For any business to be successful in today’s world, it must emphasis creativity. Because most businesses now have tough, complex problems to deal with on an almost daily basis, it’s vital to let employees be as creative as possible in order to get the best results. However, while many companies want employees to be creative, they sometimes have difficulty determining the best ways to ignite that creative spark in their people. If you’re seeking business growth through employee creativity, here are some suggestions as to how you can meet your goals, and help your creative stars shine.
For as long as people can remember, the standard workday was 9-5. However, as times have changed and the need for creativity in the workplace has increased, more and more companies have started to implement a variety of work schedules aimed at accommodating different personalities. Along with those employees who prefer a 9-5 schedule, others can instead work early-morning or late-night schedules, or in some cases work from home. For example, working from home may be beneficial for web developers who work independently away from a team and who have children at home,
while a late-night schedule may appeal to younger workers who are night owls. Whatever the case may be, letting employees “work outside the time box” can let them “think outside the box,” leading to new and exciting ideas.
As businesses continue to implement creative marketing ideas into their advertising plans, the need for new ideas is more important than ever. Because of this, many businesses will look to a Google partner SEO agency to help them gain a large presence online. Why not let a few of your creatives communicate on projects with the SEO agency you hired? Think about it: to get the coolest and most clever ideas, digital marketing companies are cultivating atmospheres of positive idea generation. Done so by instituting a policy of listening to every idea, good or bad, it empowers digital marketers to have the courage to think creatively in new and innovative ways. By tossing one of your employees into the team that meets with your digital marketers, they can come back to the team table with some clever ideas that can be used in-house.
While offering employees more breaks at work sounds like a recipe for less productivity, thousands of studies show the result is actually the opposite. When employees don’t feel pressure to complete a task under tight deadlines, they feel free to give more thought to the project. By being able to walk away to stare out a window for several minutes, go meditate under a tree for 15 minutes, or shoot a few hoops in your warehouse, employees often feel energized and can come back with bigger and better ideas. By building more breaks into employee workdays, you eliminate the grindstone mentality and instead create a relaxed atmosphere that produces one great idea after another.
If there is one thing that almost always produces extraordinary ideas, it’s stimulating people’s senses. Whether it involves hanging abstract art around the office or playing plenty of music from different genres throughout the day, you’ll likely find yourself with one employee after another devising a million-dollar idea. As numerous studies have shown over the years, stimulating the senses have calming and satisfying effects on people, helping them feel happier, more productive, and much more creative. No matter if your company has younger workers, older workers, or a combination of the two, using the right combination of music, art, and scents to stimulate people and their surroundings, it’s possible to have a work environment that is filled with great ideas.
In most situations where a great idea comes to fruition, it is not the product of simply one person. Instead, it involves a number of people bouncing one ideas of each other until they arrive at the finished product. If you want this to happen in your workplace, do everything you can to foster a winning team environment. One of the most effective methods is using team exercises that build trust while allowing everyone each employee to demonstrate the strengths they bring to the workplace. By remembering that creativity does not come naturally to all, letting everyone work together in an atmosphere where individuals contribute to the team, big or small, is advantageous because it fosters recognition and appreciation. Once you see your team in action, you are virtually guaranteed to find a formula that equals success.
Companies that use the cookie-cutter mundane 30 minute / 1 hour lunch with two scheduled 15 minutes breaks are just bleeding people dry of creativity. If you treat people like robots, they will act like robots, and your company culture will be as energetically happy as the setting for a Charles Dickens novel. Throw the corporate clock out the window; treat your employees like responsible adults and give them free range to exercise options that garner creativity, and passion for their role. Whether you decide to give employees the freedom to take more breaks during the workday, have a variety of art and music around the office, or give those free from collaborative duties the option to work from home, there’s little doubt the results will be nothing but positive. By realizing the important role creativity plays in having a successful business, you can call an executive meeting and determine a new direction for your environment that honors each employee’s creative mind. Soon, you will see that even if less time is spent in front of the computer, better quality work will result.
