Gillian Sudlow
Reflections on Building a Modern 21st Century ...

In Part I of this post, [Dr. Thomas Carey] offered reflections on the discussion paper Building a Modern 21st Century Workforce prepared for Fall 2024 consultations led by the Government of Canada’s Minister of Workplace Development. Those reflections were based on our experiences in the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada, fostering collaborations with workplace and higher education partners to advance employee-led innovation in Canada.

This follow-up post complements those previous reflections with insights specific to another emerging focal point for our current collaborations within Canada and beyond: Developing a distinctive role for Canada in Workplace Innovation Skills for Industry 5.0.

Reflections on Building a Modern 21st Century Workforce (Part II—Industry 5.0)
Gillian Sudlow
Reflections on Building a Modern 21st Century ...

In this three-part post, [Dr. Thomas Carey offers his] reflections on the discussion paper Building a Modern 21st Century Workforce prepared for Fall 2024 consultations led by the Government of Canada’s Minister of Workplace Development. These reflections are based on experiences by our team within the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada, around our mission to foster collaborations with workplace and higher education partners to advance employee-led innovation in Canadian workplaces.

Reflections on Building a Modern 21st Century Workforce (Part I)
Gillian Sudlow
Helping Students Develop the Communication ...

In this post, Rob Danisch, Communication Studies Professor at the University of Waterloo, reflects on the importance of focusing on teaching creative and critical thinking skills to help students become innovation catalysts …

In my case, I’m a Professor of Communication Studies. This means that my classes focus on the kinds of communication practices that can foster or catalyze innovation. It’s not music we are learning to play, at least not necessarily; we are learning an embodied knowledge about our everyday habits of interaction. And I’ve long wanted to teach the embodied communication practices most helpful for creating a culture of learning and catalyzing innovation.

Helping Students Develop the Communication Skills They Need to Be Innovation Catalysts
Gillian Sudlow
Resources for Building a Sustainable ...

Our WINCan team was delighted to be invited to present our current work at the October conference of the EU’s Workplace Innovation Network on The Future of Work. The focus of the presentation was our recent progress on establishing a sustainable Professional Community for Workplace Innovation Catalysts in the Windsor-Essex region, including the larger plan to integrate workplace innovation as a key enabling element in the region’s Innovation Ecosystem.

Resources for Building a Sustainable Professional Community for Workplace Innovation Catalysts
Gillian Sudlow
Case Stories of Workplace Innovation for ...

In Part I of this post, we provided an overview of a WINCan project with our summer research intern – Kyla, an undergrad in the Integrated Sciences program at McMaster University. The aim was to assess the feasibility of creating  case stories to illustrate workplace innovation activities that would be of specific interest to Science students. The previous post discusses source material for illustrative case stories for two of the innovation activities – Job Crafting and Innovation Adaptation – in our adaptable learning resources for Understanding and Applying Workplace Innovation.  

We follow up in this post with illustrative case story sources for Design Thinking and Intrapreneurship. We also describe a potential practice case story with which students could engage as a test of their understanding, based on a Design Thinking experiment to improve a biochemistry lab course at McMaster.

Case Stories of Workplace Innovation for Science Students – Part II

2021

Workplace Innovation in Accountancy: Innovation Adaptation in Auditing

Workplace Innovation in Accountancy: Innovation Adaptation in Auditing

In previous posts, we outlined our prototype workplace innovation Ladder of Professional Development Opportunities and provided illustrations from the work domain of Accountancy for the first two opportunities (Job Crafting and Innovation Adaptation), along with a demonstration of how innovative developments in Accountancy practice have opened up new opportunities for employee-led Workplace Innovation by accountants.

In this post we follow up with examples from the specific Accountancy subfield of Auditing, to illustrate the dual goals of employee-led Workplace Innovation (improving organizational effectiveness and quality of work life), adaptation of innovative accounting practices from sources outside the firm, and the development of new innovator roles for accountants in Audit.

