Employee Committees

Employee Committees

Prior to launching a new product or signing into a partnership with an outside company, I propose that we establish a committee of ground-level employees, those that would be working with/selling/utilizing the products or services on a daily basis, to hold a “pros and cons” session. To determine who would be placed in each individual committee, we could send out an email companywide or to all members of the affected department to request volunteers that are proficient in the particular subject or field. For example, if the product under consideration were Matchbin, an email would go out to all JRC advertising representatives and ad managers that have knowledge of search engine optimization. If the product in question was a social media plug-in for our newspaper websites, the email could go out to all JRC employees in search of volunteers that are “experts” in social media.

Benefits:

• Ground-level employees may be able to anticipate issues and/or inconsistencies prior to signing a commitment or launching the product.
• Expedited training – Since there would already be a group of employees that are familiar with the products prior to launch, they can assist in training efforts at the local or regional level.
• Reduced re-training – Often we figure out the full details after the launch of a partnership or product, which sometimes requires re-training for reps later on. For those employees that may be still struggling to learn digital, this causes unnecessary frustration and can be counterproductive to their learning.
• Increased Buy-In – By giving more employees the opportunity to be involved in the decision making process and utilizing their personal strengths, it will reinforce their commitment to the Digital First initiative.

So let's start here. 

Any thoughts, suggestions, recommendations and/or predictions on Employee Committees?