How do you ensure that junior employees contribute their ideas?

In my experience, I am still one of the more junior employees on my team but that hasn't had much of an impact on my ability to contribute my ideas. I've found there are several different things my team has done that helps everyone feel welcome to contribute their ideas in a group setting.

The first is creating an environment that everyone feels comfortable asking questions in. It's important to ask questions to help build up your knowledge and confidence in speaking up in meetings and reaching out to subject matter experts. Asking questions is a great way to start to be known within your own group and get involved in discussions. One experience I had that helped me build my confidence to contribute ideas in meetings with a wider audience of multiple groups was meeting up with a more senior employee of my team after to ask questions and share thoughts to make sure my understanding was correct. These discussions also helped me learn who was a subject matter expert in what areas so I could go straight to them when I had questions about that specific topic. After a few weeks of this I started to feel more comfortable to ask my questions during these meetings rather than waiting to discuss after.

Another is ensuring everyone has the time to contribute their ideas. This can be a challenge when you have meetings with multiple teams and a strict agenda and timeline to follow in a meeting. One way my team has gotten around this is holding weekly roundtable meetings, where we all have about 5 to 10 minutes to talk about our current tasks and give each other feedback, direction, or ask questions. If a team isn't holding a weekly meeting there are other ways to ensure you are given the time to contribute your ideas. I've found in my time working at Micron my supervisors will occasionally check in on my current tasks to get feedback or give feedback on my progress and ideas just by sending me a message, email, or even stopping by my desk to talk for a couple minutes. Often these discussions turn into giving me a chance to present in a meeting to a wider audience or asking me to send out a final report.