Case Stories of Job Crafting in Accountancy

Case Stories of Job Crafting in Accountancy

Since Accountancy is a highly-regulated profession many people – including some accountants and higher education students in accountancy – have the impression that Job Crafting is a limited option within the profession. Our crafting examples here, from Jennifer and Candice, demonstrate some of the many ways that Job Crafting is commonly utilized by accountants… and how it will be needed even more as some of the changes in the profession outlined in our previous post come to fruition.

Workplace Innovation in Accountancy: Job Crafting and Innovation Adaptation

Workplace Innovation in Accountancy: Job Crafting and Innovation Adaptation

In this post we describe specific examples for workplace innovation in the Accountancy work domain for the first two elements of our prototype framework: Job Crafting and Innovation Adaptation. A future post will add examples for Design Innovation and Intrepreneurship.

Why Accountancy as a Test Case for the Workplace Innovation Ladder of Opportunities?

Why Accountancy as a Test Case for the Workplace Innovation Ladder of Opportunities?

In a previous post, we outlined our prototype framework for a Ladder of Opportunities for professional development in for individual capability to engage with innovation in the workplace. We have been piloting, evaluating and refining this framework in two ways:

  • Proof-of-concept test cases in specific work domains, to identify how well the framework fits with what we know about workplace innovation in that domain and to identify the context-specific issues to be addressed for its productive use in domain-specific professional development for workplace innovation.

  • Ongoing experiments to apply the framework in higher education learning experiences, to develop capability in workplace innovation across a range of potential work domains

In this post, we describe our use of the Accountancy work domain as an initial proof-of-concept test case for the first of these evaluations.

“Every Employee” Engagement with Workplace Innovation: A Professional Development Ladder

“Every Employee” Engagement with Workplace Innovation: A Professional Development Ladder

We describe in this post a way to bridge the perceived gap between the innovation capabilities and experiences across the workplace: a Ladder of Opportunities to progressively build skills, knowledge and mindsets for innovation, allowing employees to choose their own level of engagement a any given time. We also outline results from initial Proof-of-Concept tests and work underway with workplace partners.

Case-Swapping to Adapt Resources on Workplace Innovation Across Contexts

Case-Swapping to Adapt Resources on Workplace Innovation Across Contexts

In one of our previous WINCan projects, a collaboration between workplace and academic partners to share and adapt learning resources on Workplace Innovation, we developed a case-based instructional design model intended to foster resource sharing and adaptability. In a new project launching this week, we’ll be testing those ideas, by creating new online learning resources to incorporate Workplace Innovation concepts and activities into a course at an Ontario higher education institution…while in parallel working with another higher education institution (in Alberta) and an Ontario workplace partner on pilot studies to assess how those resources could be adapted for their specific contexts.

Prototyping Cycles and Minimum Viable Products in Higher Education

Prototyping Cycles and Minimum Viable Products in Higher Education

In Part I of this blog post, we explored how one Research Insight on Strategic Innovation from research in the corporate research – distinguishing Discovery, Incubation and Acceleration activities and the corresponding organizational competencies – plays out differently in the context of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. In developing our two Strategic Innovation scenarios for higher education institutions, another major difference we noted was the challenge of rapid prototyping as an Incubation activity.

How do Competencies in Strategic Innovation Differ across Sectors?

How do Competencies in Strategic Innovation Differ across Sectors?

In our previous WiNCan posts on the Sustaining Strategic Innovation in Higher Education project, we described some of the insights from a series of research studies on strategic innovation in the corporate sector and our use of scenario prototypes to experiment with adaptation of those insights for strategic innovation in Higher Education teaching and learning.

Looking Back at 2020 Milestones and Looking Forward to 2021 New Ventures

Looking Back at 2020 Milestones and Looking Forward to 2021 New Ventures

As we head into 2021, we thought it would be a good time to celebrate our WINCan accomplishments in 2020 and look forward to some of our new ventures. One of the new initiatives we had on our exploration list for 2020 a year ago has blossomed, some of our ongoing projects reached important milestones, and we also have new ventures now emerging.