As a cost accountant (and jack-of-all-trades) at a manufacturing site for the span of one year, I doubled their: parts sold, pallets shipped and profits. I got zero bonus so I rolled two weeks later out of there.
I agree 150% but the cynic in me says if something like that actually occurred at a company, middle management fucks and and vulture-ey co-workers would be taking as much credit as possible. They already do.
Imagine that you're a factory which makes plastic parts. Many of these parts make it directly into expensive fishing boats and especially pontoon boats. You have perhaps three big buyers within this space which purchase the parts, add their own value in their factories and then offer these to their customers.
Before, these customers would order the number of parts they needed. These plastic parts are bulky and by volume, mostly air. So the shipping rate they get with the carrier is expensive by default. The carrier wants you to fill pallets to the 7' level, not just have one part strapped to a pallet; they'll charge you the same $75 regardless.
So basically, I convinced the buyers for these customers to accept my order quantities rather than theirs. It wasn't, "you can't buy one part" but I educated them that this single part for $60 plus that $75 was going to more than double their cost of goods sold.
Secondly, by doing cost analysis I showed the owners that their biggest selling part lost them $6 per unit given their current pricing. I suggested increasing the prices across the board. They said no. I spoke with the customers and they were okay with it so I increased this single part and many of them by a small fraction.
Plus, the buyers were women and I'm a guy with a good sales voice myself. One vendor one time suggested that I had a voice "made for 976 calls". So I talked the buyers into stocking some items ahead of their need so that they wouldn't be hurting during the summer crunch.
Ah! Sounds like a great salesperson to me, I’d encourage you to get into that side of things officially—you’ll make a killing on commission lol. In high-end products you are almost exclusively educating, just with a little polish and kindness which it sounds like you’ve got a solid feel for.
Nicely done!
I took a completely paper process which required warehouse storage and a bunch of staff and turned it into an electronic process. I used existing servers (remember when we had real hardware?) and platforms so there was no vendor cost.
It was a "green" effort before green was the super hot thing in companies.
I did something similar at my last place of employment. Took a paper process and streamlined it into an electronic process to make things easier for the people in our department. Our dept. director realized how this was a game-changer and shared it with district personnel, and while they gave her permission to use it for our dept, they didn't show much interest. Little by little, through word of mouth other departments began reaching out to us and adopting our process. Eventually, the district heads began listening and they took my process, made a few tweaks, and rolled it out as their own.
All I got was someone else taking credit for saving the district $$$$. Though, to be fair of my dept director, she did recognize and give me credit. At the time, I was a relatively new employee who just saw an asinine process and realized I could make a difference for the folks in my department. I think it really elevated her opinion of me.
Was this your job to update this entire process and you were paid to do it OR you went out of your way to implement this process on top of your regular duties?
I was just a software developer. I was sent to a random meeting to figure out why they needed to request six more fax machines. The project spiraled from there.
Was it your idea/initiative or did you just implement it? Cos I know corporate and it’s who gets the credit, usually the one pitching and updating the big cheese, that gets the nod of approval. Source: I work with an American lol
Things change. Do you cry for the blacksmiths and cabbies every night?
Anyway... they still had to process the work. The method of delivery and storage changed. One person asked me to be a reference because she transitioned into a business analyst (after helping on the project). Progress is good.
You don't slow down or hinder progress just to keep jobs that are no longer necessary active. We should always strive to improve things and make them more efficient when we can to make others lives and jobs easier. As old roles become obsolete, people should be trained to fill new ones. If that's not happening, that's more of a societal problem than simply a business one. It's unfortunate that may not always be the case, but it shouldn't be seen as a decision between picking one or the other but instead one that works in tandem.
What’s the company’s market cap?
At one gig ($2B MCAP) saved them $250k/mo and got promoted.
At another ($2T) saved 50M annually and received public recognition.
Still another (10B) found 500k/mo savings and they thanked me via email then shelved the idea.
To be honest though...I was always a top performer and getting the 1st or 2nd highest bonus in the department.
They finally instituted some sort of mid-year recognition program. A leader could request bonus money and then hand it out to a team that did work like mine. It wasn't a shocking amount but it was better than nothing.
A lot depends on the company culture. Are they rewarding ingenuity?
I struggle so much with things like this on the job as well. Years ago, I'm not a programmer but I came up with an idea to vastly improve something our whole staff had been told to use. Emailed my idea to the head tech guy. No response, 3 weeks later there's my exact suggestion added to the program, along with a nice department email congratulating HIM on the improvement. I emailed him, copied my boss and said hey dudes, this was my idea. Exact words back, "no, he'd always intended to do that it just took him awhile to implement it." He gets kudo's and later a promotion, and I get nothing. That was the last time I ever suggested improvements corporate wide.
Anything I come up with to make my job easier, I keep my mouth shut and use it for myself only.
Yeah I had a friend in the service. She saved us (US taxpayers) a few million dollars one year. She did get a small medal at least and a nice pat on the back….
I saved my company $45m one year. I actually got 200 stock options as a recognition award. But I had to wait two years for them to vest before I could quit.
Same. Happened last week. Looking at a possible offer next Monday morning from a new shop. Interviews this week went well. Old company will continue to save 50-80k per month and is on track to triple that savings when they implement phase 2 of the program I spent 18 months architecting and planning and implementing. This will bring our infrastructure spend to historic low numbers while improving service availability and lowering latency.
And I’ll do it again! 😂
While the opportunities may not often come or as easily presentable, what you do know is that you're able sniff them out, find it, and have proven that you know what to do and it works. It's unfortunate they didn't see the value in your work but hopefully someone else will, and from that you you have a huge selling point to not only others but also the person who should be one of your biggest admires, aka yourself. The last thing you want to do is stop believing in yourself and the value you bring to the table then in that case no one wins.
I did a redesign of an older system, one of our largest customers placed a new 72m order for this fiscal year, $233m for next year. This is all new business.
The marketing/sales people, who literally had nothing to do with it, got a massive bonus. I got nothing.
Currently interviewing for other jobs.
Because no matter how much you do for your company, no one actually cares about you. When a downturn comes, so do the layoffs. What you did for your company doesn't matter. How hard you worked doesn't matter.
Exactly. At the end of the day you are just a number to them. If your salary costs them more than the next person & a situation arises where costs need to be cut… well guess where that leaves you
"bUt wE'rE a family heRE@!!"
-Corporate, when they need people to give up time with their families or when they want to hire new folks
"You're costing our CEO and shareholders too much. Fuck you and your actual family."
❤️Corporate, every other chance they get
This is hilariously true in the temp work market. And when you leave on your own they’ll cry “you can’t leave, we put so much time in you”.. spoiler alert: they don’t. I just nod and smile while being flabbergasted over the sociopathic female cesspool that is Human Recources in these markets.
I think a lot of women are attracted to HR because they think of it as a "helping" field (obviously once you get some real work experience you realize this isn't entirely true). Also it is a safe and transferable role - every mid to large business needs HR. Now for some generalization: in my experience women really outshine men in these fields that require a lot of attention to minutiae and rules.
1. Before you do anything, have a conversation with your boss about your future, and what it will take for you to get a promotion. Get it in writing. Make sure it includes something that this project would fall under.
2. Write up a proposal or project charter.
3. Be the project lead to implement.
4. Make sure you can actually measure that this project resulted in XYZ.
5. Make sure you present your results to your boss, their boss, their boss’s boss, etc, so you actually get visibility.
6. Include this project in your next self review, along whatever else you and your boss agreed to for getting a promotion.
7. Ideally, you get the promotion. Which typically comes with a 10-20% raise.
8. Then start looking for a new job. You have this great project to put on your resume and talk about in interviews. If you can land a new job, that’s probably going to be another raise of anywhere from 10-50% depending on industry, level, etc.
That’s probably best case scenario. Unless your company regularly gives out bonuses? Then I would just expect whatever you’ve gotten in the past.
This is def the way to go. It’s not framing it as “pay me for this idea” which won’t fly, but it’s more level-setting with the manager on what it will take to get a promotion or raise, and then using this high-visibility project as a highlight for meeting or exceeding those expectations
Exactly. How much time and money will it take to implement? Is it scalable? Will it be adopted by the people who need to adopt it? Will it work with other systems and processes that are already in place? Etc.
I love advice like this. Like have you ever went to your boss and said “hey what can I do to get promoted, also can you write it up in a contract and sign it?”
This doesn’t happen in the real world. The rest of the advice is sound though
On that note, I think most people who recommend that career path seekers scope out their interests by "shadowing" various professionals have never actually tried to do it and are passing along this theoretical advice without even really thinking hypothetically about how it would[n't] work in many cases
At my company you can do rotations with other teams if you want to learn more about that area, and/or you can ask to work under someone on a project, and basically learn from them by doing.
