suggestion and reward schemes. The first international award went to Andy Beddows of ideasUK.

Overall an active, educational and enjoyable conference.

Conference Report Hamburg Germany

The DiB International Conference was held in Hamburg during May and followed its usual pattern of full sessions early Sunday evening and the following two mornings, with the Monday afternoon featuring all the workshops.

New for this conference was a degree of interaction, from a cartoonist highlighting' the points made by opening speakers, innovative graffiti following conference activities and the facility to 'sign up' for the workshops of your choices.

Prior to the workshops delegates were briefed so that after these sessions everyone came together and the workshop presenters summarised the learnings agreed in the session and one of the delegates gave feedback on the session.

There was also the opportunity to meet representatives from Austria, Switzerland and of course Germany and in addition there was an interesting selection of vendors (primarily multilingual software) from the host nation plus a newcomer with software from Finland.

Another high standard event from the DiB Team.

Idea of the Year Award 2009

The closing date for the 2009 competition was 30th April and this year we had 94 entries up from the 90 we had for the 2008 competition.

The standard this year was very high and the judges had a hard time trying to come up with a shortlist to take forward to the conference in November.

After 2 days of being locked in a room together and after much discussion, we have managed to come up with a shortlist of 35 ideas.

These finalists have now been advised and invited to the conference in Chester where the final judging will take place.

To view the shortlist, please copy and paste the link below

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcc3nsqh_30nc56bp87

International Ideas Week 2009

Another great International Ideas Week took place between 11th and 15th May. We held events around the country for both members and non members.

This year we employed a PR company to try and get us some more publicity and overall during the week there were 12 radio interviews carried out. We were hit a little by the MP's expenses taking up most of the available airtime, however we still think it was a success.

International Ideas Week is an ideal opportunity for our members to promote their programmes within the organisation and is also a good opportunity for scheme managers to highlight the positive aspects of innovation within the business.

A big thanks you to, Tom Dupre, Alan Firmin, Stuart Laws, Graham Holt, Lesley Sanderson and Sarah Fechner for taking time out during the week to help us with presentations.

A copy of the presentations are below.











To download the presentations, first click on the menu button then click on the presentation title and you will be offered a number of download formats.

Public Sector Networking Event

On the 30th April, we held our first Public Sector / Local Authority networking event in Birmingham. We had speakers from the Identity and Passport Service as well as The District of Easington Council.

The day was spent looking at the different aspects of managing a suggestion scheme and there were group exercises around evaluation and marketing a programme within organisations.

This will now be a regular event and the next event will take place in October / November 2009. A big thank you to Sarah and Bristol City Council and Bev of North Norfolk Council for you help in organising the event.

The presentations from the event can be found here :-
















To download these presentations, just click on menu and then the presentation title where you will be presented with a number of format options.