The 10 Best Ways Human Resource Can Improve Workplace Creativity
Creativity in the workplace is now becoming the key to success for any growing business. It comes from employees viewing things differently, sharing the new ideas with colleagues, and putting the innovations into practice. As a result, the discoveries become part of HR improvements.
What can the HR system do to foster the culture of innovativeness? According to many researchers, creativity brings an essential contribution to a business’s survival in the long-term. It helps companies to remain competitive in this globalization era and attain a competitive advantage. Therefore, encouraging and nurturing inventiveness is a tactical choice for any successful business. And in every organizational set-up, it is the human resource department which can facilitate the means to achieve these creativity goals.
The following ideas can help the HR department boost workplace creativity.
1. Assign More Engaging Tasks
There is one thing you know sure: an innovative work behavior is not influenced by financial rewards, but by cultivating a genuinely engaging workplace environment. A report by the International Journal of Management Reviews indicated that there was a significant connection between engagement and creative work behavior. So, does engagement spark innovation? Or is creativity the route towards engagement? It is possibly a bit of both. If you give more engaging work to your employees, you will eventually find that they get more innovative.
2. Allow Flexible Work Schedule
Generally, human resource managers expect employees to work from 9am to 5pm. In practice, however, and to maximize creativity in the workplace, you must allow a creative mind more time. Much as they want to co-create with their workmates, they also require time alone to re-think about their ideas. And having a fixed work schedule can result in an employee feeling stifled instead of getting motivated.
3. Improve Your Office Décor
The workplace is evolving day after day. Gone are the days where you will find yourself in an isolated cubicle with a photograph or a plant. Workplaces are ‘think tanks.’ It is essential to regulate them with decorative themes which set the innovative tone for your work. For instance, if you are doing gaming business, you will try to create ideas for the next massive FPS. So, bold red colors blended with dark ones might fire up the imagination of your employees.
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4. Do Not Worry About Failure
The number one enemy of creativity is the fear of failure. So, let your workers know that you are okay with failure. While failure is a dynamic framework instead of a static one, it may have positive implications. Through failure, workers can learn, revise and reorient the innovate processes. In the process of modifying existing routines, employees might bump into a new and better idea.
5. Let the Workplace be Full of Fun
An average employee spends a typical 40 hours a week in the workplace, and this can be really boring. You can use fun instrumentally to promote creativity. A fun environment allows workers to venture out, stroll in the office freely, and see what their colleagues are up to. As a result, these collaborative relationships allow ideas and inspirations to flow.
6. Employ Creative Staff
During the interview, you have the best opportunity to assess someone’s creativity. Think about the job description you posted – the skills you listed and the language. Was it static? Creative persons respond to creative work. So, you can add a bit of flair to that job description.
Also, to prove a candidate’s innovativeness, try to ask queries aimed at the ‘why’ and ‘how’ some problems can be resolved. You may want to consider questions like: ‘how did you realize you could start?’ or ‘why was it such a challenge?’ Such questions take you through a candidate’s problem-solving procedure. You will be able to know how they will incorporate their skills in becoming creative in your business.
7. Provide Incentives for Your Workers
Workers have so far proven to be a valued source of inventive ideas; which is why many companies are incorporating crowdsourcing initiatives to encourage innovativeness. Giving financial incentives have been one of the methods to do this.
To achieve the intended creativity, you must strategize ways aimed at rewarding the generation of brand new concepts among employees. Create a culture that prizes the invention of knowledge. A myriad of research shows that financial incentives positively affect the creativity of workers. Also, the studies confirm that incentives such as bonuses, pay raises, profit sharing, and stock options foster idea generation among employees.
8. Be Honest to Your Employees
The spirit of being transparent with your workers is the ultimate answer on how to improve innovation in the workplace. Think of this; a new employee comes up with a brilliant idea on how to increase sales in your company – and the worker is thoroughly convinced about the discovery. But thinking ‘against the grain’ and with your experience in the industry, you realize the idea won’t work. Being honest with the worker will earn you their trust, and the transparency will let them know the actual happenings around the business.
9. Train Your Workers
Recent research from Ontario was done to establish the effects of training pianists more. The study measured the pianists’ brain waves. It revealed that the more training they received, the more innovative they were rated. It shows that innovativeness is possible through training programs. In these initiatives, workers can grow their creativity as well as their problem-solving skills. They become better at improving their flexibility and adaptation to change.
As a human resource manager, ensure you balance performance and innovation. You can do this through the human talent pool. The best method to achieve that is to equip employees with the necessary experience and knowledge. From that point, you can now build their commitment. Encourage them to develop their talent and emphasis it through a stimulating working environment.
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10. Give Positive Feedback
This step seems obvious, but a lot of stagnancy in the workplace is as a result of employees not being praised for their innovative achievements. Whether you choose to do it privately or publicly, it is essential to the success of your business to show encouragement and give positive feedback. Remember, the employee is going above the call of duty when they get creative.
When you lead with a spirit of support each day, you foster an immense abundance of innovativeness, which leads to more great ideas. Eventually, you will realize immeasurable business growth.
Learn More: How HR Can Help Build a Recession-Proof Business
Take Away
Innovative and creativity is innate in every employee. But many companies obstruct it from thriving – unknowingly. Without creativity, it is challenging to grow an innovative establishment which can offer quality products and services and still maintain a workable competitive advantage.
The stakes are high now, and the business world is in the initial stages of this era of disruptive innovation. This kind of innovation promises and aims at every workplace. When used strategically, creativity can help your business offer solutions to issues, and improve employee engagement, job satisfaction, and motivation. Moreover, creativity can be harnessed (with the proper procedures put in place) at an organizational level and used as a tool of innovation.
Learn More: Key Takeaways from Flex Summit: Breaking Down Barriers to Flexible Work