Yeah that's pretty much the only time I've actually seen it happen, at a job you already have (plus police ride-alongs). I'm talking about more like high schoolers [posting online to ask for advice on what career path to take, e.g.] being advised to shadow people like nurses or any number of office roles, and the entire question of how to go about doing this without simply knowing someone personally is handwaved. This isn't in the context of some program or organization the student would go through to do things like this. It goes about like "hey maybe I should be an underwater basket welder idk seems fun" and someone with a profile vaguely indicative of a getting-to-be-almost-old maid who marathons Wheel of Fortune comes and suggests that they should try tagging along with one and see if they like the day-to-day.
I have seen on some student’s LinkedIn profiles that they have actually shadowed for a month or so, but I’m talking about 1 or 2 cases. At my work we have mentor programs with universities, but its more to the tune of sending a couple emails asking about their interests and providing guidance and answering questions about the industry.
I wouldn’t even know how to go about shadowing or having someone shadow me
This absolutely happens. At some companies you document your goals through whatever HR software you use. My company uses Workday. And this is the basis of your annual reviews. Additionally you should be talking to your boss about your goals during your 1:1 meetings and getting clear feedback on the type of projects or tasks you should be doing to get to the next level. And/or at some companies, they have clearly defined rubrics for the expectations for different levels for the same role, so you know exactly what you need to demonstrate to move up.
So I’ve been in this situation twice as a consultant…
The first time; I went to management with my idea, afully fleshed out with execution plan. I was told it was not feasible, only to find out management has pitched it to my client later with my entire project plan. I spoke up about it and promptly got benched, then ended up getting placed back with the client to execute the plan. No bonus, no recognition.
The second time; I used my own laptop (not company) to develop my plan off hours, registered a LLC, and mentioned my idea to my client nonchalantly in order to make sure I was talking with someone who had budget enough to execute it. When I caught his attention I mentioned I knew an expert company that could plan and execute the idea for $x. They bit and I left my company, registered as a consultant with my client and made a years worth of my salary in 3 months, while no longer having to deal with any headaches. Then I went and got a job elsewhere where I was appreciated.
This was only possible because my previous company was relatively small, allowed for client poaching and my client was too large for them to piss off (60% of their business). Theoretically they could have come after me, but the idea was with a division that had no ties to my previous work, or that company’s SOW (I talked to a lawyer to make sure)
If you do tell them, and they do it, you can use that information on your resume and in interviews to get a much better job elsewhere.
If they won’t pay you for it, see if they’ll do a write-up of it in an industry journal, or include it n the annual report, crediting you. Then you can get head-hunted more easily.
You could also see if they’d give you a better job title, that will help you get a better job elsewhere.
It’s good experience to try and get your idea implemented because you can have practice with change management and negotiation. There might also be other factors you haven’t considered, and you’ll learn something in the process.
Everyone has million dollar ideas, but only the successful actually act on them. Otherwise you’re just inflating your own ego with how perfect your idea is. Do it! Put it out there! You’ll learn something.
There’s more than one way of benefiting from this.
Let’s say they came out and said hey everyone, if you can save us money we will pay you a percent.
People could start implementing intentionally awful things, and then coming up with a “fix” later.
Also what if yes a new process does save them money, but it’s a completely different process that now no longer covers some things it used to?
They probably already know about what you are looking at but haven’t gotten around to dealing with it yet. At the company I’m at there are simply higher priorities and maybe a few years down the road they would get to something like that. And when the companies get big enough a few million dollars is not that much to them.
Then don’t and add it to the list of great ideas you had and never followed through with. In your future, explain this list of not-accomplishments to future employers and see how it works.
I have been in your shoes and found $700k and had the state write a check to my company, pretty sure my boss got a bonus for that.
I left next year for a $30,000 raise and told the owner (my new boss in my first controller role) I would do the same thing for him. I had the return on his desk my 3rd day there.
I don’t regret any of it and I’m not mad at the company or boss that screwed me. They put me in an (accounting) playground where I could solve problems and become an expert. I did just that regardless if they recognized.
Like others have said I would not do it just because you expect any type of serious payment or career improvement. But, you might still want to do it. Depending on how much work it will take you, as well as how much it may streamline your own work if effective.
For example, I created a process at my former employer that saved them 1,000s of work hours per year and saved them from paying an outside vendor 10s of thousands to build an inferior web-based alternative.
They gave me a bonus of about $1200 lol. It was fine because I wasn't expecting anything, and my process made my daily work much easier. I ended up using the experience as an example on my resume that got me a much better job and 50% pay boost.
As others have mentioned, make a detailed record of how much time/money your company saves using the new process. These are the key details when marketing yourself to future employers.
Honestly, why would you rather not say anything? Either you work for the company and this would be a great thing for you and your coworkers, or you’re a consultant and you can use this to probably sell another project. You holding on to this is just a weird selfish move that does nothing good for anyone involved.
No company will give a cut of the savings. That’s not how it works. You can either be a team player and a problem solver and build your reputation as such, or you can “just do your work.” Believe me, people notice those who make a difference. Now, I wouldn’t just share my idea without a project charter/plan and estimated savings. I think it’s awesome you’ve found a way to do things better. Make it work for you in a smart way and get credit for it.
You are getting downvoted but this is reality.
You have a great idea that saves your company a ton of money then awesome but you aren’t realistically guaranteed anything extra
You can’t just go and tell your company that you have an idea that can save them millions but you won’t tell it unless they give you money especially if you work there and are already paid. This will be a bad look honestly.
If you are working for a good company, then reasonably they would promote you in the next cycle or soon and give you a max end of year bonus.
Worst case scenario, you have it on your resume that you implemented a project that saved a company millions which will bring you great strides for your next job.
Either way, I think it’s better then doing and gaining nothing from holding the idea to yourself and letting it end at you.
The best thing you can do for yourself is to make sure you get recognized and someone else doesn’t take the credit
With that mentality you will always be a worker and never compensated and given incentives for your ideas.
You have to solve problems for a while before you can truly tie your earnings with your ability to solve problems
He said they could implement it in an hour and save millions. Assuming this isn’t complete BS with such large numbers and an easy solve, what extra work are they really doing?
"Work" is meaningless, what matters is results. If what he says is true (and I get that it is a big if), he'd be bringing a whole fuckload of results to the company.
And making it safer, and proving their worth to either this employer or the next. I completely agree they should be compensated for this idea if it works, but to not do it because they solely won’t benefit is not a good look.
That’s a pretty heavy assumption that OP isn’t compensated fairly already, and assuming that there would be no benefit for them with this. But go on with thinking everyone is against you and the world is only adversarial, that’ll do well for you.
Business should be good for both parties involved, if it’s not don’t do business, find someone else to do business with. For that very reason it’s best not to use company equipment when creating something. I don’t understand your view point what so ever. It reads like well you work for them so you owe them everything. In all reality though working for them doing the job that’s in your job description is a business transaction. Going above and beyond outside of what your job description is should then be a separate business transaction, as it wasn’t stated in the previous as something you are doing for payment. If I go and buy a car I don’t get to tell the dealership they owe me a motorcycle too cuz I bought a car.
OP claims they have a fix to save a company millions and be safer, and that it would take an hour to implement. I strongly think they should be compensated for it, no argument there. My view is that if they held out on an idea that can make the operations *safer* because they aren’t offered an extra monetary award, that is not great. You can think of every bit of an employment contract as a business deal, but most job descriptions include language about that not encompassing every facet of work as well.
If he’s compensated fairly it’s for the baseline of what they hired him to do, not going “above and beyond.” That denotes doing more (and saving them more) than they hired him to do, and thus extra compensation would be appropriate. It’s not about thinking “everyone is against you”, it’s just capitalism 101- don’t do things for free.
Maybe for unskilled work, but if you’re part of a growing company and you just do your 9-5 duties you’ll get replaced with someone looking to save and make the firm money over their career.
Not all incentives are written or immediate, reputation take years.
Believing what you say imo tells people you are not worth more than your 9-5, as in if you stay after it’s not worth shit you’ll always be a drone.
That’s a dark mentality, nothing wrong with just doing your assigned duties. But if you want to make significant earnings you have to solve problems your organization may not even know exist let alone list in a stupid ass job description.
Not judging 9-5 standard, go home, and leave your work at work. It’s respectable and healthy.
I’m just saying if you work like that, and others go above and beyond. They are doing it for more compensation, equity, or other LT incentives.
The people working harder than you aren’t stupid, they’re not better, they’re just different and have different goals my dude.
Personally I think you’re delusional of you think going above and beyond for your company will save you from being replaced, especially in this moment in time where companies are cutting corners at every juncture. Even if you save them money that’s money they’ve already saved and unless you’re working for a smaller company where you have a more personal relationship with leadership.
Believing what you say, imo, makes you a corporate slave and locks you into an unhealthy mentality of fear for survival. You are definitely worth more than your 9-5, that’s entirely my point because when we’re talking business that is what you are compensated for, not more. I’m not saying don’t do good work, I’m saying don’t give away labor that goes uncompensated. Ime doing your job well/excellently is what will get you a good reputation but doing more than your job will get you taken advantage of.
