公司该如何激励员工创新

全员创新如何鼓励？如何驾驭？最重要的是，如何确保不会扼杀创新？我们在和第22届年度“美国最适宜工作的100家公司”榜单上各种规模、各个行业中表现最好的公司进行交流时，最常出现的主题是如何从每一个员工身上得到最佳创意。我们新榜单的第一名希尔顿就是一个突出代表。这家具有100年历史的酒店管理企业成立了千禧一代团队成员资源小组（Millennial Team Member Resource Group），该小组只是希尔顿确保全体员工都有机会贡献想法的其中一种方式（这个小组保障的是年轻人）。希尔顿的首席人力资源官马修·斯凯勒说，尝试“积极征求意见、吸收新想法、学识和经验”已经变得至关重要。

同样出现在我们榜单上的思科（Cisco，排名第6）正在大力开发更多可以实现创新的项目，例如每年在公司内部举办竞赛，让员工用代币对最佳创意进行“投资”（该竞赛已经孕育了7项概念证明、8项专利）。事实上，这份清单中的很多公司都是鼓励创新的模范，这也是我们在今年2月举办的卓越职场峰会（Great Place to Work for All Summit）的主题。但我们仍然很好奇：这个神奇的配方可以量化吗？

去年夏天， Great Place to Work公司的数据科学家和研究团队开始探索是什么让这些组织在同行中脱颖而出。我们因此研发了一个被称为创新速率比（Innovation Velocity Ratio，IVR）的新指标。该指标用于量化公司员工有机会发展新思路、新产品或新流程时会经历的摩擦。摩擦越少，得分越高。

我们最初的调查样本包括800多家卓越职场认证公司，其中很多公司创新得分都属于最高水平。此外，在将IVR与财务业绩进行比较时，我们发现IVR最高的公司和同一数据组中得分最低的公司相比，年均收入增长是后者的5.5倍。

我们用IVR模型仔细研究了今年的“美国最适宜工作的100家公司”榜单，看看他们的表现如何。结果如下：

·与全国公司的普遍水平相比，这100家公司的工作环境远远更适合创新，认为自己有权进行创新的员工和持相反意见的员工比例为7:2。排名前10的公司IVR更高；其中一家公司的IVR值是23:2，令人印象深刻。

·公司领导会对员工如何看待公司的创新水平产生巨大影响。例如，如果经理容易接触，好交流，雇员认为该公司适合创新的可能性会提高31倍。员工表示，如果管理层真正愿意听取意见建议并对此进行回应，他们认为公司适合创新的可能性会提高14倍（认为该公司是卓越职场的可能性会提高四倍）。

要了解如何计算贵公司的IVR，请访问greatplacetowork.com。这或许只是贵公司日后登上最佳职场名单的第一步。（财富中文网）

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“全员创新”也是将于2019年2月26日至28日在旧金山举行的年度“卓越职场峰会”的主题。我们诚邀您出席，聆听峰会联合执行主席安永美国主席兼管理合伙人凯莉·格里尔和Synchrony公司董事长兼首席执行官玛格丽特·基恩、凯泽永久医疗集团（Kaiser Permanente）主席兼首席执行官伯纳德·泰森及数十位首席执行官和意见领袖的见解，他们致力于实现“全员”的使命，帮助每一个公司成为每个员工都认可的卓越职场。届时您将了解更多成为“全员”领导者的方法、让每位员工推动创新的新方法，以及公司入选明年榜单可以采取的措施。

Innovation by all. How do you encourage it? How do you harness it? And most important, how do you make sure you’re not stifling it? As we talked to top-performing companies of every size and across every industry on our 22nd annual list, the challenge of getting the best ideas from all your employees is the theme that came up more than any other. One obvious example is at our new No. 1: Hilton. Relying on a Millennial Team Member Resource Group is just one of the ways this 100-year-old hospitality company is making sure all employees (in this case, its youngest) get a chance to contribute their best ideas. Attempting to “actively solicit input, new ideas, learnings, and experiences” has become paramount, says Hilton’s chief human resources officer Matthew Schuyler.

Elsewhere on our list, Cisco (No. 6) is developing more and more programs to seed innovation, such as an annual companywide competition in which employees can “invest” tokens in the best ideas (the contest has led to seven proofs of concept and eight patents). Indeed, this list includes dozens of role models for encouraging innovation (which is also the theme of our February Great Place to Work for All Summit). Still, we wondered: Could this magic formula be quantified?

This past summer, the team of data scientists and researchers at Great Place to Work set out to discover what helps set these organizations apart from their peers. As a result, we developed a new metric, which we call the Innovation Velocity Ratio (IVR). It’s a measure that quantifies the friction a company’s employees experience when it comes to having opportunities to develop new ideas, products, or processes. The lower your friction, the higher your score.

In our initial sample of more than 800 certified Great Place to Work companies, many of them scored at the highest level of innovation. Additionally, when comparing IVR against financial performance, we discovered the top-performing companies on our scale saw average year-over-year revenue growth 5.5 times as high as that of their lowest-scoring peers in the data set.

Using the IVR model, we took a closer look at this year’s 100 Best Companies to see how they fared. Here’s what we found:

· The 100 Best Companies offer much more innovative workplace environments compared with companies nationwide, with seven employees feeling empowered to innovate for every two who do not. The top 10 companies of the 100 Best Companies have even stronger Innovation Velocity Ratios; one company’s IVR is an impressive 23 to 2.

· Leaders have a very strong influence on how employees perceive the level of innovation at their company. For example, employees with managers who are approachable and easy to talk with are 31 times more likely to think their company is innovative. And when employees say management genuinely seeks and responds to suggestions and ideas, they are 14 times more likely to think their workplace is innovative (and four times more likely to think it’s a great place to work).

To find out how you can calculate your company’s IVR, visit ¬greatplacetowork.com. It might just be the first step toward appearing on a future Best Companies list.

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The topic of “Innovation By All” also will be the theme of the annual Great Place to Work For All Summit, scheduled for February 26-28, 2019 in San Francisco. We invite you to join us and hear from Summit Executive Co-Chairs Kelly Grier, the U.S. chairman and managing partner at EY, and Margaret Keane, president and CEO of Synchrony, who will join Bernard Tyson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente, along with dozens of other CEOs and thought leaders who are living the “For All” mission to help every company become a great workplace for every employee. You’ll learn more about what it takes to become a “For All” Leader, new ways that every employee can drive innovation, as well as the steps your company might take to appear on next year’s list.