Are employee ideas the hidden key to operational efficiency?

Research from Eagle Hill Consulting reveals a staggering 68% of employees say they regularly spend time on low-value, inefficient work. At the same time, 81% believe that their organization delivers quality products and services. What might this mean? The output is strong, but the process could be more efficient.

Chasing operational efficiency is part of doing business, and streamlining ways of working while minimizing costs is increasingly a matter of survival. Efficiency initiatives typically start from the top down, with the C-suite leading efforts to reduce the workforce, optimize processes, introduce automation, integrate technology, and more. Amid such intense focus on business optimization, leaders rarely focus on bottom-up efficiency initiatives. As such, they are overlooking one of the keys for making things better—employees’ ideas to improve performance.

Organizations waste over $15,000 per employee per year on inefficient ways of working.

Source: Wrike 2024 Impactful Work Report

Our research makes it clear that employees want to improve efficiency. The problem? Employees say that their organizations don’t encourage ideas enough, lack processes for sharing them, and don’t support implementation.

Why employee ideas matter

Employee ideas are crucial to an organization’s vitality. Frontline employees, being closest to daily operations, offer unique insights that can significantly enhance operational efficiency. While management often spearheads changes, they may miss the practical nuances only staff on the ground can address. Embracing and evaluating all employee ideas is essential. Although not every idea will be immediately viable, sifting through them allows organizations to uncover hidden gems or best practices to drive innovation.

By incorporating a systematic way to gather and evaluate employee feedback, organizations can create an efficient triage process that not only filters out impractical suggestions, but also fosters a culture of possibility. Over time, this environment cultivates better ideas and a culture geared towards improvement—ultimately contributing to a more dynamic, effective, and sustainable organization.

Employees want to improve efficiency

Employees recognize the problem, they want to be part of the solution, and they have ideas for how to do so. Seventy-eight percent regularly exchange ideas with colleagues on how to work more efficiently, and 66% have shared their ideas with their organization. See Figure 1.

Employees’ desire to improve ways of working is an important reminder that inefficiency is not necessarily a people problem. Rather, inefficiencies result from cumbersome processes, outdated technologies and shortcomings of decision makers to challenge how things have always been done.

Employees know how to support business optimization, but no one is listening

Key takeaway: Organizations don’t encourage employees’ ideas to improve operational efficiency

The survey results indicate that employees have ideas. In fact, the majority (66%) have shared ideas for efficiency gains with their organization. The challenge is that organizations don’t consider employees’ ideas to be an important source for efficiency initiatives and business optimization.

Consider the following. Over half (56%) of employees say their organization doesn’t incentivize them to find ways to be more efficient. Forty-one percent say that their organization rarely or never seeks their ideas to make improvements. And 44% report that their organization doesn’t support employee initiatives to improve efficiency. See Figure 2.

These findings point to a lack of motivation from leadership to lean into and encourage idea sharing on how to improve efficiency.

Key takeaway: Organizations lack a clear process for submitting ideas to improve operational performance

When employees have ideas to improve efficiency, they are often uncertain how to share them with leaders. Sixty-three percent of employees report their organization lacks a clear process to submit ideas for improvement, with nearly a quarter (23%) reporting their organization has no process at all. See Figure 3.

This process gap is a liability.  Employees who report their organization has a clear ideas process are three times as likely to report that their organization effectively improves productivity, compared to those who say there is no process for innovation (44% compared to 15%). See Figure 4.

Key takeaway: Organizations fall short in implementing employees’ ideas to improve efficiency

Having ideas is one thing, implementing them is another. Thirty-eight percent of employees feel it is unlikely that their ideas for improving efficiency will be implemented, while 42% don’t feel empowered to implement changes based on their ideas. The older employees are, the less empowered they feel—55% of Boomers aren’t empowered to act on their ideas.

The findings reveal broader challenges that organizations have driving change, which is essential for successful business optimization. Most (83%) employees say their organization struggles to generate ideas for change. Nearly half (48%) find it difficult to put ideas into practice, and 39% say it is difficult getting changes approved. See Figure 5.