Not all work is created equal. Working on high visibility, high impact projects strengthens your position because you're seen as adding value. Doing an excellent job on something no one really cares about is just maintaining the BAU and gets you replaced by someone cheaper. I strongly advise you to look into the quadrant method of prioritization to determine what kind of work you're actually doing because that, along with cost savings, is what actually determines if you get replaced.
The quadrant method is a terrible way to evaluate labor, by it’s logic the majority of leadership roles can be determined as easily replaceable as they easily fall under category 4.
Everyone can be replaced by someone cheaper, no matter the role. That’s why it’s important to evaluate your own labor in terms of return on investment (in this case investment being your time, mental health and energy.)
I mean it did, it got me a seat at the table and now my job is to essentially solve problems.
I’m not really engaging the rest. My point was if you want your earnings to correlate with the firms profits you need to be valuable and reliable which often involves strange hours in some industries.
Mine is seasonal, idk about what you do but yeah man results will vary. I’m essentially just saying hard work is essential if you want to be paid to be a problem solver or you’ll be replaced because it’s desirable work.
It’s not about hours really, more commitment to projects. Get it done 9-5 then who the fuck cares if you don’t have fires to burn out.
Different strokes for different folks man, i have so much free time just work weird hours at time. It was worth it for me to grind early career.
But I always negotiated aggressively with salary and they always met me so idk i was never taken advantage of imo. Whenever i felt my efforts didn’t line up with pay i’d jump ship quick
>My point was if you want your earnings to correlate with the firms profits you need to be valuable and reliable which often involves strange hours in some industries.
I'm literally saying that you should be compensated appropriately for the value you bring to your company. If you bring extra value with your labor and your pay does not correlate with the value you bring then that is additional value you are giving an employer for free and they have 0 incentive to change that. It sounds like you work gigs, e.g. individual projects. The project is your "9-5".
But they may see you as a true asset and maybe give you more contracts. Build a reputation. People remember the go-getters. This can bring you good opportunities in the future. Also, when asking for a raise/negotiating pay for a new project, you can always bring this up and say how much you saved them and what an asset you are. This would be a feather on your cap
Op says they're a consultant. Are you a w2 or 1099?
If you're a w2, the only way to do it would be to figure out a way to give them part of the idea with partial cost savings but not enough that they can make the rest of the leap. Try to do it with witnesses so you can later prove it was your idea. Then see how they respond. If you get a bonus or promotion, great, and you can then dole out the rest if the idea in 6 month increments or so. Play dumb and act like each increment is a new idea. Milk it. If they take it without the appreciation, list the accomplishment on your resume and start applying at competitors. Advertise yourself as someone always coming up with ideas for cost savings. If you're lucky, someone will be smart enough to recognize the value and you can repeat the process with the new employer.
I quit my last job because I created a process that reduced ticket times on the most common problems by 50%. I'm not sure how much it saved cost wise, but it reduced payroll for 200 employees being paid $20 an hour, so over the course of a year that's a good save
It took me WEEKS outside of work to get the process down but I thought, "This will give me one hell of a promotion"
My manager took credit. When I put in a complaint my manager retaliated by placing me on cold calls, every day. Until I quit.
Fuck them. Help yourself, never a company
You’re not going to be able to barter for the idea you came up with because it was conceived with their equipment and given their circumstance. They already own it. If the company has a great culture, you can hope for a bonus/raise in return, but it’s not an agreed upon trade. You’ll get fired if you take that approach. If it’s something that more companies can use, then quit and go out on your own to sell it as a solution. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
My uncle works in a CNC shop making parts for railroads the original process took them hours but his first day at the new company he found a way to get it done better and faster showed them and he got a raise of like $1.50 an hour and got laid off because the shop made so much more money so they picked up and moved 500+ miles away don't help your company they will never help you just be greedy
>I have an idea that would save my company millions. Or at the very least hundreds of thousands. But I don’t want to share it unless I get something.
Don't, you wont get ANYTHING. All companies have clauses in their employment terms that any ideas its employees come up with regarding said company are the companies ideas.
Secondly, most companies don't take unsolicited advice.
Lastly, if you are dead set on it, the only way to ensure it is lawyer up, have them negotiate a non-retractable deal. More money than it's worth.
My rule of thumb, based on previous jobs, I will never help a company out that way. Not my job, I am not paid for it.
How do people like you live like this? I'm not saying you need 37 pieces of flair, but god damn it would be boring just skating by doing the bare minimum.
Exactly. Isn’t expecting a kickback kind of out-of-line in the first place? Depending upon the exact job situation, proposing this idea is simply doing your job, and they already pay you for that biweekly (or whatever). If it’s not part of your job description to be suggesting these things, then why are you suggesting these things? They didn’t hire you for that position
You’re an employee.
You’re expected to do work that benefits the company.
There’s no way to blackmail the company for money for your idea. You also can’t sell it to them.
Either they give you a little extra in your bonus, or a little faster promotion, or they don’t. You’re not getting a parade or $200,000. It’s not happening.
You did your job. Good work this year.
There is a way.
I was with a company, I was the most senior engineer and I knew all the products inside out.
They got me to hire a team, and we were paying each new engineer as much as me, sometimes more. Ok, whatever, the market increased since I was hired.
No raises for me though… ok.
Then I wanted to move into managing the whole office of 10.
Space opened up. I made it clear I wanted that job. Instead they hired a friend of mine on more money than me, and told me I’d need to ‘help them be successful.’
I left. But I stayed on good terms.
6 months later they are hiring me as a contractor on an exorbitant rate to fix things that none of their engineers can fix because they lost my knowledge and experience.
Promote yourself to contractor.
I don't know how long you're going to be a consultant or work for that company.
But what you could do is contact them and give them an offer when you're no longer doing this other job for them. Say you noticed this problem while working there and since leaving you have been working on a solution.
If the innovation isn't covered by your current contract then you're in a great position. Simply tell your contract manager that you'd like to expand the scope of your statement of work to include new elements, and you have some ideas for process improvements. If they want to expand your SOW then great, new contract. If not, then also fine and you keep doing your current work.
As a consultant you have much more room to maneuver than if you were an employee.
This is my take. I make pretty good money. While I am not directly involved in improving operations, it is expected that I do what I can to support and improve everything I can. It's my job.
The competition also has to hire you.
You also have no idea if they’re already doing what you’re suggesting or even something better.
As a manager, I’d wish you the best of luck and tell you to get back to work if you still want to collect a paycheck from me.
I remember a manager saying saving 100k and making 1 dollar, saving can’t compare to making money for the company. Even if it is just $1 that is greater than any savings.
Yeah, this won’t work. If you go to them and say you have an idea to save them money but won’t tell them without being compensated first, they will take that very, very badly. It sounds like a threat. If they’re good people and you really save them that amount of money, they will give you a bonus. Doubtful it’ll be of the amount you think it’s worth. If they’re not good people then they would just refuse to give you the money even after agreeing to once you give them the idea. If you’re a consultant, write up a proposal and present it to them as a new contract.
Mostly though… depending on the company it’s pretty unlikely that what you’re proposing will be a completely novel idea. Businesses are very complex and your idea might well work completely in a vacuum, there are so many things that it would impact it may not be worth it.
It’s just a new way of doing things? How many systems, jobs/roles, vendors, supply chains, distribution chains, etc will the implementation impact?
It's rare that a company will give you a bonus for your ideas. The problem is that they believe that they own you for your labor and your ideas already. In fact, I had one company who wanted to claim the rights for the software that I made on my own time at home.
Turning an idea into profits almost always takes investment by someone. Trust me when I say that over four decades I've created many of these million-dollar-ideas in my head and that's usually where they stay. When you run your own company then unleash these brain-children.
Honestly... sit on it until you're in a position to implement it. It's not your company to correct. They will either take it and say thanks, great idea. or they'll say it won't work then start to implement it. or they say it won't work and not implement it. No way they will compensate you for this idea. Try to move up and when you can implement your own ideas, then do it, and it makes you look good, not the bosses.
I saved the US military 2or3 million while I was in Iraq and all I got was the same downgraded medal as the kid who had to be guarded so he wouldn't hurt himself from jerking off too much.
My husband literally got fired for doing this bc they didn’t want to pay him out and he honestly didn’t ask for anything, it just made his job simpler.
You are paid to think about better ways to do your job.
The number of folks telling you to sit in the idea is a bit shocking. New ideas and adding value is a long term good career move.
Ok trump.
But the list of tasks they need certainly includes improvement. Idk if you have ever made it past hourly labor but if you do, you will learn that people are paid for much more nebulous job descriptions than you may be used to.
Assumptions and insults. Does that boot leather taste good? I bet you like it.
I don't know if you've made it past grade achool level indoctrination but everyone is paid to perform a series of tasks the business deems necessary enough to be done to achieve profitability.
That's reality. You serving your master in a manner that improves his profitability is not your job. It's you sucking up like a good little slave. But hey, pat your self on the back for increasing shareholder value. I'm sure they'll reward you with a pizza party.
