The
Borderless Workplace Empowers Creativity and Innovation
Rapid demographic change urges high-performing organisations
to recognise the ways in which the workplace is evolving,
and learn to shape a borderless work environment that
encourages creativity, innovation and collaboration.
Mr. Charles Mok, Legislative
Councilor - Information Technology of the Hong Kong
SAR. |
Extensive research has shown that engaged employees
have stronger ability to create and innovate. With the
proven correlation between employee engagement and creativity
and innovation, it is also believed that creativity
and innovation enables every member of the workforce
to perform better, contributing to higher productivity
and efficiency.
Despite the mistaken impression that only IT professionals
or those in the creative industry need to be creative
and innovative, it is really an organisation's ability
to innovate that separates the winners from the pack
in today's competitive business world.
Engagement Is Built on Openness
"All employees can create and innovate regardless of
position, level or industry. With the rapid change of
society and development of technology, all businesses,
not just the IT industry, should value creativity and
innovation to maintain sustainable business success,"
says Mr. Charles Mok, Legislative Councilor representing
the Information Technology Functional Constituency of
the Hong Kong SAR.
In Mr. Mok's opinion, leaders who want to drive growth
through creativity and innovation should first create
an environment that inspires creativity and welcomes
new innovative ideas.
"Openness in the workplace is the key to effective
employee engagement. Today's business and HR leaders
should focus on empowering their employees at all levels,
creating an atmosphere favourable for knowledge and
idea sharing. When employees are provided room to voice
their opinions, they will certainly be more engaged
to the company."
"More importantly," he continues, "the top management
ought to make employees feel recognised and valued by
adopting good ideas and views from the bottom. This
is not only conducive to enhancing business operation
efficiency, but also creating a sense of belonging within
the entire workforce."
Now that we see the significance of workplace openness
is increasingly recognised. Are Hong Kong organisations
doing well in cultivating an open culture in the workplace?
Mr. Mok answers, "Workplace hierarchy is being obsolete
as Hong Kong evolves into a more open community. Organisations
are now more willing to create an atmosphere in the
workplace where employees are encouraged to express
their feelings and opinions, so Hong Kong organisations
overall have had improvements in this aspect over the
years."
"However", he adds, "from my observation, not every
organisation has a well-established mechanism to execute
its engagement policy and to encourage and reward employees
for their contribution of innovative ideas, even if
they have a mind to do so. Therefore, I think organisations
should rethink their own approach to foster creativity
and innovation in the workplace and see if it is possible
to develop a systematic yet consistent approach to collect
and handle employees' ideas in an effective way."
Mr. Mok suggests Hong Kong
organisations to develop a systematic approach to
collect and handle employees¡¦ ideas in an effective
way. |
Embrace New Technologies
The development of new technologies has revealed
a new employment landscape where new types of jobs,
skills and work styles emerged. Mr. Mok holds that it
is indeed a challenge for business and HR leaders.
"It is imperative that employers and HR practitioners
have familiarity with social networking and other new
technologies as fast adoption of new technologies will
be a significant business advantage," he explains.
As the employee demographics change with greater flexibility,
traditional metrics and measurement may have to be reviewed
as well to measure and assess employees' work performance
in a consistent way. In this case, optimising talent-related
processes with the adoption of new technologies may
be necessary.
"Today's job duties are turning to be cross-functional
and more complicated and may require multiple skills.
Therefore, creativity and innovation plays a more important
role in getting jobs done. Now, not only IT people need
to be creative but everyone!"
Known as a pioneer in the IT industry and an outspoken
IT professional who advocates the application of information
and communications technologies in the Hong Kong community,
Mr. Mok urges employers and HR practitioners to get
ready to embrace the new age of technologies in order
to keep up with the times, as technology is also one
of the factors that drive better employee engagement.
Representing the Information
Technology Functional Constituency, the legislative
councilor is known as an out-spoken IT professional
who advocates the application of ICT in Hong Kong. |
"The problem we find is that many employers and HR
people know the importance to embrace the technological
trends, such as the social media, and they do employ
new talents to work on it. However, as technologies
change so rapidly, employers who have limited IT knowledge
fail to catch up the latest trends. Although they have
got some staff to work on it, they actually don't know
much about what their people are doing! I think employers
and employees should join hands and seek the best way
to learn new technologies together, so that both the
people and the organisation can move forward," says
Mr. Mok.
As the Information Age has become firmly rooted, technology
is obviously a critical component of nearly all businesses.
A common phenomenon found in the workplace is that people
are moving towards a multitasking work style with frequent
use of new communications tools such as smartphones
or online communications devices. Employers find it
hard to know whether employees are using these tools
for work or private matters. Mr. Mok suggests employers
and HR practitioners to adjust their mindset to acknowledge
that it is no longer feasible to define duties and tasks
with clear borders as in the old days.
"The workplace is getting complex, so is the workforce.
People are shifting to be tech-savvy, which is an irresistible
trend. Employers really have to give up the traditional
method they have been using in managing their talents.
It's time to adapt to the change with a new mindset
and a new talent management approach, if they want to
get closer to their people and engage them."
From Top-down to Bottom-up
To sum up, it is Mr. Mok's belief that success of any
employee engagement approach lies in openness and communication.
"From a talent management perspective, organisations
that set to embrace the new technology era and engage
talents need not to develop many strategies but to go
back to the basics ¡V encourage a carefree ositive atmosphere
that welcomes sharing and communication." "As
work goes more flexible, the border between jobs and
positions become vague. A cookie-cutter approach or
fixed working schedule is no longer the case. Now, it's
more about taking ideas from the bottom up instead of
sticking to the traditional top-down communication.
Conventional top-down hierarchy should be abandoned,
whilst more bottom-up communication channels should
be paved for getting new and creative ideas from the
people. This would help brighten workplace morale and
maximise employees' competencies for higher productivity.
Business and HR leaders should be open-minded to eliminate
all the organisational boundaries and encourage people
to speak up," he concludes.
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