Now there has been a lot of good thinking about how the business Innovation community should attract innovative employees and a couple who have called for a definition of who the innovative employees are.
So now I want to throw myself into deep water and present a colorful wrapped gift to the business Innovation community that contains the list of tomorrow’s innovative employees’ wishes and dreams… or at least a single – and perhaps spoiled – one of us.
Overall, I want it all! An exciting job that makes sense and in one way or another helps to save the world, high pay, lots of free time, healthy lunch arrangement, fresh fruit, espresso machine, massage arrangement, and personal yoga instructor.
But having said that, I also wish for a workplace where there is room for all of me and where formality is not confused with professionalism. I often experience a perception of professionalism that does not make room for the person I am beyond the work situation – in other words, the person my friends know.
If it is expected of me that I should give the best of myself in a work situation, that I should be efficient, creative, and committed to my work, then there must also be room for the qualities in me that enable me to be all these things.
And if it is expected that my work and my free time will flow together in wonderful collaboration around what goes by the name of flexible working hours, then I am even more dependent on not having to split myself into two parts.
Rector of Academy, Anne Kirah, said this very precisely at this year’s Innovation Leadership Camp when she pointed out that today’s work and private lives are still structured as if we live in an industrial society.
There is a tendency that we still have to put our own personality on the shelf and take on a company behavior when we walk in the door to the workplace. Maybe it’s a culture that works for someone; it just does not work for me. And now we are at flexible working hours and relics from the industrial community…
In my opinion, the whole wave of self-administration places great demands on employers. If I am offered flexible working hours (which implicitly means that I manage my time myself), I expect the company to take responsibility for setting clear and realistic goals, that I will be involved in decisions that affect my area of work, and that others than myself help me to make sure I do not take on more work than I can handle.
Last but not least, I wish I was no longer referred to as tomorrow’s innovative employee.
In my ears, the wording suggests two very misleading things when the subject is precisely innovation. It suggests that there are an A and a B team in relation to future employees – that there are people whose profiles are not attractive in terms of innovation.
In my eyes, this is an elitist and narrow-minded approach to future employees, which means that companies in the hunt for the golden calf risk overlooking potentially valuable employees.
In addition, the wording suggests that the concept of innovation can be linked to the individual employee.
There are several here on the forum that already has pointed out that innovation is really about creating a framework for interdisciplinary collaboration both internally in and externally between companies. And that the responsibility can therefore not be linked to the individual employee, but must require an overall strategic effort from the company.
To this, I would add that I think there is a huge need to demystify the concept of a good idea. Good ideas are many things, and I often think that it is the small but obvious innovations in everyday life that pave the way for the success stories in the long run.
If the narratives about innovation in the workplace are not changed so that all employees can recognize themselves in the stories, there is a risk that the above division into A- and B-teams is supported by the employees’ own self-perception. And it cannot be said to be good for either innovation or general well-being, can it?