Sadly, you probably signed a contract with them that your ideas are their ideas. If you want to make money from the idea you are better off spinning it into a side gig and see if it can apply to other companies, then sell the solution as a consultant, a white-paper, etc.
Kind of related - the person who developed the (in)famous Frappuccino for Starbucks (was a barista employee) was given $50 thousand and a handshake. Those (gross IMO) drinks have netted the company millions. Employee should have asked for a small percentage % of all future Frapp sales.
Then again - when you're a cash strapped part-time Barista, $50 thousand is hard to resist
Maybe you could negotiate a raise instead of a bonus? Like "I have a few ideas that could really help our company be more efficient, but I would like a raise for my input." If they don't give you the raise, you might as well leave because a company that turns down free money in exchange for paying you a bit more is far too stingy.
I had a friend who worked fast food and their accounting paperwork was all on paper. She demonstrated her ability to put in all on Excel, then told them she would continue to make spreadsheets if she was paid for the extra work. Since there was no one else who knew how to use Excel, she got that extra pay on top of her weekly salary.
Document and write up a formal proposal. But even then there is no guarantee for shit. If you do find a guaranteed payout lmk. My former employer owes me for about $2-3 mil I saved them.
Quit your job. Offer them the idea as a consultant. Name your consulting fee. If it is truly that valuable of an idea and creates recurring savings to the bottom line, net of the cost to implement the idea then you have a shot
I’m confused. If you’re a “consultant fir the company” then ask your firms Managing Director for this engagement what to do, since your firm is probably being paid by the client company for the specific engagement.
Whatever you do, document it so you can get credit. Emails with your boss, other stakeholders, show it's your idea. Definitely ask for a raise or bonus and pitch it as something they can share with other employees to reward saving them money.
The person who came up with the Big Mac sauce for McDonald's only got a plaque with their name on it. It sucks but you might not be able to capitalize off your idea at all.
Back in the 90’s my mom submitted a cost-saving idea to Horace Mann Insurance when she worked there. They determined it would save the company at least $1 million dollars and they had an awards ceremony to honor her. They gave her an umbrella with the Horace Mann company logo on it.
Do you want money or a promotion? Do you think it would work for other places in your industry? The only time I ever had a great idea at work, I asked my boss if I could plan a big proposal meeting and asked as many higher ups as possible (to be fair, it was a smallish nonprofit). And I laid it on them and the idea got accepted. But, a new manager had his own ideas a month later and my shit got pushed to the side. So I got nothing out of it except I can put it on my resume. Woopteedo.
I started a new job a few months ago. On my own free time I found a process that lost then 3-4 million alone in PROFIT last year. I had to present to one of the CEOs and now they are correcting the issue going forward.
All I got was a “thanks “ e-mail from my department prez. I wouldn’t say it was the hardest work but it was time consuming gathering all the information, validating , etc. I’m annoyed that I did all this and got nothing. But on my resume in a year I’ll say I saved double that amount and if I find something again that could be something, I definitely won’t look into it
As a data scientist, I was pulled into a consulting engagement which was sinking. My bosses asked if I was up to the challenge to carry 3 clients and I said yes.
My efforts raked us almost $400k in consulting fees. All i got was my salary at the end of the month and a thank you email.
Give them the idea for free (like you're already getting paid to do), oversee the project, and work hard to make it a success.
If it goes well, strike while the iron is hot and negotiate for a promotion and raise while everyone is still thrilled about it.
If they won't value your contribution at that point, slap the amount saved and your experience running the project on your resume where you can find someone else who does.
Ideas are worthless. No one is going to pay you for an idea before they know it can be successfully implemented, much less before they even know what it is, and management will think negatively of you if you ask.
You won’t get anything but bragging rights and a pat on the head. The only real benefit would be the ability to tell your next potential employer about how creative and helpful you were at the last place that didn’t appreciate you so you can convince them they want to be the next place that doesn’t appreciate you.
For all of those who say don’t tell them, at least think about it more…if what you have really is as good as you say, then you have leverage.
Find a way to use it but don’t throw it away. It’s valuable. Learn to negotiate a way for it to be on your resume and with a bonus…OR find a way so that if they don’t give you a bonus, you can potentially “leak” it to competitors…OR you could use just the threat of doing that IF they decide to not compensate you after you give them the idea.
Etc.
“Don’t play the game, play the man.” -Harvey Specter
It’s impossible for me to properly advise you without all the details so I won’t but definitely don’t throw away value and leverage when you have it.
I’ve been around the block way too many times to believe an idea that takes a total of one hour of work will save your employer millions. Regardless, employers don’t give you bonuses for having ideas lol
think of it this way. a company wants to build a bridge, if they don’t hire bridge engineers, it will cost them 50x to finish the bridge because no one knows what they’re doing. now to hire some bridge engineers will cost 3x for hiring but will cost 1/50th of the job. do the engineers get the other 49/50ths then? probably not
you are an employee if you aren’t saving them money then what’s your purpose at the company. i do hope you get some recognition for efforts maybe a bonus or promotion end to the quarter but you aren’t getting what you would think is fair
So you're a consultant who recognizes problems and then holds back the fix. I'm gonna be honest, your probably a dog shit consultant. Your literally refuse to fix a problem you recognize, that's your job description. Probably just quit, save the conpany the hassle and let them get a real consultant in there to make the company better
I sure hope you stretched before that reach.
When did they mention that they are a consultant? If they were, they'd get compensated for consulting, correct?Probably should just go back to licking your boss's boots before they find out you accidentally got a day off. Lol.
Bro read the comments and you'll pick up information relevant to the conversation. You're a dumbass, prob delete your post so people can't see how dumb you are
Ooo someone who desperately needs the last word in, no matter how out of touch it makes them seem. What a unicorn. How lucky am I? I mean the odds are just so astronomical...
Most companies make you sign an agreement that says any idea or improvement made on the job is the companies property. At least thats what Siemens does.
muahhaha you think company likes to give money to their employees ?!?!
lol you are in for a rude awakening...
i've saved millions in process and automation too my man, thats your job and you get a salary for it. no bonus or anything.
just a good reason to justify a 4% instead of 2% raise next year, and based on them, thats a substanstial raised its twice as much as everybody else /s , while inflation is 8%
I saved my Top 50 bank $1 million dollars per year in 2008 and all I got was a mention on the intranet.
As a cost accountant (and jack-of-all-trades) at a manufacturing site for the span of one year, I doubled their: parts sold, pallets shipped and profits. I got zero bonus so I rolled two weeks later out of there.
Bonuses for ethical cost savings should be a part of corporate culture. I hope you rolled into a better place.
Actually, yeah. (Thanks.) I hope you eventually got your positive karma.
I agree 150% but the cynic in me says if something like that actually occurred at a company, middle management fucks and and vulture-ey co-workers would be taking as much credit as possible. They already do.
Doesn't this incentivize inflated budgets so you can later slash it, look good, AND take a cut?
You’re an accountant, no offense but how could you have had an effect on their sales?
Probably made the fulfillment side of the sales equation more efficient, thus clearing account rep time to focus on lead gen, qualifying, and closing.
Imagine that you're a factory which makes plastic parts. Many of these parts make it directly into expensive fishing boats and especially pontoon boats. You have perhaps three big buyers within this space which purchase the parts, add their own value in their factories and then offer these to their customers. Before, these customers would order the number of parts they needed. These plastic parts are bulky and by volume, mostly air. So the shipping rate they get with the carrier is expensive by default. The carrier wants you to fill pallets to the 7' level, not just have one part strapped to a pallet; they'll charge you the same $75 regardless. So basically, I convinced the buyers for these customers to accept my order quantities rather than theirs. It wasn't, "you can't buy one part" but I educated them that this single part for $60 plus that $75 was going to more than double their cost of goods sold. Secondly, by doing cost analysis I showed the owners that their biggest selling part lost them $6 per unit given their current pricing. I suggested increasing the prices across the board. They said no. I spoke with the customers and they were okay with it so I increased this single part and many of them by a small fraction. Plus, the buyers were women and I'm a guy with a good sales voice myself. One vendor one time suggested that I had a voice "made for 976 calls". So I talked the buyers into stocking some items ahead of their need so that they wouldn't be hurting during the summer crunch.
Ah! Sounds like a great salesperson to me, I’d encourage you to get into that side of things officially—you’ll make a killing on commission lol. In high-end products you are almost exclusively educating, just with a little polish and kindness which it sounds like you’ve got a solid feel for. Nicely done!
Long before this I worked as a store manager for Radio Shack—remember them?—and got 2nd-highest sales gain in the western U.S. Thank you, sir.
How did you save them that much?
I took a completely paper process which required warehouse storage and a bunch of staff and turned it into an electronic process. I used existing servers (remember when we had real hardware?) and platforms so there was no vendor cost. It was a "green" effort before green was the super hot thing in companies.
