By: Fatema Kazim
Routines that organizations tend to carry out for tasks used to be seen as static, mindless activities. However, as technology and environment changes are taking take place, it is imperative corporations keep up with this shift in dynamics. Almost all successful business ventures, for example Google‘s Google Wave and P&G’s acquisition of Gillette, were first introduced as employee ideas. So how can corporations successfully enhance employee creativity and motivate them to start new projects that may yield significant returns?
Firstly, organizations need to have procedures in place where routines are selected based on their ability to be adaptive in business nature, particularly in new project startups. It is important that the routines employees perform adapt to the individual employee and to the changing market conditions as there is always a better way to get things done.
Secondly, the way those routines are carried out by an organization’s management team is very important. The organizations that have the most success in getting their employees to come up with new ideas are the ones that have a supportive management structure. In such corporations, management guides and encourages employee initiatives because they genuinely care about the employee and corporation and see the potential benefits of a particular idea.
Finally, having dynamic routines and a supportive management structure will work best to enhance employee creativity when the organization is decentralized. Hierarchal corporations tend to inhibit motivation because when employees approach management to seek approval of their projects, they tend to have their ideas get lost somewhere in the hierarchy. Decentralized organizations do not have this problem because they eliminate the need for project ideas to seek several layers of approval. In addition, companies with this structure tend to trust their employees enough to believe in their ideas and allow them the freedom to see the project through without strict monitoring and controls.
In short, establishing decentralized corporations with dynamic routines and a supportive management structure enhances employee creativity and initiatives which is crucial for corporations to survive in this current ever-changing environment.
