A vital part of every HR director’s job is continuously innovating so that one of your company’s most important assets doesn’t turn stagnate over time. Nonetheless, many HR directors find themselves pushed to the limit when it comes to introducing new ideas to their departments, and often struggle to ignite passion in their underlings when it comes to fostering positive change. So, what’s an HR director who’s eager to help to do when it comes to innovating?
As always, it never hurts to turn to the experts; by examining what’s worked in the past and by avoiding common missteps, you can turn your HR department around in no time. Fostering a creative, accepting atmosphere in which innovation can occur isn’t easy, but by following these tips, any HR director will find themselves up to the job in no time.
A new era of HR
Today’s HR practitioners have one significant advantage that their predecessors lacked: technology. Today’s digital revolution has upended business as we know it everywhere, and HR is no exception; by harnessing the power of the web and the digital appliances every one of your employees is constantly carrying around, you’ll be ushering in a more innovative era faster than you can blink. Today’s most innovative HR departments often have one thing in common; they rely on cutting edge technology to expedite formerly menial task, and embrace today’s culture of innovation from the top down.
An HR strategy founded on tech means on thing; digital feedback, and lots of it. By harnessing the power of social media and utilizing mass surveys collected through email accounts, your HR department can get better, more reliable feedback from your workers easier than ever before. Your business is human centric – it’s in the name, after all – so why wouldn’t you be going out of your way to get real feedback from the people who make up your workforce?
Countless interactions take place on the web every day, whether it’s your companies employees communicating online with customers or one another, or even something so simple as planning a meeting through email. To let this data go to waste, and, worse, to allow such an easy-to-use method of communication become underexploited by your department, would be a tragedy that would hobble your company for years to come. Don’t be afraid to go digital, and always have an ear open to hear new ideas from unexpected sources.
Few things have changed HR more than tech; it’s thus vitally important that your company’s IT department is heavily ingratiated with your HR department. Today’s employees need a tech-savvy HR department capable of keeping up with their demands, but few are blessed with innovative HR staffers; data from Deloitte shows that only 22% of respondents said that their HR departments were adapting to the rapidly changing needs of their workforces, for instance.
Making vision a reality
In order to turn your company’s vision into a reality, you’ll need an HR department that’s prepared to offer positive, strategic advice. You want a department that has all the legal training to deal with personal injury claims and other lawsuits that may arise. A website like legalhelpline.co.uk can provide you with basic information on these issues but you will also need a clued-up HR team. Turning an idea into something that can be jotted down on paper is often easier said than done, but there’s perhaps no part of an HR professional’s job that’s more important than helping employees in this day and age overcome writers block or a stymied thought process. To have an innovative department, then, you’ll need to cultivate a culture of learning and acceptance, where people aren’t reluctant to come forward with their ideas.
Part of this is recognizing the value of diversity; ideas often come from unexpected places, and offices that are too homogenous will often suffer from tunnel vision or a lack of perspective. An HR department that’s going out of its way to find new and better workers capable of supplementing your team with fresh experiences and insights will be much more innovative than one that relies on tried-and-tested but exclusionary hiring methods.
An HR department is only as good as its director, however; if changes like this aren’t ignited by you from the top on down, you’ll face serious resistance when it comes to fostering greater innovation. Your employees will expect you to lead by example, so be sure you’re going out of your way to be open to new ideas, and to ensure inclusivity in your own department and personal work.
By championing innovative, diverse policies from your position of director, you’ll soon help bring about a broader cultural change. Above all else, remember to stick to your guns – innovation is hard, and seldom comes easily. From scientific inventors to business leaders to politicians, all of humanity’s greatest innovators have stumbled before they’ve succeeded. Don’t be afraid to stare the unknown in the face as you experiment with new ideas, and never forget that failure is the first step towards innovative success.