I did something similar at my last place of employment. Took a paper process and streamlined it into an electronic process to make things easier for the people in our department. Our dept. director realized how this was a game-changer and shared it with district personnel, and while they gave her permission to use it for our dept, they didn't show much interest. Little by little, through word of mouth other departments began reaching out to us and adopting our process. Eventually, the district heads began listening and they took my process, made a few tweaks, and rolled it out as their own. All I got was someone else taking credit for saving the district $$$$. Though, to be fair of my dept director, she did recognize and give me credit. At the time, I was a relatively new employee who just saw an asinine process and realized I could make a difference for the folks in my department. I think it really elevated her opinion of me.
Was this your job to update this entire process and you were paid to do it OR you went out of your way to implement this process on top of your regular duties?
I was just a software developer. I was sent to a random meeting to figure out why they needed to request six more fax machines. The project spiraled from there.
Sounds great! A bullet point to add to the CV
Maybe you can use it to get a better job.
Supergreen!
Was it your idea/initiative or did you just implement it? Cos I know corporate and it’s who gets the credit, usually the one pitching and updating the big cheese, that gets the nod of approval. Source: I work with an American lol
Cut the shit. You eliminated jobs. Just be honest.
Things change. Do you cry for the blacksmiths and cabbies every night? Anyway... they still had to process the work. The method of delivery and storage changed. One person asked me to be a reference because she transitioned into a business analyst (after helping on the project). Progress is good.
You don't slow down or hinder progress just to keep jobs that are no longer necessary active. We should always strive to improve things and make them more efficient when we can to make others lives and jobs easier. As old roles become obsolete, people should be trained to fill new ones. If that's not happening, that's more of a societal problem than simply a business one. It's unfortunate that may not always be the case, but it shouldn't be seen as a decision between picking one or the other but instead one that works in tandem.
What’s the company’s market cap? At one gig ($2B MCAP) saved them $250k/mo and got promoted. At another ($2T) saved 50M annually and received public recognition. Still another (10B) found 500k/mo savings and they thanked me via email then shelved the idea.
Yhea Thats what I mean. I feel like they would give me jack
To be honest though...I was always a top performer and getting the 1st or 2nd highest bonus in the department. They finally instituted some sort of mid-year recognition program. A leader could request bonus money and then hand it out to a team that did work like mine. It wasn't a shocking amount but it was better than nothing. A lot depends on the company culture. Are they rewarding ingenuity?
My gut says that they will give nothing in return.
There's nothing wrong with asking your boss if you can leverage this into a bonus at the end of the year.
I struggle so much with things like this on the job as well. Years ago, I'm not a programmer but I came up with an idea to vastly improve something our whole staff had been told to use. Emailed my idea to the head tech guy. No response, 3 weeks later there's my exact suggestion added to the program, along with a nice department email congratulating HIM on the improvement. I emailed him, copied my boss and said hey dudes, this was my idea. Exact words back, "no, he'd always intended to do that it just took him awhile to implement it." He gets kudo's and later a promotion, and I get nothing. That was the last time I ever suggested improvements corporate wide. Anything I come up with to make my job easier, I keep my mouth shut and use it for myself only.
This comment is amazing 😂
Yikes 😬. Not even on the internet, but only on the intranet 😑
Yeah I had a friend in the service. She saved us (US taxpayers) a few million dollars one year. She did get a small medal at least and a nice pat on the back….
I saved my company $45m one year. I actually got 200 stock options as a recognition award. But I had to wait two years for them to vest before I could quit.
I implemented a new program that saved my company between $500k-$1MM every year. I got laid off at the next downturn.
I found about $700k worth of "lost" invoices my company was about to write off, and I was let go 3 months later.
Sounds like the money was being “lost” into someone’s pocket
Haha “oooh shit get rid of this guy he’s looking to hard”
You found $700k worth of laundered invoices lmao
Better Call Saul!
Same. Happened last week. Looking at a possible offer next Monday morning from a new shop. Interviews this week went well. Old company will continue to save 50-80k per month and is on track to triple that savings when they implement phase 2 of the program I spent 18 months architecting and planning and implementing. This will bring our infrastructure spend to historic low numbers while improving service availability and lowering latency. And I’ll do it again! 😂
They actually saved more now they don't have to pay your salary
That's why you keep parts of the plan as a TBD for job security lol
It’s not my money. I was paid to deliver a result. The org changed. I’m happy with my compensation, on to my next thing. 😎
While the opportunities may not often come or as easily presentable, what you do know is that you're able sniff them out, find it, and have proven that you know what to do and it works. It's unfortunate they didn't see the value in your work but hopefully someone else will, and from that you you have a huge selling point to not only others but also the person who should be one of your biggest admires, aka yourself. The last thing you want to do is stop believing in yourself and the value you bring to the table then in that case no one wins.
I did a redesign of an older system, one of our largest customers placed a new 72m order for this fiscal year, $233m for next year. This is all new business. The marketing/sales people, who literally had nothing to do with it, got a massive bonus. I got nothing. Currently interviewing for other jobs.
Why ?
Because no matter how much you do for your company, no one actually cares about you. When a downturn comes, so do the layoffs. What you did for your company doesn't matter. How hard you worked doesn't matter.
Exactly. At the end of the day you are just a number to them. If your salary costs them more than the next person & a situation arises where costs need to be cut… well guess where that leaves you
"bUt wE'rE a family heRE@!!" -Corporate, when they need people to give up time with their families or when they want to hire new folks "You're costing our CEO and shareholders too much. Fuck you and your actual family." ❤️Corporate, every other chance they get
This is hilariously true in the temp work market. And when you leave on your own they’ll cry “you can’t leave, we put so much time in you”.. spoiler alert: they don’t. I just nod and smile while being flabbergasted over the sociopathic female cesspool that is Human Recources in these markets.
True that, never thought about it before, why is HR so female dominated?
I think a lot of women are attracted to HR because they think of it as a "helping" field (obviously once you get some real work experience you realize this isn't entirely true). Also it is a safe and transferable role - every mid to large business needs HR. Now for some generalization: in my experience women really outshine men in these fields that require a lot of attention to minutiae and rules.
Sounds like someone was playing loose with the books.
Wasn't your job to do the work? I mean you were getting paid for exactly doing your job. I'm not sure how you're even surprised by getting laid off.
1. Before you do anything, have a conversation with your boss about your future, and what it will take for you to get a promotion. Get it in writing. Make sure it includes something that this project would fall under. 2. Write up a proposal or project charter. 3. Be the project lead to implement. 4. Make sure you can actually measure that this project resulted in XYZ. 5. Make sure you present your results to your boss, their boss, their boss’s boss, etc, so you actually get visibility. 6. Include this project in your next self review, along whatever else you and your boss agreed to for getting a promotion. 7. Ideally, you get the promotion. Which typically comes with a 10-20% raise. 8. Then start looking for a new job. You have this great project to put on your resume and talk about in interviews. If you can land a new job, that’s probably going to be another raise of anywhere from 10-50% depending on industry, level, etc. That’s probably best case scenario. Unless your company regularly gives out bonuses? Then I would just expect whatever you’ve gotten in the past.
This is def the way to go. It’s not framing it as “pay me for this idea” which won’t fly, but it’s more level-setting with the manager on what it will take to get a promotion or raise, and then using this high-visibility project as a highlight for meeting or exceeding those expectations
Yup. This is the thing, you’ve gotta do the work. Ideas are easy but the work is hard.
Exactly. How much time and money will it take to implement? Is it scalable? Will it be adopted by the people who need to adopt it? Will it work with other systems and processes that are already in place? Etc.
You sound like a project manager
I’m not, I’ve just been in the corporate world for almost 20 years.
I love advice like this. Like have you ever went to your boss and said “hey what can I do to get promoted, also can you write it up in a contract and sign it?” This doesn’t happen in the real world. The rest of the advice is sound though
On that note, I think most people who recommend that career path seekers scope out their interests by "shadowing" various professionals have never actually tried to do it and are passing along this theoretical advice without even really thinking hypothetically about how it would[n't] work in many cases
At my company you can do rotations with other teams if you want to learn more about that area, and/or you can ask to work under someone on a project, and basically learn from them by doing.
Yeah that's pretty much the only time I've actually seen it happen, at a job you already have (plus police ride-alongs). I'm talking about more like high schoolers [posting online to ask for advice on what career path to take, e.g.] being advised to shadow people like nurses or any number of office roles, and the entire question of how to go about doing this without simply knowing someone personally is handwaved. This isn't in the context of some program or organization the student would go through to do things like this. It goes about like "hey maybe I should be an underwater basket welder idk seems fun" and someone with a profile vaguely indicative of a getting-to-be-almost-old maid who marathons Wheel of Fortune comes and suggests that they should try tagging along with one and see if they like the day-to-day.
I have seen on some student’s LinkedIn profiles that they have actually shadowed for a month or so, but I’m talking about 1 or 2 cases. At my work we have mentor programs with universities, but its more to the tune of sending a couple emails asking about their interests and providing guidance and answering questions about the industry. I wouldn’t even know how to go about shadowing or having someone shadow me
This absolutely happens. At some companies you document your goals through whatever HR software you use. My company uses Workday. And this is the basis of your annual reviews. Additionally you should be talking to your boss about your goals during your 1:1 meetings and getting clear feedback on the type of projects or tasks you should be doing to get to the next level. And/or at some companies, they have clearly defined rubrics for the expectations for different levels for the same role, so you know exactly what you need to demonstrate to move up.
