Encouraging Creativity in the Workplace

Do your employees express their ideas to you? Do they ever have options about their own jobs, or ways they think the business could be more productive?

If the answer is no, the creativity of your workers may be stifled. Today’s business world is very aggressive, so if your company lacks creativity and innovation, it could put you at a disadvantage.

Whatever the industry, creativity is needed to produce new ideas and rethink processes. Getting your employees to think creatively can mean that you have a whole team of people trying to strengthen your business. Not always, but generally employees will not apply their creative minds to your company unless you motivate them to do so.

The best way to nurture creativity is to actually entice your employees to come up with new ideas and then to listen to these ideas when employees bring them to you. Send out an email blast asking employees for ideas to better your company’s products or services. Post a notice on the bulletin board requesting suggestions on how to improve the company blog or increase its customer-approval ratings. Next, when employees answer these calls, meet with them—even if it is during a quick phone call—to examine their thoughts. You don’t have to apply all employee ideas, certainly, but to show respect, you should listen to them all.

If you presume that your employees do not have good ideas, then you may be missing out. In addition, not listening to them, or dismissing ideas will motivate your employees to do the bare minimum. You will end up with a bunch of people working for the weekend.

Another great way to inspire creativity is to reward strong ideas. This could be monetary or simply pointing out their creativity to the rest of the company.

Many people want a job that allows them to be creative. It stimulates their minds and prevents boring redundancy. Many employees also have ideas on how to improve their place of business; they just haven’t voiced them to you. So encourage them to let you know what they think. It doesn’t mean that the way you have been doing things is bad; it just means that they may have ideas that you many not have thought of. Regardless, you and your business will reap the benefits of their creativity and your employees will be happier for it.