In a 2017 study, 80% of HR professionals surveyed were more confident than their non-HR counterparts that they were well-placed to deliver innovation across their organisation.
HR is uniquely placed to partner with the business to maximise opportunities not only to find, select onboard and retain better and more satisfied employees through innovation but also to lead the development and implementation of an innovation culture. The HR function has the power to influence both the organisational strategy and talent development. However, the function often acts as a deterrent by making organisations slow to change and implementing rigid structures and processes. So, how do you get ahead and make sure this is not the case?
Many companies focus on just hiring the right talent, acquiring the right tools or replicating an existing successful strategy observed elsewhere. In doing this, they miss the start: developing the right mindset and creating the appropriate environment that serves the organisation’s unique circumstances.
Innovation is most successful when mindset, environment and tools and skills overlap. The focus must be on all these 3 elements to succeed.
Innovation doesn’t work in silos, so the HR function needs to drive a collaborative culture that is reflected from the leadership level down, with flatter structures that enable both internal and external partnerships to form for the success of the business. A culture of experimentation is at the heart of successful innovation and putting culture in the driver seat can ensure that innovation is sustained and doesn’t lose its place in the organisation.
Having an innovation strategy is necessary for continuity, so don’t fall in the trap of viewing innovation as an activity that you can just do as a “one-off” through a contest or a brainstorming session.
To create an environment where innovation and ideas thrive daily, it is worth setting up a process through which employees can put their ideas forward that is the right balance of openness and structure.
Many companies use a framework like Design Thinking that can help users embrace uncertainty by putting empathy towards the end-user in the driver’s seat. Rather than a sequential approach, Design Thinking works to find the best solution for the end-user by allowing stages of the process to repeat or happen simultaneously. Start by understanding your employees' needs and look to identify the problem and finding and testing solutions. Depending on your workforce mix, the solutions could be varied. Millennials value connections more than hierarchies and the freedom to address well-being and work-life balance, while Gen X still place importance on achieving MBAs and formal qualifications.
Read Melisa Marzett’s article for our sister company Edge of Innovation on Design Thinking in HR: 6 Important Steps.
Innovation skills are those skills that will allow employees to become innovative and thrive. When looking at recruiting, onboarding and developing talent for innovation, you will need to decide whether the skills already exist in your company or you need to look at outsourcing these. Upskilling remains a priority for many organisations, so it is worth investing in training your current workforce. But what skills does your organisation require to drive innovation?
According to the WEF 2020 Skills Outlook, “analytical thinking and innovation” are the fastest growing and most in-demand skills that organisations are looking for. Notably, creativity, critical and strategic thinking and complex problem-solving are also amongst the most sought skills for future jobs.
The division of labour between machines and humans is leading to a demand for new and specialised skills. According to the same WEF report, employees will need 101 days of reskilling and upskilling to face the new demands. Making sure you have these skills within your organisation will ensure that adoption of new technology is not hindered by a skills gap. When hiring and training look for those people who are or have the potential to be:
Entrepreneurial - being able to see and define problems and be self-starters to come up with valuable solutions to business problems in an efficient and effective way. This is where processes like design thinking are very useful by developing new (profitable) products, services or more efficient processes.
Creative problem-solvers – employees who have the capacity to recognise problems and opportunities for innovation and solve them in a creative way.
Open to change - at its heart, innovations look at solving a customer problem. That’s why an idea must be able to evolve or change constantly and so does the team that works on it. With new technologies in place, having an agile mindset and the ability to change and respond to opportunities is highly valued by employers.
Good and persuasive communication – often to get buy-in for your innovation idea, you will need to be able to communicate and gain support for your vision of the innovation programme.
Strategic thinkers – those people who can identify the ideas that will be of most use to your company and challenge those that might not be aligned with the business strategy.
Since the role of your HR department is people-oriented and getting the best results by building the intellectual capital, the function should aim to identify gaps and hire or develop more of the skills needed to be the entrepreneurial and innovate.
Innovation behaviours don’t change overnight. Internally, the key is the develop employees to think like entrepreneurs, providing the tools, enablers and environment for this to flourish. Most employees hold the key to business innovation challenges.
At the Innovation Academy, we use both theory and practical exercises to give attendees the tools and technique to make this happen on scale, creating measurable ROI and driving new ideas and products. Consider implementing an innovation skills assessment tool and provide training that helps your workforce improve on one or two areas identified and empower them to take further action. As mentioned, where possible, look to remove bureaucracy and encourage exploration.