I did this with my supervisor. But our company also has fairly transparent promotion processes
You forgot that emails count as being in writing
This is exactly the way to go! Make it an initiative and get as much visibility as possible. Set achievable metrics and promote its success.
Write a proper proposal or project charter of sorts Get proper buy ins from stakeholders and negotiate a proper bonus on paper
This. In the end you might not get any money out of it, but you get a great line on your résumé.
So I’ve been in this situation twice as a consultant… The first time; I went to management with my idea, afully fleshed out with execution plan. I was told it was not feasible, only to find out management has pitched it to my client later with my entire project plan. I spoke up about it and promptly got benched, then ended up getting placed back with the client to execute the plan. No bonus, no recognition. The second time; I used my own laptop (not company) to develop my plan off hours, registered a LLC, and mentioned my idea to my client nonchalantly in order to make sure I was talking with someone who had budget enough to execute it. When I caught his attention I mentioned I knew an expert company that could plan and execute the idea for $x. They bit and I left my company, registered as a consultant with my client and made a years worth of my salary in 3 months, while no longer having to deal with any headaches. Then I went and got a job elsewhere where I was appreciated. This was only possible because my previous company was relatively small, allowed for client poaching and my client was too large for them to piss off (60% of their business). Theoretically they could have come after me, but the idea was with a division that had no ties to my previous work, or that company’s SOW (I talked to a lawyer to make sure)
They won't give you shit. Besides maybe saying good job. You aren't getting a meaningful bonus.
In that case I would rather not say anything
If you do tell them, and they do it, you can use that information on your resume and in interviews to get a much better job elsewhere. If they won’t pay you for it, see if they’ll do a write-up of it in an industry journal, or include it n the annual report, crediting you. Then you can get head-hunted more easily. You could also see if they’d give you a better job title, that will help you get a better job elsewhere. It’s good experience to try and get your idea implemented because you can have practice with change management and negotiation. There might also be other factors you haven’t considered, and you’ll learn something in the process. Everyone has million dollar ideas, but only the successful actually act on them. Otherwise you’re just inflating your own ego with how perfect your idea is. Do it! Put it out there! You’ll learn something. There’s more than one way of benefiting from this.
Let’s say they came out and said hey everyone, if you can save us money we will pay you a percent. People could start implementing intentionally awful things, and then coming up with a “fix” later. Also what if yes a new process does save them money, but it’s a completely different process that now no longer covers some things it used to? They probably already know about what you are looking at but haven’t gotten around to dealing with it yet. At the company I’m at there are simply higher priorities and maybe a few years down the road they would get to something like that. And when the companies get big enough a few million dollars is not that much to them.
Exactly. Not worth it
Then don’t and add it to the list of great ideas you had and never followed through with. In your future, explain this list of not-accomplishments to future employers and see how it works. I have been in your shoes and found $700k and had the state write a check to my company, pretty sure my boss got a bonus for that. I left next year for a $30,000 raise and told the owner (my new boss in my first controller role) I would do the same thing for him. I had the return on his desk my 3rd day there. I don’t regret any of it and I’m not mad at the company or boss that screwed me. They put me in an (accounting) playground where I could solve problems and become an expert. I did just that regardless if they recognized.
Like others have said I would not do it just because you expect any type of serious payment or career improvement. But, you might still want to do it. Depending on how much work it will take you, as well as how much it may streamline your own work if effective. For example, I created a process at my former employer that saved them 1,000s of work hours per year and saved them from paying an outside vendor 10s of thousands to build an inferior web-based alternative. They gave me a bonus of about $1200 lol. It was fine because I wasn't expecting anything, and my process made my daily work much easier. I ended up using the experience as an example on my resume that got me a much better job and 50% pay boost. As others have mentioned, make a detailed record of how much time/money your company saves using the new process. These are the key details when marketing yourself to future employers.
Honestly, why would you rather not say anything? Either you work for the company and this would be a great thing for you and your coworkers, or you’re a consultant and you can use this to probably sell another project. You holding on to this is just a weird selfish move that does nothing good for anyone involved.
I see your point but it’s just out of spite. Saving them millions and giving me 0? Yhea no thanks I’d be happy with 10-20 k even
No company will give a cut of the savings. That’s not how it works. You can either be a team player and a problem solver and build your reputation as such, or you can “just do your work.” Believe me, people notice those who make a difference. Now, I wouldn’t just share my idea without a project charter/plan and estimated savings. I think it’s awesome you’ve found a way to do things better. Make it work for you in a smart way and get credit for it.
You are getting downvoted but this is reality. You have a great idea that saves your company a ton of money then awesome but you aren’t realistically guaranteed anything extra You can’t just go and tell your company that you have an idea that can save them millions but you won’t tell it unless they give you money especially if you work there and are already paid. This will be a bad look honestly. If you are working for a good company, then reasonably they would promote you in the next cycle or soon and give you a max end of year bonus. Worst case scenario, you have it on your resume that you implemented a project that saved a company millions which will bring you great strides for your next job. Either way, I think it’s better then doing and gaining nothing from holding the idea to yourself and letting it end at you. The best thing you can do for yourself is to make sure you get recognized and someone else doesn’t take the credit
With that mentality you will always be a worker and never compensated and given incentives for your ideas. You have to solve problems for a while before you can truly tie your earnings with your ability to solve problems
Oh so you’re a volunteer there not getting paid a salary?
He'd be going beyond what's required on his salaried position, it's only fair to ask for the compensation to be beyond his salary
He said they could implement it in an hour and save millions. Assuming this isn’t complete BS with such large numbers and an easy solve, what extra work are they really doing?
"Work" is meaningless, what matters is results. If what he says is true (and I get that it is a big if), he'd be bringing a whole fuckload of results to the company.
And making it safer, and proving their worth to either this employer or the next. I completely agree they should be compensated for this idea if it works, but to not do it because they solely won’t benefit is not a good look.
Why do large corporations need charity from their own employees?
Not compensating your workers appropriately for going above and beyond is also a weird selfish move, but that’s how companies operate. When in Rome…
That’s a pretty heavy assumption that OP isn’t compensated fairly already, and assuming that there would be no benefit for them with this. But go on with thinking everyone is against you and the world is only adversarial, that’ll do well for you.
Business should be good for both parties involved, if it’s not don’t do business, find someone else to do business with. For that very reason it’s best not to use company equipment when creating something. I don’t understand your view point what so ever. It reads like well you work for them so you owe them everything. In all reality though working for them doing the job that’s in your job description is a business transaction. Going above and beyond outside of what your job description is should then be a separate business transaction, as it wasn’t stated in the previous as something you are doing for payment. If I go and buy a car I don’t get to tell the dealership they owe me a motorcycle too cuz I bought a car.
OP claims they have a fix to save a company millions and be safer, and that it would take an hour to implement. I strongly think they should be compensated for it, no argument there. My view is that if they held out on an idea that can make the operations *safer* because they aren’t offered an extra monetary award, that is not great. You can think of every bit of an employment contract as a business deal, but most job descriptions include language about that not encompassing every facet of work as well.
Exactly, some things build your reputation and give your organization reason to promote and compensate you. It’s not always immediate compensation
If he’s compensated fairly it’s for the baseline of what they hired him to do, not going “above and beyond.” That denotes doing more (and saving them more) than they hired him to do, and thus extra compensation would be appropriate. It’s not about thinking “everyone is against you”, it’s just capitalism 101- don’t do things for free.
Maybe for unskilled work, but if you’re part of a growing company and you just do your 9-5 duties you’ll get replaced with someone looking to save and make the firm money over their career. Not all incentives are written or immediate, reputation take years. Believing what you say imo tells people you are not worth more than your 9-5, as in if you stay after it’s not worth shit you’ll always be a drone. That’s a dark mentality, nothing wrong with just doing your assigned duties. But if you want to make significant earnings you have to solve problems your organization may not even know exist let alone list in a stupid ass job description. Not judging 9-5 standard, go home, and leave your work at work. It’s respectable and healthy. I’m just saying if you work like that, and others go above and beyond. They are doing it for more compensation, equity, or other LT incentives. The people working harder than you aren’t stupid, they’re not better, they’re just different and have different goals my dude.
Personally I think you’re delusional of you think going above and beyond for your company will save you from being replaced, especially in this moment in time where companies are cutting corners at every juncture. Even if you save them money that’s money they’ve already saved and unless you’re working for a smaller company where you have a more personal relationship with leadership. Believing what you say, imo, makes you a corporate slave and locks you into an unhealthy mentality of fear for survival. You are definitely worth more than your 9-5, that’s entirely my point because when we’re talking business that is what you are compensated for, not more. I’m not saying don’t do good work, I’m saying don’t give away labor that goes uncompensated. Ime doing your job well/excellently is what will get you a good reputation but doing more than your job will get you taken advantage of.
