Chances are that if you have ever had a job, you have had ideas about how things could have been changed for the better. Some of those ideas may have been doable and some may not have. At the time, you may or may not have actually made the suggestion–maybe the job was temporary, maybe there was no reason to bother given the corporate culture, maybe there was no way the company could have acted upon your idea(s) even if they had wanted to for any number of reasons.

This week, write a memo to Ms. Jo Schmo at SandyCorp. You make the decision as to what this person’s title is. Is this person your immediate supervisor? is this person the head f Payroll? The assumption is that you address the memo to the person who could act upon your idea UNLESS for some reason you think it is politically safer to address it to your immediate supervisor (but some supervisors cannot do anything, or much, say, about the parking conditions at work).

Here are the parameters (guidelines):

It needs to be in memo form. Please review the reading.

It needs to be something that a reasonable person would think “Yeah, that is a good idea AND is doable” after reading what you wrote. That is, you cannot propose that you be promoted to Vice President for IT within the next month after having been at SandyCorp for, well, barely a month.

If you are stumped for a subject, think about things you wanted changed at places you have worked and then just transfer the situation to SandyCorp.

Keep in mind the tone: your idea may be good (or even better than good), but this is what is called a memo going upward. Clarity and a degree of modesty helps. Your job is to be businesslike and pleasant, not what in the vernacular would be called “a suck up”.

Think of the structure of the memo this way (although there may be many other ways to do this).

In the body of the memo: first paragraph: introduce the issue. Tread lightly (do not cast aspersions) and make the case for the issue. if there is any background you can provide (“We ended the third shift in 2005 for financial reasons”), provide that.

Second paragraph: Identify the problem in some detail. Explain why things need to change. (Assume that whoever is reading this does not know what the situation is as well as you do. Details, details.)

Third paragraph: Suggest a solution or more than one. Again, detail

And then let the reader know you are grateful for their consideration of your ideas and that you would be glad to meet with them to discuss the issue so as to benefit SandyCorp.

No signature at the bottom, The signature/initial goes up at the top where your name is. (If and when you get a job at a company that has other corporate habits, do as the locals do. But for now, we do it the SandyCorp way.