A company should encourage good ideas from ANY and ALL of its employees. This is especially true in retail where the "soldiers at the front" know the score a LOT better than a bunch of generals back in DC". Apple is just catching up to what most large companies already do....take advantage of the collective brain power!!!
Well, exactly. It is an obvious thing to do and no sane person could find anything wrong with it. Wait... there are lots of people posting here that it is evidence that Apple is doomed, running out of ideas, scared, and so on...
As I said, no sane person could find anything wrong with it. What will be the result?
1. Worst case: Employees feel more respected and appreciated because management actually asks for their opinions, and employees who feel more respected and appreciated work harder. Employees who think about how customers' purchasing experience could be improved will also care more about customers' purchasing experience and therefore, service improves even without a single idea from employees being used.
2. Better case: All I said in case 1, plus some employees will actually have ideas that are useful and can be applied generally, so things will improve even more.
3. Best case: Some employees come up with truly revolutionary ideas that nobody else thought of.
Case 2. seems most likely to me.
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More companies need to do this, the sales staff see first hand customer reaction to products and promotions and can provide the kind of information on sales that management seldom take any notice of. This cuts though the BS of marketing executives that will say anything to sell their idea.
From two different people working at two different retail companies in the UK: Sales employees also know what tricks scammers are using to scam the company. In both cases, clueless managers so full of themselves that they don't even consider that someone else could know more than they do, so the scamming goes on, and sales employees stop caring.
a cent.
