Make it fun
Santo is very clear that he wants employees to come forward with ideas. He wants their input and wants them to feel like a part of the organization beyond just their daily tasks.
But not everyone is going to take the boss at his or her word and start shooting e-mails and making phone calls about ways to improve the company.
You need to create a loose atmosphere where employees will want to come up with ways to help the company.
“You have to make it fun,” he says. “The work environment has to be fun. You never can take yourself too seriously. Then, you encourage people to do that. You can’t start saying, ‘That’s a really dumb idea. That’s not going to work because I am really smart and you’re not.’”
Sure, the company has the typical barbecues and gatherings, but Santo takes it a step further.
The company has competitions for people to create the most creative slogans for the company. Employees are also asked to create the company’s Christmas card as well as the company brochure.
They aren’t asked because Santo wants to save money or wants to give employees more work. By involving them in lighter and more fun and creative projects, employees will be more willing to come forward with ideas to help the day-to-day operations of the company.
“All of those things, they promote the fun side,” he says.
For example, the employees created the most recent company brochure. The company had about 50 creative ideas that were all good.
Santo got together everyone who contributed an idea, whether by phone or in person, and let all of them know that their ideas were terrific but the company couldn’t use them all. About 30 ideas ended up being used for the brochure, which gave those employees a direct and positive link to a companywide project.
“What’s neat about that, I think, anyway, is that person will look at the brochure over and over again and say, ‘That was my idea,’” he says. “But, you still want the product to be really good. You don’t just want to use any idea. It has to be a good idea.”