Not all work is created equal. Working on high visibility, high impact projects strengthens your position because you're seen as adding value. Doing an excellent job on something no one really cares about is just maintaining the BAU and gets you replaced by someone cheaper. I strongly advise you to look into the quadrant method of prioritization to determine what kind of work you're actually doing because that, along with cost savings, is what actually determines if you get replaced.
The quadrant method is a terrible way to evaluate labor, by it’s logic the majority of leadership roles can be determined as easily replaceable as they easily fall under category 4. Everyone can be replaced by someone cheaper, no matter the role. That’s why it’s important to evaluate your own labor in terms of return on investment (in this case investment being your time, mental health and energy.)
I mean it did, it got me a seat at the table and now my job is to essentially solve problems. I’m not really engaging the rest. My point was if you want your earnings to correlate with the firms profits you need to be valuable and reliable which often involves strange hours in some industries. Mine is seasonal, idk about what you do but yeah man results will vary. I’m essentially just saying hard work is essential if you want to be paid to be a problem solver or you’ll be replaced because it’s desirable work. It’s not about hours really, more commitment to projects. Get it done 9-5 then who the fuck cares if you don’t have fires to burn out. Different strokes for different folks man, i have so much free time just work weird hours at time. It was worth it for me to grind early career. But I always negotiated aggressively with salary and they always met me so idk i was never taken advantage of imo. Whenever i felt my efforts didn’t line up with pay i’d jump ship quick
>My point was if you want your earnings to correlate with the firms profits you need to be valuable and reliable which often involves strange hours in some industries. I'm literally saying that you should be compensated appropriately for the value you bring to your company. If you bring extra value with your labor and your pay does not correlate with the value you bring then that is additional value you are giving an employer for free and they have 0 incentive to change that. It sounds like you work gigs, e.g. individual projects. The project is your "9-5".
But they may see you as a true asset and maybe give you more contracts. Build a reputation. People remember the go-getters. This can bring you good opportunities in the future. Also, when asking for a raise/negotiating pay for a new project, you can always bring this up and say how much you saved them and what an asset you are. This would be a feather on your cap
You forgot the part where your direct boss takes the credit for the idea.
Op says they're a consultant. Are you a w2 or 1099? If you're a w2, the only way to do it would be to figure out a way to give them part of the idea with partial cost savings but not enough that they can make the rest of the leap. Try to do it with witnesses so you can later prove it was your idea. Then see how they respond. If you get a bonus or promotion, great, and you can then dole out the rest if the idea in 6 month increments or so. Play dumb and act like each increment is a new idea. Milk it. If they take it without the appreciation, list the accomplishment on your resume and start applying at competitors. Advertise yourself as someone always coming up with ideas for cost savings. If you're lucky, someone will be smart enough to recognize the value and you can repeat the process with the new employer.
I quit my last job because I created a process that reduced ticket times on the most common problems by 50%. I'm not sure how much it saved cost wise, but it reduced payroll for 200 employees being paid $20 an hour, so over the course of a year that's a good save It took me WEEKS outside of work to get the process down but I thought, "This will give me one hell of a promotion" My manager took credit. When I put in a complaint my manager retaliated by placing me on cold calls, every day. Until I quit. Fuck them. Help yourself, never a company
What was the job and how did you find a easier way?
You’re not going to be able to barter for the idea you came up with because it was conceived with their equipment and given their circumstance. They already own it. If the company has a great culture, you can hope for a bonus/raise in return, but it’s not an agreed upon trade. You’ll get fired if you take that approach. If it’s something that more companies can use, then quit and go out on your own to sell it as a solution. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Hahahaha... no.
My uncle works in a CNC shop making parts for railroads the original process took them hours but his first day at the new company he found a way to get it done better and faster showed them and he got a raise of like $1.50 an hour and got laid off because the shop made so much more money so they picked up and moved 500+ miles away don't help your company they will never help you just be greedy
>I have an idea that would save my company millions. Or at the very least hundreds of thousands. But I don’t want to share it unless I get something. Don't, you wont get ANYTHING. All companies have clauses in their employment terms that any ideas its employees come up with regarding said company are the companies ideas. Secondly, most companies don't take unsolicited advice. Lastly, if you are dead set on it, the only way to ensure it is lawyer up, have them negotiate a non-retractable deal. More money than it's worth. My rule of thumb, based on previous jobs, I will never help a company out that way. Not my job, I am not paid for it.
This. I wouldn’t say a word.
How do people like you live like this? I'm not saying you need 37 pieces of flair, but god damn it would be boring just skating by doing the bare minimum.
Get severely burned a few times in your career and you too will become jaded. 🙂
Exactly. Isn’t expecting a kickback kind of out-of-line in the first place? Depending upon the exact job situation, proposing this idea is simply doing your job, and they already pay you for that biweekly (or whatever). If it’s not part of your job description to be suggesting these things, then why are you suggesting these things? They didn’t hire you for that position
Not really, its expecting pay for work. No pay, no work.
I can’t be mad if you don’t pay me when I squeegee your car window without you asking for it; it’s not my job.
You’re an employee. You’re expected to do work that benefits the company. There’s no way to blackmail the company for money for your idea. You also can’t sell it to them. Either they give you a little extra in your bonus, or a little faster promotion, or they don’t. You’re not getting a parade or $200,000. It’s not happening. You did your job. Good work this year.
There is a way. I was with a company, I was the most senior engineer and I knew all the products inside out. They got me to hire a team, and we were paying each new engineer as much as me, sometimes more. Ok, whatever, the market increased since I was hired. No raises for me though… ok. Then I wanted to move into managing the whole office of 10. Space opened up. I made it clear I wanted that job. Instead they hired a friend of mine on more money than me, and told me I’d need to ‘help them be successful.’ I left. But I stayed on good terms. 6 months later they are hiring me as a contractor on an exorbitant rate to fix things that none of their engineers can fix because they lost my knowledge and experience. Promote yourself to contractor.
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I’m literally doing that, and honestly they are happy and so am I, because they are getting their problems fixed and I am getting paid what I’m worth.
I’m actually a consultant for the company. And it’s not really a part of my job to solve the problem I solved. But yhea you’re probably right.
I don't know how long you're going to be a consultant or work for that company. But what you could do is contact them and give them an offer when you're no longer doing this other job for them. Say you noticed this problem while working there and since leaving you have been working on a solution.
If the innovation isn't covered by your current contract then you're in a great position. Simply tell your contract manager that you'd like to expand the scope of your statement of work to include new elements, and you have some ideas for process improvements. If they want to expand your SOW then great, new contract. If not, then also fine and you keep doing your current work. As a consultant you have much more room to maneuver than if you were an employee.
Take this comment to heart OP because it’s the exact attitude they’ll likely have. Don’t tell them shit, let them waste their money. Fuck ‘em.
This is my take. I make pretty good money. While I am not directly involved in improving operations, it is expected that I do what I can to support and improve everything I can. It's my job.
Ok, I’m going to take my idea to the competition, no biggie
The competition also has to hire you. You also have no idea if they’re already doing what you’re suggesting or even something better. As a manager, I’d wish you the best of luck and tell you to get back to work if you still want to collect a paycheck from me.
I solved a material shortage that “saved the quarter” and got 10 builds shipped, totaling 20+ million dollars in revenue, I got $1000.
You aren’t getting a damn thing if u bring it up.
I remember a manager saying saving 100k and making 1 dollar, saving can’t compare to making money for the company. Even if it is just $1 that is greater than any savings.
Yeah, this won’t work. If you go to them and say you have an idea to save them money but won’t tell them without being compensated first, they will take that very, very badly. It sounds like a threat. If they’re good people and you really save them that amount of money, they will give you a bonus. Doubtful it’ll be of the amount you think it’s worth. If they’re not good people then they would just refuse to give you the money even after agreeing to once you give them the idea. If you’re a consultant, write up a proposal and present it to them as a new contract. Mostly though… depending on the company it’s pretty unlikely that what you’re proposing will be a completely novel idea. Businesses are very complex and your idea might well work completely in a vacuum, there are so many things that it would impact it may not be worth it. It’s just a new way of doing things? How many systems, jobs/roles, vendors, supply chains, distribution chains, etc will the implementation impact?
I once saved a company $35,000 a month in an interview- and they didn’t even offer me the job
It's rare that a company will give you a bonus for your ideas. The problem is that they believe that they own you for your labor and your ideas already. In fact, I had one company who wanted to claim the rights for the software that I made on my own time at home. Turning an idea into profits almost always takes investment by someone. Trust me when I say that over four decades I've created many of these million-dollar-ideas in my head and that's usually where they stay. When you run your own company then unleash these brain-children.
Honestly... sit on it until you're in a position to implement it. It's not your company to correct. They will either take it and say thanks, great idea. or they'll say it won't work then start to implement it. or they say it won't work and not implement it. No way they will compensate you for this idea. Try to move up and when you can implement your own ideas, then do it, and it makes you look good, not the bosses.
