Generate ideas
While Ivy may have founded the company, he also recognizes that he does not know how to do everything himself and that his ideas are not always the only ones out there. Another element of building a strong company is to seek out other people’s ideas.
“We value everybody’s input,” he says. “ … We ask everybody to give ideas.”
Through an Internet-based program, Heritage employees can submit any ideas they think would benefit the company. Ivy says the company gets between 5,000 and 10,000 of these ideas each year, and they’ve implemented thousands of them over the past 20 years.
Usually on a quarterly basis, the ideas are handed out to the departments they affect. For example, if someone has an IT idea, it’s given to the person in charge of IT to look at and review.
“A lot of ideas might be good in concept, but for whatever reason, they aren’t practical,” Ivy says.
So it’s important for the person who’s the expert in the area to take a look at it first. If it’s not doable, then it dies.
“If we don’t implement them, we don’t tell the people why because that would create too much work, but on the other hand, if we don’t do it, they’re welcome to submit the same ideas again,” he says.
But if it is workable, then you have to look at other factors, too.
“We look at it and determine its value to us,” Ivy says. “It’s sort of a seat of the pants appraisal, and then we figure how much time it’s going to take and make a judgment on that versus other projects. It’s all a time, value, money and mental bandwidth.”
If it’s something that is worth the company’s time and efforts, then the idea gets implemented, and the employee who suggested it also gets paid some extra money for his or her good idea. On top of being recognized for submitting a winning idea, Heritage also has prizes for the people who submit the best ideas for the year.
“They appreciate the ability to give input,” Ivy says. “It’s definitely not the money. They are valued and their ideas are valued. From the corner office, it’s really hard to see a lot of these things.”
And while some ideas may not seem like a big deal, Ivy says that every little one adds up to a better business for you and your team.
He says of the ideas, “Most of them were relatively small in nature, if you will, but cumulatively, they’re huge.”