Victoria Abboud, Stephen Cohos (EngServ), Blake Melnick and Terry Soleas (with contributions from Anahita Baregheh and Tyrenny Anderson)
Our previous post this month contained highlights from one of our workplace partners who successfully advanced employee-led workplace innovation in their organization by adapting Research-to-Practice insights on Workplace Innovation and Quality of Work from Europe. In this companion post, our team members share highlights from a second workplace partner, EngServ, (a Calgary-based Engineering Services company). Stephen Cohos is a professional engineer and Innovation Project Coordinator. Bios for our WINCan team authors are available here.
I. Organizational Context
“EngServ” is an Engineering Services company in western Canada that focuses on offering progressive solutions to complex challenges. As a group of “passion-fueled engineers, designers, technologists, and city-building experts” the EngServ team consistently strives for agility and sustainable performance.
The innovation team of the company, the “Engovation Committee,” includes both a scouting role for opportunities and talent, and a broker role. The lead, Stephen Cohos, works half of his time as the Project Coordinator and the other half as the lead in another work area, and Cohos is supported by two Innovation Specialists.
EngServ identified the need to develop strategies to encourage all employees to engage willingly in the innovation opportunities provided by the firm in the form of (1) “EmpIAS”, the Employee Idea Advancement System and (2) an annual opportunity to secure support for “Innovation Challenges” projects that lay outside of both the employees’ formal engineering training and areas of specialization. In both cases, EngServ hoped to improve participation and results (i.e., the “solutions” identified through either pathway).
The EmpIAS idea system and the Innovation Challenges project opportunity are separate entities. EmpIAS is always open and used to identify short innovation sprints as various ideas arise while Innovation Challenges is a once-per-year event where EngServ offers an opportunity for employees to bring forth really big ideas that could earn $10,000 worth of funding to support implementation. In addition, decisions on Innovation Challenges project support are guided by the annual strategic priorities of the firm. For instance, in 2023, EngServ focused on the ideas that can increase efficiency on projects. In 2022, the focus was on developing new avenues or sectors of work.
Both initiatives have demonstrated success, along with challenges related to participation and the potential for actual solutions to perceived issues.
Employee Idea Advancement System (“EmpIAS”): By using a collaborative software system, “Output,” for EmpIAS, contributors are asked to identify the value proposition of the idea (using EngServ’s three innovation levers as a framework: Revenue, Efficiency and Effectiveness, Social Culture). As of January 2023, there were 360 separate ideas in the system. Every idea is categorized using a T-shirt analogy: XS (extra small) to L (large).
Although a collaborative and well-structured process, the EmpIAS strategy did not always capture the improvement projects generated at the firm. Most often, the lack of capture was a result of the employees envisioning the projects as “one-offs” rather than recognizing the potential and/or creating the opportunity to embed the idea/project into the fabric of the organization.Innovation Challenges: Although there was strong interest in participation on Innovation Challenges project teams (e.g., 30 employees asked to be added to a team), there were other concerns related to the initiative:
Of the ten project submissions, only three moved on successfully to the pitch stage
The number of interested employees required additional efforts to “match” their preferences with others within the organization
Some employees raised concerns such as “My boss might not like me doing an Innovation Challenge project” or “I don’t have enough experience to take on an Innovation Challenge.”
Overall, the workplace innovation strategies that EngServ employed were not addressing the firm’s goals for inclusive workplace innovation. There was not a clear connection between the strategies and HR management functions and the project management for innovation projects was much different than typical project management that employees would find most familiar. Our team engaged with EngServ’s innovation leaders through (a prototype of what was to later become) our From Goals to Game Plans process to advance Workplace Innovation for Quality of Work.
In the process, EngServ’s focus goal emerged as “ how to empower employees to build the work you would like to be doing” and to be able to support the employees in doing that work. To support this goal, the EngServ team intended to learn why employees were not engaging with the current innovation opportunities offered at the firm. Supplementary goals for these workplace innovation initiatives included building an innovation culture that would attract the best engineers and creating social impact by establishing a more inclusive and diverse team.