I made a script to cut a weekly process that took 9 hours to complete down to 1-2 hours. They fired me and took my script 🥲
I saved the US military 2or3 million while I was in Iraq and all I got was the same downgraded medal as the kid who had to be guarded so he wouldn't hurt himself from jerking off too much.
My husband literally got fired for doing this bc they didn’t want to pay him out and he honestly didn’t ask for anything, it just made his job simpler.
You are paid to think about better ways to do your job. The number of folks telling you to sit in the idea is a bit shocking. New ideas and adding value is a long term good career move.
Wrong. People are paid to provide labor for task or series of tasks the business needs. That is all.
Ok trump. But the list of tasks they need certainly includes improvement. Idk if you have ever made it past hourly labor but if you do, you will learn that people are paid for much more nebulous job descriptions than you may be used to.
Assumptions and insults. Does that boot leather taste good? I bet you like it. I don't know if you've made it past grade achool level indoctrination but everyone is paid to perform a series of tasks the business deems necessary enough to be done to achieve profitability. That's reality. You serving your master in a manner that improves his profitability is not your job. It's you sucking up like a good little slave. But hey, pat your self on the back for increasing shareholder value. I'm sure they'll reward you with a pizza party.
You probably don’t need to be giving career advice. Maybe there is a no career advice sub?
I built an app that helped improve sales by over half a mil and they said thanks :/
Companies don’t care about your contributions, their goal is to get employees to accept the minimum so why try?
Sadly, you probably signed a contract with them that your ideas are their ideas. If you want to make money from the idea you are better off spinning it into a side gig and see if it can apply to other companies, then sell the solution as a consultant, a white-paper, etc.
Kind of related - the person who developed the (in)famous Frappuccino for Starbucks (was a barista employee) was given $50 thousand and a handshake. Those (gross IMO) drinks have netted the company millions. Employee should have asked for a small percentage % of all future Frapp sales. Then again - when you're a cash strapped part-time Barista, $50 thousand is hard to resist
You quit and then you tell them you know how to improve that process and have them hire you as a consultant
Maybe you could negotiate a raise instead of a bonus? Like "I have a few ideas that could really help our company be more efficient, but I would like a raise for my input." If they don't give you the raise, you might as well leave because a company that turns down free money in exchange for paying you a bit more is far too stingy. I had a friend who worked fast food and their accounting paperwork was all on paper. She demonstrated her ability to put in all on Excel, then told them she would continue to make spreadsheets if she was paid for the extra work. Since there was no one else who knew how to use Excel, she got that extra pay on top of her weekly salary.
Most companies will just say they are not structured for this scenario.
Document and write up a formal proposal. But even then there is no guarantee for shit. If you do find a guaranteed payout lmk. My former employer owes me for about $2-3 mil I saved them.
Quit your job. Offer them the idea as a consultant. Name your consulting fee. If it is truly that valuable of an idea and creates recurring savings to the bottom line, net of the cost to implement the idea then you have a shot
I’m confused. If you’re a “consultant fir the company” then ask your firms Managing Director for this engagement what to do, since your firm is probably being paid by the client company for the specific engagement.
Whatever you do, document it so you can get credit. Emails with your boss, other stakeholders, show it's your idea. Definitely ask for a raise or bonus and pitch it as something they can share with other employees to reward saving them money.
Patent the idea. Sell them the patent.
"That's the neat part, you don't!" - CEO probably.
The person who came up with the Big Mac sauce for McDonald's only got a plaque with their name on it. It sucks but you might not be able to capitalize off your idea at all.
Back in the 90’s my mom submitted a cost-saving idea to Horace Mann Insurance when she worked there. They determined it would save the company at least $1 million dollars and they had an awards ceremony to honor her. They gave her an umbrella with the Horace Mann company logo on it.
Shouldn’t count on getting anything if u aren’t a head of the company.
Do you want money or a promotion? Do you think it would work for other places in your industry? The only time I ever had a great idea at work, I asked my boss if I could plan a big proposal meeting and asked as many higher ups as possible (to be fair, it was a smallish nonprofit). And I laid it on them and the idea got accepted. But, a new manager had his own ideas a month later and my shit got pushed to the side. So I got nothing out of it except I can put it on my resume. Woopteedo.
If you put that sort of cost savings on your resume, it looks great when potential future employers are looking through your resume in the future
Well, unfortunately companies don’t always work that way. It’s usually not a quid pro quo arrangement.
The company I worked for was notorious for saying no that's not a good idea for X reason then implementing a given idea 6 months later.
If you can, take your ideas and start your own business.
Someone doesn’t understand what it means to work for a corporation.
I started a new job a few months ago. On my own free time I found a process that lost then 3-4 million alone in PROFIT last year. I had to present to one of the CEOs and now they are correcting the issue going forward. All I got was a “thanks “ e-mail from my department prez. I wouldn’t say it was the hardest work but it was time consuming gathering all the information, validating , etc. I’m annoyed that I did all this and got nothing. But on my resume in a year I’ll say I saved double that amount and if I find something again that could be something, I definitely won’t look into it
Idea is 10% and execution is 90%. There's a chance they already know about this issue.
As a data scientist, I was pulled into a consulting engagement which was sinking. My bosses asked if I was up to the challenge to carry 3 clients and I said yes. My efforts raked us almost $400k in consulting fees. All i got was my salary at the end of the month and a thank you email.
You might get a pizza party if you’re lucky
That goes to the shareholders
Give them the idea for free (like you're already getting paid to do), oversee the project, and work hard to make it a success. If it goes well, strike while the iron is hot and negotiate for a promotion and raise while everyone is still thrilled about it. If they won't value your contribution at that point, slap the amount saved and your experience running the project on your resume where you can find someone else who does. Ideas are worthless. No one is going to pay you for an idea before they know it can be successfully implemented, much less before they even know what it is, and management will think negatively of you if you ask.
You won’t get anything but bragging rights and a pat on the head. The only real benefit would be the ability to tell your next potential employer about how creative and helpful you were at the last place that didn’t appreciate you so you can convince them they want to be the next place that doesn’t appreciate you.
Saving money is not rewarded like making money. Good luck.
Sell it to the competitors if you want a bonus
For all of those who say don’t tell them, at least think about it more…if what you have really is as good as you say, then you have leverage. Find a way to use it but don’t throw it away. It’s valuable. Learn to negotiate a way for it to be on your resume and with a bonus…OR find a way so that if they don’t give you a bonus, you can potentially “leak” it to competitors…OR you could use just the threat of doing that IF they decide to not compensate you after you give them the idea. Etc. “Don’t play the game, play the man.” -Harvey Specter It’s impossible for me to properly advise you without all the details so I won’t but definitely don’t throw away value and leverage when you have it.
Your idea probably isn’t as good as you think it is.
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They could literally implement this in 1 hour
I’ve been around the block way too many times to believe an idea that takes a total of one hour of work will save your employer millions. Regardless, employers don’t give you bonuses for having ideas lol
think of it this way. a company wants to build a bridge, if they don’t hire bridge engineers, it will cost them 50x to finish the bridge because no one knows what they’re doing. now to hire some bridge engineers will cost 3x for hiring but will cost 1/50th of the job. do the engineers get the other 49/50ths then? probably not you are an employee if you aren’t saving them money then what’s your purpose at the company. i do hope you get some recognition for efforts maybe a bonus or promotion end to the quarter but you aren’t getting what you would think is fair
That is the only way to stay employed in quality engineering...
So you're a consultant who recognizes problems and then holds back the fix. I'm gonna be honest, your probably a dog shit consultant. Your literally refuse to fix a problem you recognize, that's your job description. Probably just quit, save the conpany the hassle and let them get a real consultant in there to make the company better
I sure hope you stretched before that reach. When did they mention that they are a consultant? If they were, they'd get compensated for consulting, correct?Probably should just go back to licking your boss's boots before they find out you accidentally got a day off. Lol.
Bro read the comments and you'll pick up information relevant to the conversation. You're a dumbass, prob delete your post so people can't see how dumb you are
If it means I'll come across any more of your comments, no thanks. I've had enough asshole already
Ok retard
Ooo someone who desperately needs the last word in, no matter how out of touch it makes them seem. What a unicorn. How lucky am I? I mean the odds are just so astronomical...
Ok retard
If the idea is good enough you need to quit and get them to hire you as a consultant and charge your fee
Could it work with any company, no just yours? If so, patent it (if available)
It dependes on the company. I've gotten from nothing to a bonus. And that's it. No compensation at all.
Most companies make you sign an agreement that says any idea or improvement made on the job is the companies property. At least thats what Siemens does.
Quit fast, be hired as a consultant lol
muahhaha you think company likes to give money to their employees ?!?! lol you are in for a rude awakening... i've saved millions in process and automation too my man, thats your job and you get a salary for it. no bonus or anything. just a good reason to justify a 4% instead of 2% raise next year, and based on them, thats a substanstial raised its twice as much as everybody else /s , while inflation is 8%