Industry Spotlight: Bruce Power’s BIG Ideas

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Industry Spotlight: Bruce Power’s BIG Ideas

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

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This week we look at one company’s BIG Idea – recognizing employees for innovation. Find out how they do it and why it’s a success.

When Bruce Power launched their BIG Ideas program – an employee rewards and recognition program geared towards fostering innovation, they estimated they would receive approximately 1,000 BIG Ideas submissions from employees by the end of the year. Two and a half months into the program they hit 900 submissions.

Here’s a look at how Bruce Power is motivating their employees to seek out opportunities to be innovative – something the company believes is one of its key competitive advantages.

Who: Bruce Power is Canada’s first private nuclear generating company and the source of more than 20% of Ontario’s electricity.

Program: BIG Ideas
BIG Ideas strives to foster a culture of innovation and align employees to corporate goals by motivating them to bring their best ideas to the table. BIG Ideas is an initiative driven by the company’s Business Improvement Group (BIG) – a dedicated team of individuals who implement programs that improve the way in which Bruce Power operates, and give Bruce Power employees a greater voice.

The BIG Ideas program reflects BIG’s goals:
1. Create and Sustain Engagement
2. Improve the Business

How it works: Employees are recognized and rewarded for their BIG Ideas submissions with points, which they use to redeem for hot ticket products, gift certificates and experiences of their choice from an online brand name catalogue.

Program Launch: February 2008

An Interview with Jack Bingham

Business Improvement Group – Program Manager, Bruce Power

1. What is a “Big Idea”?

Quite simply, every idea that improves our business is a BIG Idea. Even the smallest improvement has value that deserves recognition. We don’t just focus on cost savings. Bruce Power places extraordinary emphasis on safety (our employees recently achieved 13,000,000 hours worked without a single person receiving an injury that required time off work) and many of our people input BIG Ideas that will make our work even safer.

2. Why focus your rewards & recognition program on promoting innovation?

“Passion for Excellence” is an important value at Bruce Power. Achieving excellence requires continuous improvement in the way we do our work and that means we need the support of all of the people in our company. Recognizing and rewarding employees for their ideas and innovations is an effective way of reinforcing that passion for excellence.

3. Why is an innovation-based program like this important for your industry?

As the first and only private nuclear generation company in Canada, we embrace opportunities to be more competitive as an electricity producer. Being successful in a competitive electricity market demands a high level of commitment and involvement by our employees. By fostering innovation, collaboration and engagement, BIG Ideas is helping us to achieve the performance excellence we aspire to.

4. What challenges have you encountered thus far engaging employees in the program? How are you overcoming it?

The initial challenge of communicating the BIG Ideas program to thousands of Bruce Power employees was almost effortless with the high level of support we received from Bruce Power’s CEO and the senior executives of the company. Duncan Hawthorne, our CEO, was the first to submit an idea into the new system and he did so in a live broadcast to over 2000 people during one of his quarterly discussions with all Bruce Power employees.

Now our biggest issue is a large volume of idea submissions coming in at a rate far higher than we originally expected. It’s the kind of challenge that we’re happy to be dealing with.

5. What is an example of a “Big Idea” that is being put into action?

The first BIG Idea that was put into place is a good example. Here in Bruce County, we’re infamous for the raging winter storms that blow in from Lake Huron, bringing horizontal snow and reduced driving visibility. One of our bus drivers submitted a BIG Idea to install solar-powered flashing stop signs that use high intensity LEDs. She thought they would be much more visible when driving in the blowing snow we frequently experience.

Our Site Services folks quickly sourced a supplier, obtained one and installed it for testing. A safety improvement like this is a great example of the benefits we receive when we welcome good ideas and take action to make them a reality.