The Power of Suggestion

By changing its sales contracts to include extra charges for valuable bismuth sprinkled through its copper byproducts, Kennecott Copper this year will earn an extra $100,000. Accountant Robert J. Edwards, who proposed the addition, has profited too. The $25,000 that Kennecott awarded him made Edwards the top winner among 500,000 employees to whom major corporations paid $19 million for suggestions last year.

Suggestion boxes were once considered a joke, and some employees still treat them that way. Most managers now take them quite seriously, have lately started to solicit suggestions from engineers and supervisors as well as clerks and production workers. Companies accept some 30% of the suggestions, save an estimated $200 million a year from the ideas they take out of the box. Says Douglas Aircraft President Donald W. Douglas Jr.: "These ideas help us improve our competitive position through reduced costs." Ford is so eager for ideas that employees who win the maximum $6,000 award also receive a new car. So far this year, ten suggestion stars have lifted themselves into Galaxies.

No idea is too small. A Liberty Mutual office worker suggested that the company install a second mirror in the ladies' room. "It turned out to be a great timesaver," says an executive of the company, which paid her $15. Most ideas are more technical, and many are more lucrative. The record award-$72,186, spread over the past three years--went to two IBM technicians, Charles G. Glancey and Lawrence R. Livigni, who figured out a way to eliminate 14 printed circuits in a computer. Along with other suggestions for which General Electric has paid $14 million in the past 40 years was the "Peek-a-Brew" coffeemaker, which shows how much coffee is inside.

Once an employee wins with a suggestion, he almost always tries again. At General Motors, where $7,000,000 was distributed to more than 200,000 employees for suggestions last year, a die tester named George Herzig is the grand champion. In 17 years, he has dropped 134 suggestions in the box, had 35 accepted. With the $41,905 he received, he has bought and furnished a house.

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