100,000 Employee Ideas Implemented!
We have been tracking ideas generated and implemented by employees at the team level since the beginning of our Lean program in 2010. Rather than a quota, tracking ideas is a measure of employee engagement and of how each team’s management system is working. If ideas are down, there may be an opportunity to provide assistance to a team; if ideas are up, there may be an opportunity to celebrate with the team and discuss what’s working. Our goal is to develop a culture where every employee has an opportunity to share their ideas and is also empowered to implement them. Keeping an eye on this important measure enables us to reflect, share, and improve on our way to this goal.
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Diversity In Lean
The UW Finance Lean approach focuses on building a team-based, problem-solving culture. We use an idea system to empower our teams to generate and implement ideas for continuous improvement. Our teams and team leaders recognize and encourage the value of diversity of ideas.
Each team has an idea board accessible to all team members. Everyone has the opportunity to generate and submit ideas for improvement. Teams meet weekly to discuss their ideas, and everyone on the team has a voice. Team leaders are supported in creating a safe and respectful team culture that welcomes a variety of viewpoints and engaged discussion.
Teams work together to decide whether and how each idea will be implemented, and all team members have opportunities to implement ideas. UW Finance tracks ideas generated and implemented by each team.
Highly impactful ideas are recognized regularly: each team votes to recognize a “most impactful idea” each month.