Advancement in Human Resources’ Innovation Quotient for Organizations

An HRD is just a support function and contribution to the organization is done majorly by the departments like R&D, sales and operation. I am sure, as an HR, you must have come across such a remark, in your career. This article will help you understand ‘How can one build an Innovative Approach in one’s organization.’ I have summarized with the help of my recent learning’s through Inspirit Preach Event’s conducted by Dr. Kaustubh Dhargalkar.

Can an HR be an Enabler of Innovation Quotient?

Have you ever thought about the Advancement in Human Resources’ Innovation Quotient in an Organizations? Imagine an organization without employees and only machinery or robots around (e.g. AI technology). How will the graphs of the productivity of that organization look like? Will that be a real graph or a flat pre-defined line? What will the customer’s impression be while interacting with these organizations?

Yes! and Now is the time to transform ourselves from so-called support function of the organization to the ‘Spinal Cord’ and prove that HR is no more a support function but an integral part of any organization. Remember, only HR has an added advantage of being directly connected with very important ‘RESOURCE’ of any organization i.e. ‘EMPLOYEES’. HR has that magnificent power to re-ignite the ‘energy’ that every human being has. With this capacity at hand, here are some recommendations to re-discover / re-kindle / transform the hidden attribute of our ‘Resource’ i.e. “Innovation”.

Inspired From the Innovation Framework By Dr Kaustubh Dhargalkar

1. Fueling individual Curiosity

• Build a personal rapport with every employee by demonstrating the ‘real Human Resource Representative’. Once you take them into confidence and win their trust, encourage them to come up openly with their own ideas to optimize the process or come up with new ideas of operations.
• Encourage Group discussions / ask questions
• Encourage them to attend Seminars / Webinars / Talkshows
• Organize the Corporate Outing/ Creativity Camp, etc. to enable employees to gather together and think innovations in their routine process of work
• Set up a ‘creativity lab’ in the organization with different (leisure) set up and maintain the good collection of books in the library
• Set up a team who will develop the skill of learning in the employees
• Start following the non-hierarchical management

2. Enabling employees to act on it

• Once they have come up with some ideas, encourage them to create their own process approach towards it right from scratch
• Listen to them and give the basic inputs, to begin with
• Keep their hand-holding throughout and do not give a feeling that they are alone

3. Enabling employees to think unconventionally without any fear in mind

• In this process of them sketching their ideas, encourage them to think without any fear of any consequences in their mind
• Make them think like the owners of the idea – success or failure doesn’t really matter, the contribution is important
• Do appreciate the earlier batch/employees who had tried any type of experiment
• Make a social media announcement ‘contributor panellist’ of the month/quarter

4. Enabling connect with people/skill enhancement

• Encourage them to look for someplace / people / mentor / domain experts / individuals who have tried / studied such experiment etc.
• Promote a high level of communication across-team, across-location cross-functions
• Make a good pool of training for developing the skillsets and monitor the employee’s attendance on it, which could be linked with the PMS

5. Enabling experimentation on individual ideas by giving them the playground to experiment

• Once the employee is done with the sketch/base work encourage them to experiment it with a trial or a dummy project
• Ask them to participate in exhibitions
• Give them the required platform/freedom to explore and showcase their experiments
• Give them some trial live project / ask them to create prospects

6. Enabling course correction and refinements

• Help them by giving them inputs from one’s seniors in their trial projects
• Help them giving an experienced helping hand to analyze the data
• Shape & give them the right direction

7. Enabling planning for the business and monitor the rollout

• Once they are done with the updating/correction to the trial project/dummy project ask them to sketch a concrete business strategy/plan
• Help them to implement the final strategy they have developed to implement in real life
• Encourage them by continuously monitoring their rollout and giving the inputs

Read the entire 10 Step Innovation Framework by Dr Kaustubh Dhargalkar at Inspirit Preach

HR needs to keep in mind that it plays a very important role in every employee’s professional career i.e. “A Parental role” Therefore, HR needs to inculcate the habit of exploring/keep igniting employees’ creativity/energy/ inner ability without having any fear in their mind.

The Inspirit Way

We are glad Tina could derive this analogy with the help of Dr Dhargalkar, Innovation Framework that was derived live in the Inspirit Preach Event. Indeed advancement in the domain of Human Resources by enhancing the Innovation Quotient has proven to enhance collaboration & productivity. The 10 pointer framework has indeed the Human Resource domain to enhance the innovation quotient in one’s organizations. It a Wonderful testimonial & a crisp learning capsule for all HR Managers, Business Leaders & Aspirants.