Do your employees communicate their ideas to you? Do they ever have options about their own jobs, or ways they think the business could be more efficient?
If not, then you might be operating a workplace in which employee creativity is being squelched. Today a lack of creativity in your company can condemn your firm to second-tier status. It might even steer your company out of business.
Two heads are better then one right? Well what about a whole organization? Cultivating creativity means you have many individuals thinking of new ways to market your products and services, boost workflow effectiveness, and enhance general productivity. This can eventually mean saving the company money.
The best way to nurture creativity is to actually encourage your employees to come up with new ideas and then to listen closely to these ideas when employees bring them to you. Send out an email blast asking employees for ideas to enhance your company’s products or services. Post a notice on the bulletin board requesting suggestions on how to improve the company blog or increase its customer-approval ratings. And then, when employees answer these calls, meet with them—even if it is during a quick phone call—to explore their recommendations. You don’t have to implement all employee ideas, certainly, but to show respect, you should listen to them all.
If you ignore employee suggestions or disregard them without listening to them, you’ll only encourage your employees to do their jobs as quickly as possible. Rather then thinking about ways to enhance the company’s performance, these workers will worry only about doing their work and getting paid.
Another great way to inspire creativity is to reward strong ideas. This could be financial or simply pointing out their creativity to the rest of the company.
Many people want a job that allows them to be creative. It stimulates their minds and prevents boring redundancy. Many employees also have ideas on how to improve their place of business; they just haven’t voiced them to you. So encourage them to let you know what they think. It doesn’t mean that the way you have been doing things is bad; it just means that they may have ideas that you many not have thought of. Regardless, you and your business will reap the benefits of their creativity and your employees will be happier for it.
