History

Employee involvement is an old idea constantly being revitalized by organizations and new generations of practitioners throughout the world. In the United States the oldest documented system of formal employee involvement is Eastman Kodak company's employee suggestion system, established in 1898.

During World War II, 35 suggestion system administrators met in the Chicago offices of United Airlines and founded the National Association of Suggestion Systems (NASS), now known as the Employee Involvement Association (EIA). Today, more than 6,000 formal employee involvement systems are known to have existed and continue to evolve in other countries throughout the world. EIA's international membership and outreach has facilitated opportunities for administrators from all nations to benefit from the experience and techniques being harvested world-wide.

At our fiftieth anniversary celebration in Chicago in 1992, the current name "Employee Involvement Association" was adopted to reflect our increasing acceptance of the perpetual and world-wide evolution of suggestion systems to involve employees in enterprises of all types.