Peter Totterdill

Workplace innovation: European policy and theoretical foundation

Workplace innovation is gaining profile as an emerging European policy, creating organisational performance and quality jobs. DG GROW and DG EMPL are leading. Policies regarding work organisation and workplace innovation in the EU over the last 20 years used to be rather fragmented, but more coherence is likely to develop in the near future. Besides social partners and government- and EU-officials a major role was played by European Networks of Applied Researchers. They provided the theories that are part of the foundation of such policies. The evidence for the positive effects of workplace innovation stimulated many entrepreneurs and managers to apply it. National programs appear to be helpful, in particular where coalitions of employers associations, trade unions, governments and research institutes exist. However, this is still a minority. More research is needed into the obstacles and the mechanism to promote implementation.

Social Innovation at Work: Workplace Innovation as a Social Process

What happens in the workplace has enormous social as well as economic implications. Workplace innovation is the process through which “win-win” approaches to work organisation are formulated – good for the sustainable competitiveness of the enterprise and good for the well-being of employees. Workplace innovation is also an inherently social process involving knowledge sharing and dialogue between stakeholders.

Can Knowledge Be Transferred

The paper argues that conventional models of knowledge transfer are confused and mistaken. Books can be transferred between people. Knowledge is more complex. Knowledge transfer is not a linear process managed by administrators. It is a matter of culture change, with knowledge as integral to the culture.

European Policy on Workplace Innovation

Workplace innovation is gaining profile as an emerging European policy, creating organisational performance and quality jobs. Workplace innovation is part of a broader EU economic and social policy to support organisational change in companies. How can this emergence of interest in workplace innovation, this new elan, be understood? This chapter describes the development of European policies regarding work organisation and workplace innovation over the last 20 years and its societal context. Over the years, the EU has only partly embraced the issue of workplace innovation, leaving most of the support to disparate national policies. Digitalisation and robotisation offer new opportunities for an integrated policy including EU-agendas on innovation, digitalisation, skills and occupational health.

Creating the Bottom-up Organisation from the Top: Leaders as Enablers of Workplace Innovation

Workplace innovation enhances economic performance and quality of working life simultaneously. Yet successive surveys show that its adoption rate is slow. In many European countries there is little infrastructure to support the adoption of workplace innovation, often despite a long history of poor productivity and skills utilisation. Enterprise leadership therefore plays a critical role in determining whether or not workplace innovation practices are adopted. Three selected case studies illustrate journeys towards workplace innovation from different starting points. They demonstrate how a consistent approach to shared and distributed leadership can stimulate employee empowerment and initiative from the bottom up, as well as the cumulative impact of small incremental changes.

Five Steps to Develop Workplace Innovation

Workplace innovation (WPI) enables companies to fully appreciate and empower their employees. While it fosters company’s innovation capacities, it also helps to adapt to the changes and challenges that the new digital era brings along. This guide, using examples from the European Workplace Innovation Network, EUWIN, and its Knowledge Bank, provides a practical approach how to actually implement workplace innovation. Starting with an understanding why workplace innovation is important for your company and how it will transform your organisation, getting ideas about where to begin, analysing the building Elements of WPI, and realising how to achieve commitment from the people in your organisation—this guide will lead you towards a successful workplace innovation. Enriched with inspiring illustrations of the best practices and supplemented with easily applicable tips, it aims to be a practical tool for everyone interested in workplace innovation.

National and Regional Policies to Promote and Sustain Workplace Innovation

Many European countries have a long history of programmes to promote and sustain workplace innovation. This chapter offers an updated Europe-wide summary of main national- and regional-level policy approaches to workplace innovation during the last two decades. The overview shows that workplace innovation programmes in Europe utilize exclusively soft regulation in its various forms. These activities are still unevenly distributed by geographical area, highlighting the gap between the more active north and the more passive south, and the absence of programmes in most of the new EU member states. However, new promising developments are currently underway in many countries and regions with no history of such programmes. Special attention is paid to methods for meeting the challenges of diffusion , an issue of crucial importance not only for the sake of improving the social effectiveness and legitimacy of programmes, but also for encouraging new countries and regions to take further steps.

Implementing Workplace Innovation Across Europe: Why, How and What?

This chapter discusses the implementation of workplace innovation (WPI) in European companies. Based on a 51-case study research in 10 EU Member States this chapter addresses four questions: (1) Why do companies apply workplace innovation; (2) What are different motives for management, employees and employee representatives to implement WPI; (3) What are important leverage factors for the implementation of WPI; and (4) What is known about the (expected) effects according to management, employees and employee representatives? Results show that successful WPI is an interplay of management-driven business goals and employee-driven quality of work goals. Companies differ in their implementing strategies but constructive cooperation between management and employees is a key success factor for successful WPI.