II. The Scenario
Through the collaborative process between the EngServ Innovation leaders and our project team, it was determined that EngServ would need to achieve the following:
Encourage employee self-efficacy
Support employees to recognize their own personal motivations towards innovation
Identify the triggers that urge individual employees to want to engage with innovation in the context of their day-to-day work.
Not only would uncovering these results provide individual employees with deeper understanding and insights about their own personal motivations for innovation; the results would also reveal to EngServ how it might plan for and design future innovation opportunities.
Our research project team supported EngServ by providing a targeted research synthesis addressing the EngServ priorities. Based on feedback on the most promising elements of the research synthesis, the research team expanded the synthesis with further research by Dr. Eleftherios (Terry) Soleas of Queen’s University [references listed below] Dr. Soleas had developed a self-assessment instrument, the “Motivation to Innovate (MTI) Inventory” to examine the expectancies, values, and cost of innovating as a means of promoting future innovation efforts. He joined the research team to support scenario-building and further activities.
The scenario included activities to adapt the MTI Inventory for use in a workplace setting and further modifications to align with EngServ’s innovation ecosystem and workplace culture. By way of a clear communication strategy and letter of consent (both co-created with the research team and the EngServ Innovation Team), employees were to be consistently informed about why EngServ was delivering the MTI Inventory and what the firm hoped would be the results, both for the firm itself and for individual employees; namely, the following:
Participation in the MTI Inventory would support deeper understanding and insights about personal motivations for innovation. (One way that the individual support was achieved was by providing each respondent with an individualized insight report about their personal motivations to innovate).
Differences in perceptions about innovation and motivation to innovate would be revealed and provide additional context about the firm’s employee pool.
Understanding individuals’ motivations to innovate could support “match-making” for diverse, inclusive, innovative teams.
Employee self-reflection could be an important experience that would increase employee self-efficacy and inform EngServ’s design approach for creating innovation opportunities.
III. Results
After isolating the firm’s question about innovation, “How do we encourage all employees to engage in innovation so that they might take an active role in defining the job they want?” the research project and EngServ Innovation team piloted the MTI Inventory instrument internally with this small group to use the feedback to modify survey questions and add clarity for the individual employee insights reports. The MTI Inventory instrument was set up to anonymize responses so that employees could expect a level of confidentiality that would encourage honesty. The individualized insights reports would be shared only with the specific employee and the firm would receive only anonymized, aggregate data.
As part of the qualitative questions, EngServ respondents identified the supports/factors that facilitate their process of innovation and the barriers they have experienced while involved in the process of innovation. Select responses are below:
EngServ backed my idea through the IMPACT Challenge and provided me time and resources to develop the program.
Sometimes [barriers to the process of innovation include] the mindset of individuals: “We have always done it this way.”
The team and environment are huge contributors, creating a safe space to bounce around any and all ideas and a space to consider pros/cons and discuss.
(Further information about the EngServ Case Story process and results is available in an episode of the WINCan podcast series, The Many Faces of Innovation.)
Acknowledgement: Our project on Workplace Innovation and Quality of Work Life is supported by the Government of Canada’s Future Skills program.
Research references on the Motivation to Innovate Inventory:
Soleas, E. K. (2020a) What Factors and Experiences Motivate Innovators? An Expectancy-Value-Cost Approach to Promoting Student Innovation (Doctoral dissertation, Queen’s University, Canada).
Soleas, E. K. (2020b). Leader strategies for motivating innovation in individuals: a systematic review. Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 9(1), 1-28.
Soleas, E. K. (2021). Environmental factors impacting the motivation to innovate: a systematic review. Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 10(1), 1-18.
Soleas, E. & Bolden, B. (2020). What helped me innovate: Identified motivation factors from Canadian innovators’ education experiences. Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l’éducation 43(3).