Work culture has undergone revolutionary changes over the past few decades. Today’s offices have minuscule resemblance with their counterparts from the 20th century. Everything has transformed, be the way they operate or the customers they serve.
What is even more interesting and thrilling is the fact that what might be new today, will develop further and will be old for the next generation of technological trends. So, we have to keep evolving because technological advances tomorrow will surpass today’s technology in scale, complexity and impact.
Hence, there is a need for innovating, evolving on a constant basis. Innovation is a result of learning consistently with greater emphasis on training and research. Digital devices are now omnipresent and ensure availability of information at all levels — information on customers, suppliers and competitors – that can and should be analyzed thoroughly.
This information is important for both professional development and innovations that trace the challenges on how to create right work culture. Ambitions in this field need to be raised, both among companies and employees.
Often, companies make policies without taking employee opinions and feedbacks into account. Innovation is all about constant communication between the end users, employees and company management. When your employees volunteer to bring about the change it leads to a greater level of efficiency. These inventions that are not forced but created lead to an improved output.
The innovation process is introduction of a new idea or policy which, once implemented, creates value. This can come from anywhere, external forces or internal brain storming sessions. However, what is important is to know that, the best incentive for making employees come forward with ideas for new products or new ways of working is by making it visible that, their ideas are translated into concrete initiatives.
This is what can be termed as creation of “culture” in connection with which the employees see that their experiments with new ideas are allowed promotes the innovation process. Creating employee-driven innovation is therefore nothing but an investment, that in return brings more innovation and a future-proof skill level among the employees.
There are various kinds of ‘innovations’, found at various levels. For instance when we talk about product innovation, updating our Diamond Bank App is the perfect example. By products, I mean specific products and solutions and/or services rendered to a customer or a user. Our recent launch of Diamond Bank Y’ello Master Card is an innovation triggered by both user and employee recommendations.
However when we talk about employees and innovation at work, it is about “process” innovation. Processes that intend to improve and optimise the flow of work in an organisation. This used to happen from top to bottom in our world. But, the outlook is constantly changing. Hence, employee-driven innovation in close cooperation with the top management is the key to a balanced approach.
When I was laying the path for being a digital bank, I saw that I had to start right from the bank itself. I was not surprised to get mixed reaction on my interventions. But soon when a few employees understood and extended support towards the future goals the rest were more than willing to accept the change.
Employee-driven innovation is basically where the employees generally contribute actively and systematically to the innovation process. So thanks to this ease of employee and the company management, Diamond Bank succeeded in adopting a cashless transaction policy even within the bank. It took us some time but, now we all know that cheques are a things of past.
Building an innovative culture for the employees is all about transparency, trust and acknowledgment. If the processes are transparent and employee contribution is acknowledged it will create a room for experiments and a encourage new thinking.
Talling about innovation, have gone ahead and invented one for the ages! – I’ve christened it “FixedDebits”. I”ve mailed a request to get you Diamond Bank gurus vet our product. Hopefully, this will mean another step into the Cashless future.