A suggestions scheme initiated by a Dubai ports and free zone company and another local firm for staff has proved successful, their ideas attracting huge savings and rewards.  

The Group Suggestion and Reward Scheme (SRS) that The Corporate Office (TCO) of the Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation (PCFC) and Nakheel introduced in October 2000 resulted in accumulated revenues of Dh64.2 million ($17.4 million) in five years, a PCFC statement said.
  SRS was initially implemented within the PCFC. However, since the beginning of 2005 the scheme has been renamed Group SRS with the aim of covering all TCO business units.
The SRS was instituted with the mission of enhancing employee motivation by recognising and rewarding useful suggestions which, when implemented would lead to the improved performance and customer service, environmental friendliness, employee welfare and results in savings or increased revenues.  
The Group Suggestion and Reward Scheme has received 4,686 suggestions since it was initiated. Of these, 3,148 are under process and 1089 have been rejected. As many as 449 suggestions have been implemented and the total amount given away as cash awards is Dh1,28 million.
 “The success of the scheme has exceeded all our expectations,” said Ahmed Hussain, executive director, Environment, Health, Safety, Security and Privatisation Division, PCFC.
“When we introduced this innovative programme five years ago … we hoped to increase employee participation in the overall functioning of the corporation by giving them an opportunity to come up with suggestions that would benefit PCFC on various fronts.”
Some of the award-winning suggestions include levying fees for the renewal of the import code for all companies, which generates an annual recurring revenue of Dh1 million to the corporation. The PCFC employee who came up with this suggestion was awarded a cash prize of Dh52,000.
Another successful suggestion related to the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa), which had planned to build a 132 KV substation in the north of the Jebel Ali container terminal. A suggestion was made that the substation should be relocated to the inside of the container terminal to avoid the redundancy of having two substations of the same size in one area. This suggestion, which resulted in savings of Dh50 million for the PCFC, won the employee a cash prize of Dh500,000.
 In 2004 SRS won the prestigious Technology trophy in Chester, UK, for the invention of a special measuring tool called the ‘Q-Calliper’ by Subbiah Chandrasekaran. He was presented with a cash reward of  Dh20,000 for this achievement.
Another employee suggested ventilating the gas containers to avoid any build up of gas and to charge Dh60 per container. This resulted in improved environment and safety as well as increased revenues of Dh103,973 per year. The employee who came up wih the idea was awarded a cash prize of  Dh8,999.