SUCCESS MAKING

Making Your Workplace Environment More Creative

So your website or software company wants to be more creative in the workplace? Creativity isn’t something that your company can force. It is something that happens if the environment allows it to happen. Creative ideas can’t compete with a company’s politics so having an easy going workplace is a must. Getting creative ideas is about creating an environment that allows creative juices to flow and new technologies to be discovered. Creative thinking comes from positive feeling; provide that place where ideas are cherished and recognition is given to those that are contributing.

Ways of creating a creative environment:

#1 – Play at work

Giving employees a space to go and relax is something that can really help employees not feel like they are in a corporate environment and encourage idea generation.  Yvonne Adele, Author Ideas Culture, says having a place in the business for employees to play and allocate time for these activities is important to encourage creativity. If that place is not available scheduling time where employees can leave work to idea generate and team build is important.

Examples: having an employee lounge, pool tables, beer Friday, bring your dog to work days, outside picnic areas, game room

#2 – Time for learning and skill building

Giving your employees time to grow and work on pet projects is important for staying current but for idea generation. Encourage employees to make open source applications and functions that can improve the workplace. Open source is something that is important to developers and shouldn’t always be a “take”. From a management perspective open source is a skill that should be applied to all proprietary software projects. It can encourage better code, bug fixing methods and CVS systems.

Examples: Work time for pet projects, pro-bono work in community, neat internal projects

#3 – Recognition

Employees want recognition for work done well. This can be both internal and external recognition. Internally being rewarded for coming up with new ideas and sharing them with the company. Have an idea box where employees are recognized or rewarded for coming up with good ideas (not just profitable ones).

Examples: Idea boxes, prizes for good ideas and contributions, profiles on company website, let teams go home early when something great has been accomplished, profit sharing

About the Author

Josh Collins is a multimedia designer in the Kansas City area. He has designed user interfaces and websites ranging from small business sites to large social network websites. His recent work include: Tekniq web site design and Visit Overland Park a travel destination web site in Kansas