My Two Cents: How to Make Suggestions at Work When You're a Peon
How to make your company a better place even if you are low on the totem pole.
July 16, 2009 — -- An employment advisor I'll call "Joey" recently told me that he's been banging his head against the wall at the art college where he works.
Occasionally students in crisis wander into Joey's office, desperate for a job or grocery money, sometimes having lost their student loans or housing.
Unfortunately, Joey has no way to help them.
"I asked my boss if we had any policy on what do when coming across students like this," said Joey, who comes from a social service background and is used to working with people in need of housing or financial assistance. "No answer."
So Joey asked his boss again, and his colleagues, this time in writing. He suggested creating a fund for these students, or at least a more formal assessment program. Again he got no response. He sent a follow-up e-mail too, but still, nothing.
"All I was looking for was a general plan we could use to make sure we were helping these students," said Joey, who was unemployed for a year before landing his current position nine months ago. Then, he said, "I complained to my boss, and he let me know he didn't appreciate my tone."
Although Joey would like to take it upon himself to develop his own solution, he isn't sure how wise it would be to do so without his manager's blessing.
"I have some trepidation about rocking the boat and giving my future here a black eye," he said. "Creating change seems difficult."
I imagine many of you can relate. You see a flaw in the way your employer conducts its daily business and you want to fix it, be it to better serve your clients, conserve company resources or increase that almighty revenue.
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