Way back in the day, I worked for a company that held an annual “Night Out In August”. Each department was given a budget and allowed to take their entire staff out to dinner to a place of their choosing. The only catch was the manager had a list of questions and topics to discuss with the staff and then had to give a written report to the CEO. These questions were things such as XYZ Company is considering adding a new widget to its product list, what do you think about this?
I loved “Night Out In August”. Not only did it give us a chance to share our ideas for product lines, services offered, marketing ideas but it gave us a voice to the CEO.
Sadly, when things started going south this was one of the first things to go. It was greatly missed by all employees.
I found it an interesting observation; after the program ended, employee morale started declining, rapidly. Employees felt their voice was unheard and many felt they didn’t know what was going on in company. I must admit I was one of those people – pre HR days.
Fast forward to present day….
I’ve considered presenting the same type plan to my current employer but I’m a bit hesitant. The cost of the program can run rather high, especially when the department head count reaches 20. I think it would be a great plan to increase employee engagement.
When employees see their ideas become reality, and they receive credit for the idea from the top, it is a huge motivator. I think the cost would be worth it, the hard part is selling it to the Corporate types; to be included in next year’s budget of course.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
What a great program. Go for it! If you are concerned about $$, set a limit in your proposal so that Sr Managers know that there are limitations- maybe $10 per person. Lunch instead of dinner would also make it less expensive. Order in pizza for lunch and costs will continue to decrease. You can do it!
April,
You may want to consider a software solution for capturing employee ideas and having users comment and vote on which ideas they like and should be implemented. Two such solutions are UserVoice (www.uservoice.com) and Kindling (www.kindlingapp.com). Both offer some excellent functionality for this process. Over time they may end up costing more that a once a year outing, but they are available all year long, and give everyone in the organization a chance to participate at any time.
Steve
There are many approaches you could take to selling this idea. But get clear on the purpose, or purposes. This type of event could be used to recognize teams for performance AND give them an opportunity to see some strategic plans AND give them an chance to provide input into the innovation process of your company.
Compare it to the cost of an engagement survey that tells you that you should consider events like August Night Out to improve morale.
Tim
What a great idea; its unfortunate that these meetings would be automatically viewed as discretionary spending and subject to budget constraints.
One idea, anchored to a resource-based view of employees, might be to paint a picture of them as corporate assests instead of a prevelant theme of liability. Can you quantify how much these meetings have impacted sales/workplace efficiencies over a period of time?
Also, a bit more of a stretch, re-brand the Night Out as an off-site think tank; invite selected leadership to particpate so they become your marketing voice to the rest of the leadership group over time.
@BMartin Lunch would be a good idea but the way our office is laid there isn’t a good quiet place to have lunch. If I could sweet talk our directors into putting productivity on hold for a few hours one day out of the year, we could let each department go out. Thanks for the shaking the brainstorming cloud!
@Steve Thanks for the links, I’ll check those out and during my research for the program.