F E AT U R E
15
How to Make Your Company
Better by Engaging Employees
BY KIRK SERJEANTSON, CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER (CIO), THE DICOM TRANSPORTATION GROUP
Every transportation company
would like to be more innovative,
but the daily demands of business
make it difficult to find time to
stimulate and nurture ideas. Plus,
although the best ideas often
come from employees, traditional
suggestion programs often fall to
involve them.
Companies that are successful
at engaging employees in inno-
vation must do it systematically.
Successful programs create a
“right fit” forum for discussion.
That means, building a mecha-
nism for employee feedback and
creating opportunities for every
employee to innovate. We’ve also
found that a spirit of friendly com-
petition makes a big difference.
OVERCOMING OBSTACLES TO
INNOVATION
I speak from experience.
With all the activity at Dicom—
between acquisitions, integration
and working hard for our part-
ners—we were missing a good
channel to collect ideas from our
employees. In the past, we’ve
used a variety of innovation-
generating methods, including
email, intranet and suggestion
boxes. Nothing proved to make
a difference. We wanted to make
employee engagement a priority,
but making it happen just never
took center stage in our day-to-
day activities. For us, that meant
keeping the freight flowing. On
the other hand, we also knew that
we needed to innovate to ensure
future growth.
After discussion with Scott Dobak,
our Chief Executive Officer, we
decided to test out a program with
our employees in the IT depart-
ment. We wanted to test a way
to solicit ideas from our employ-
ees that would be both fun and
engaging. And we wanted them
to be a part of the development
of that program that allowed our
employees to share their ideas,
get recognition and have fun.
“Engaging employees to make
a difference is what makes good
companies great. There is so much
passion and dedication at Dicom
that we needed to figure out a way
to tap into that spirit,”Dobak says.
Customized Logistics and Delivery Association |
Summer 2017