Cisco's internal innovation scheme, “Adventure Kits”, supported their Innovate Everywhere Challenge. Launched in 2016, this annual challenge uses a clear table of elements to focus the organisation on key strategic opportunity areas. The philosophy of the programme is to disrupt Cisco and make sure its start-up spirit continues to thrive. At the heart of this are strong relationships and the challenge actively captures ideas from Cisco employees and helps innovation grow from within. 48% of employees engaged in the challenge in some way in 2017 and more than 1,100 ideas were submitted. Using a structured programme to train employees in innovation means they are empowered to give creativity and innovation space to develop, be nurtured and emerge in an efficient and collaborative way.
Case study: Lloyd's Banking Group
Lloyds Banking Group also recognises the importance of internal training and processes and have developed their workforce’s innovation capability through many creative programmes. They have provided training to over 25,000 Digital Champions who have a responsibility to improve the digital capabilities of at least 2 other individuals or organisations per year, whether it's customers or their extended community. The Digital Espressos, where external experts are invited to share their thinking on the latest innovations in digital and fintech inside and outside banking through TED-style talks. The Group’s Graduate population is also trained on idea generation techniques using remote technology and at an annual big brainstorming session. Meanwhile, solutions to specific challenges are captured from employees using an idea management system. The latter encourages comment, participation and rewards employees.
When you have the necessary talent invested in innovation programmes, partnering with an outside organisation to improve this can increase efficiency. For example, Apple has acquired 13 companies since 2010, starting with Siri, to help develop its AI capabilities. Many FinTech start-ups are partnering with established financial institutions for mutual benefits. This is the case of Legal and General in the UK, which is partnering with Raisin to provide cash savings accounts or the case of BNP Paribas and OneUp in France, which offer additional accounting tools to small businesses and use this to upsell their services.
Having a suggestion box can be a very tempting technique that many organisations implement, but innovative ideas that transform organisations and customers need to be organised, assigned to a dedicated team and go through a defined process. The suggestion box can be a starting point, but it’s not enough. As mentioned before, ultimately, whatever process you have in place will need to help with fostering your organisation’s innovation culture.
• Identify your innovation champions that can connect leadership with the rest of your organisation and clearly communicate goals. Your innovation champions will be those who are going the extra mile to make things happen. A good idea initially is to measure how many projects have been successfully implemented, rather than looking at revenue from innovation.
• Organise for employees to attend innovation courses that can frame their understanding of innovation and best practice
• Plan regular innovation and creativity workshops within your company where people can collaborate towards common innovative outputs; follow-up with innovation awards where they are recognised for their efforts
• As part of individual performance management plans, choose stretch goals to reflect both professional ambitions as well as to proactively meet customers’ demands and competitor offerings; outside performance reviews, employees should have frequent access to senior leaders
• Allow people to rotate their roles to drive better collaboration and information sharing can help create a culture of innovation.
Watch our webinar below on how to get started with innovation in your company.
Having a “to-don't” list of innovation is similarly important when looking to improve how innovation takes place in your organisation. Innovation killers are tools, behaviours or mindsets that are detrimental and can stop innovation from taking place. When shaping your corporate culture, don’t fall in the trap of:
1. Not embracing failure – the most successful organisations encourage experimentation. Sometimes organisations will be too afraid to fail, so will try to stick to the established way of doing things without challenging existing processes or looking at adapting with their customers’ needs. Other times, the reverse happens – a company won’t let go of a project because they have already allocated significant resources and it is hard to admit defeat. In both cases, being able to let go of an idea that no longer serves your goals, employees and customers is an important part of the journey.
2. Considering brainstorming synonymous with innovation – while brainstorming can be useful for generating new ideas as can be part of the ideation process, this is just one step, rather than the entire process of innovation.
3. Not having a 360° approach – innovation is not a 1-person job or the job of the IT department; cross-functional teams promote diversity of thought meaning they bring together a variety of experiences and ultimately enhance the company’s culture and view of innovation.
4. Not allocating time and resources - whether it’s time, budget or not enough empowered employees. When employees are being stretched too thin, they will not prioritise innovation and creativity, so try to avoid this and minimise their stress levels. Google is known for their 80/20 policy, where every employee is given the freedom to spend 20% of their time on new ideas and passion projects.
5. Taking steps that are too big or ambitious – starting small and having short term goals can help you get buy-in from stakeholders. When you’re developing your innovation, having a minimum viable product (MVP) to present initially and which can be improved subsequently is an efficient way to allocate your internal resources.
