Your employees are your idea bank

We all know that our businesses are only as good as our people - they are our brand ambassadors, they are the machine that drives our productivity, they are the energy that keeps our products and services moving to our customers. And we value our employees for all of those contributions. But our employees are also potentially our idea bank, and we could have an untapped resource of ingenuity and inventiveness that could help both them and our businesses survive and thrive. As business owners, we sometimes think that we are responsible for generating all the good ideas, but the fact is that our employees know and experience our businesses differently - they bring another perspective. As a result, they may have new ideas on how to improve productivity, or to enhance the customer experience, or even ideas for new products and services. They may be closer to our customers on a daily basis and better understand their needs. Encourage your employees to feel embraced by the business, to innovate, to generate new ideas. Incentivize them, reward them for their idea contributions. They will probably surprise you, and the business will be all the better for their input.