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Should Employees Get Paid for Ideas?

TWA.jpg

I recently purchased a vintage employee handbook from the now defunct Trans World Airlines (TWA). Thumbing through it, secretly hoping to find some ridiculously outdated and outlandish personnel policy, I uncovered what I think is a pretty neat perk: The TWA Suggestion Plan.

The benefit made employees eligible for cash rewards (over $5,000) if their suggestion was adopted and helped make the company money. Folks also won awards if their suggestion had an "intangible value" to the company. That's some serious money in 1965!

Now I can only speak from my experience, which to this point has been: Share an idea // make the company money // get no reward // get no credit. Perhaps it's just the media industry where companies feel your mediocre salary also gives them ownership of your ideas.

Check out the vintage handbook excerpt below.

If your company has a "suggestion plan," we'd love to hear about it.

What are your thoughts? Should companies reward employees for helping them make more money? Or should it be just part of your job?

Posted on Wednesday, November 28, 2007 at 02:45PM by Registered CommenterAndrew G.R. in | Comments4 Comments

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Reader Comments (4)

I think it depends on whether the improvement idea was within the basic job description of the employee. If the employee extends their profitable advice beyond the scope of their job duties, then perhaps it would be a nice idea to grant them a bonus of some type.
November 28, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterDS
TWA has a nice concept going. Perhaps they paid their employees too much and that's why they went out of business. The regular workers deserve to be rewarded since we're the ones that make the machine work.
November 28, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterNancy
Depends on your job. My job, very specifically, is to come up with good ideas. I get a salary for that. Sometimes I get my name on patents (well, applications :( ). But it would seriously stifle my productivity if I started ransoming off my good ideas for the best bonus.

Other folks are in more drone-like jobs where no one ever expects them to have a good idea, because no one expects them to think. Such folks should be rewarded for going above and beyond the expectations set for them.

HOWEVER, a pure "idea bounty" sucks across the board, because then it becomes a simple "Who said it first" competition. EVERYONE thinks they had the idea first. And what happens a winning idea is 51% similiar to your idea, but your idea didn't win? Don't you get pissed off?
(Is it only coders who quote Wally from Dilbert's infamous "I'm gonna write me a minivan!" quote when the company offered a bounty on fixed bugs?)

Better, I say, to contribute to the overall good of the company as a regular thing, and hope that your contributions across the board are rewarded, be it by salary bumps, bonuses, equity, or whatever. If they treat you lousy? Leave. It's not that hard an equation.

And then there's Richard Feynman's famous "I Want My Dollar" story:

http://duanesbrain.blogspot.com/2007/03/somebody-call-american-inventor.html
November 29, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterDuane
I agree that it all depends on what your job is. In my experience, incentives and motivators can help you get the most out of employees. If you are in a position of power, I highly encourage you to try out a program similar to the one Andrew pointed out. Everyone wins.
December 3, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterJason Hanke

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