why, who & “wow”
Who we are, what we do, and why it matters.
why
““Workplace Innovation is the social process of
creating lasting value by mobilizing new ideas.””
In the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada, our partners from leading-edge workplaces and academic institutions collaborate on our shared challenge: preparing Canada’s workforce for the Future of Work. Human-Centred Workplace Innovation can be a key enabler in improving both organizational performance and the quality of work life.
“Admitting that we simply don’t know what exact skills we’ll need in the future may be our most important step. We know one thing we’ll need is a high degree of adaptability: to navigate new territory and grow accordingly.”
“Future work will require our graduates
to use knowledge that doesn’t yet exist,
with work practices that don’t yet exist,
in work roles that do not yet exist.”
The European Union's Guide to Workplace Innovation notes that this employee-driven social process “simultaneously results in improved organizational performance and enhanced quality of work life”.
Our Partners have committed to work together on our shared challenge:
Building a more innovative Canadian workforce by
developing employee capability for workplace innovation.
wow
aiming for WOW on two levels:
At the project level, through exceptional collaboration across workplace and academic partners in each WINCan project
At the strategic level for Canada, through leveraging our strong system of higher education to develop a new leadership role
Here are the Five Distinctive Features of our WINCan approach, compared to parallel international initiatives we are tracking:
Innovation is the social process of creating lasting value by mobilizing new ideas.
Innovation Capability includes Skills, Knowledge, Mindsets and Experiences.(links on WINCan.ca to follow)
A HOLISTIC VIEW OF WORKPLACE INNOVATION CAPABILITY AS…
Working in Parallel for twin goals:
Every Employee Contributing to Innovation
Every Graduate an Innovation-Enabler
A CAPABILITY FOR EVERY EMPLOYEE (AND GRADUATE)…
Our existing workplace-academic partnerships – such as Workforce Advisory Boards and Applied Research projects – aren't designed to address a shared challenge with lots of uncertainties.
We are experimenting with new Capability Innovation Networks to enable the new relationships needed for working together on shared challenges which none of us can fully specify or demonstrate on our own.
… DEVELOPED THROUGH NEW WORKPLACE-ACADEMIC PARTNERSHIPS
We’re using our own ‘workplace for learning’ in Higher Ed to provide experiences with innovation
…to prepare learners for work-integrated learning engagement with external workplaces.
We’re also challenging Higher Ed to ‘practice what we preach’ as innovation workplaces 😊
…NEW EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING WITHIN HIGHER ED & IN WORKPLACES
For organizational change in Higher Education, we’re using the Network of Networks Model
For managing Strategic Innovation in the workplace, we’re adapting the Discovery + Incubation + Acceleration Structure
To ensure our projects can adapt and pivot as required, we’re adapting Hypothesis-Driven Design as innovative workplaces
WITH NEW MODELS FOR ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND PROJECT AGILITY