20th January 2020
2020: The Year of the Employee Idea: David D’Souza – CIPD
This content was taken from our latest eBook: ‘2020: The Year of the Employee Idea: Employee Ideas from our global Engagement 101 Influencers’. To download the eBook in full. simply click here.
David D’Souza
Membership Director
CIPD
The best employee idea I have heard a rumour of was a Canadian organisation struggling with high numbers of applicants for roles. I could never confirm the truth of it, but I loved the idea to bits. Sometimes rumours are the most enticing things…
Candidate experience is always a tricky thing to solve for and the organisation had the common problem that they weren’t able to give feedback as full as they would like to candidates they didn’t take forward. They had thousands of applications but they didn’t have the systems or resources to have personal contact with that many people. So they asked people for ideas on what they might do and they ended up with a really inventive solution from an employee.
Candidates that weren’t taken forward received an apology that they wouldn’t get in-depth feedback – but also confirmation that a small donation had been made to a charity that provided micro-loans for start-up organisations in developing nations. ‘We appreciate your time and effort, so we are helping someone on your behalf’. It’s not a perfect solution – but it was inventive, practical and benefited everyone involved. Or so the rumour goes. Too often ideas are rejected for having flaws when they would still be better than the current situation and I like this idea for the fact it is indisputably better than them not listening and acting. The intent shines through.
My top tip for anyone wanting to get more from employee ideas is to be relentless in communicating success. People can be scared of going first – champion the voices of those that do and show you appreciate them and then will act. The rest will follow if you look after the first.
Tickets are available now for our London Employee Engagement Conference on 1st April 2020 – Click here to register now
Tickets are available now for our New York Employee Engagement Conference on 11th June 2020 – Click here to register now
This content was taken from our latest eBook: ‘2020: The Year of the Employee Idea: Employee Ideas from our global Engagement 101 Influencers’. To download the eBook in full. simply click here.