Figure 5. Breakdowns in the innovation process happen largely in the leadership-owned phases

Q: Which of the following is most challenging in your organization?

Employee-driven

33%

of employees think the identification of ideas is the most challenging phase of idea generation

Leadership-driven

39%

report that the approvals for change is the most challenging

48%

report that making change happen/execution at their organization is the most challenging

Source: Eagle Hill Consulting Efficiency Survey, 2025

A lack of follow-through on efficiency initiatives poses a significant risk to organizations. Employees who believe their organization supports employee-driven efficiency initiatives are more than twice as likely than those who do not to also report that their employer is effective at improving productivity (68% vs. 32%). See Figure 6. This striking figure underscores the importance of genuine support for efficiency efforts.

Addressing this gap is essential; when employees see their ideas and initiatives valued and acted upon, it not only fosters a culture of engagement, but also drives substantial productivity gains.

Keys to break the cycle and effectively channel employee ideas for improved business performance

It’s time to break old paradigms so that organizations don’t overlook the potential goldmine of employee ideas. Doing this means acknowledging self-imposed blockers, accepting the measured risk of change, and navigating process, technology, and cultural shifts. Get started with these actions:

Explore engaging mechanisms to collect ideas. Consider soliciting and incentivizing employees’ ideas using unconventional methods. This could include hackathons, friendly idea competitions, and formal cross-departmental collaboration sessions. Small teams organized across disciplines have proven to be a top mechanism for idea generation for efficiency. By structuring cross-functional idea gathering, organizations can empower employees to share ideas that are centered around priority challenges and grounded in business rules or parameters. As a result, the ideas are more likely to be feasible and tackle targeted inefficiencies.

Develop structures to submit and evaluate ideas. Create clear and easy-to-follow processes for employees to share their ideas. Processes should include guidance for collecting, tracking, reviewing, and refining ideas. As part of the process, develop clear evaluation criteria to move forward feasible ideas that are likely to generate ROI—and table ideas that are not worth the effort. In addition to reviewing ideas for feasibility and ROI, the evaluation process should incorporate a recognition system to acknowledge those that submitted or championed an idea. By doing so, an organization is more likely to receive practical ideas grounded in the reality of work. Moreover, they’re more likely to garner enthusiasm for change when an idea is born from within.

Follow through on the best ideas and focus on value. Show your commitment to top ideas by being transparent with employees about the evaluation and implementation process. Transparency and clear evaluation criteria enable employees to see why some ideas are implemented and others are not. When evaluating ideas, prioritize those that directly contribute to achieving business goals and create customer value. Moreover, don’t shy away from ideas that initially deliver incremental change but have the potential to have a sweeping impact on business optimization over time. During the implementation phase, develop performance metrics to measure success and iterate on ideas over time. Regularly communicate progress and share successes and lessons learned.

Empower your teams. Where possible, support employees in taking ownership of efficiency initiatives and piloting their ideas within their teams. Provide them the autonomy to make decisions within defined parameters. Pilot programs are an excellent way to test ideas, gather data around outcomes and effectiveness, and refine ideas before rolling them out more broadly.

Practice hands-on leadership to cultivate an ideas culture. Model the behaviors that you want to see from employees. By leading with a challenger mindset, create safe spaces for employees to confidently share their ideas without fear of being labeled “difficult.” A challenger mindset demonstrates a willingness to think unconventionally about performance efficiency initiatives—taking calculated risks to make improvements and not fall into the rut of “this is how it has always been done.” At the same time, foster an ideas culture by embracing unconventional thinking for long-term efficiency gains and framing measured risk it as natural part of discovery and positive change for the business.

Ideas are the path to optimizing performance. First a spark. Then a flame. Then a blaze of new possibilities to boost productivity, improve customer satisfaction, and reduce costs. Employees have the will to tackle inefficiency. They need organizations to provide the way.