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Play 15: Drive Innovation into HR Policies and Practices (Strategy & Policy)
Leaders can incorporate innovative values into HR processes at their airports to ensure that they continually recruit and promote people with innovative mindsets. They also can impact how the HR department continually contributes to developing the mindset and behaviors of all staff.
Include Innovation in Job Responsibilities, Regular Training, and Performance Evaluations
Innovative leaders
- See innovation as everyone's job. Work with HR to modify all of the airport job descriptions to include innovation as a prerequisite. Permanent innovation-related job tasks are critical for continuity and sustainability of innovation as an ongoing organizational objective. Communicate and reinforce the message that everyone has a role to play in their new culture of innovation.
- Provide training opportunities. Ensure that ongoing training and guidance for the organization reflect the values in the airport strategic plan that support innovation. Training in this manner will help staff develop innovative mindsets and demonstrate behaviors that support innovation. This type of regular communication of values is a critical step in creating an innovative culture, and it ensures the values are sustained indefinitely, regardless of who is in charge.
- Work with HR. Engage with the HR function to modify performance evaluations and include criteria that fosters the development of an innovative mindset and associated innovative behaviors. Modify current templates or add new sections to existing evaluation forms. This addition provides a great opportunity to drive organizational change by motivating staff to live out the values and behaviors that support innovation.
Include Innovation in the New-Hire Process
Innovative leaders
- Seek innovative team members. Work with HR to seek new hires who are posed for innovation and are prepared to help you drive innovation in your culture. Think about whether company materials encourage new hires to bring their authentic selves to work. This may mean editing new-hire content to encourage new employees to both promote and contribute to their new innovative environment. Create metrics that measure hiring and retention, with a focus on employee satisfaction. Is your organization a place where employees thrive or just survive? Highlighting the airport organization's vision, mission, and values can provide the platform to motivate new hires to drive organizational change and live out the values and behaviors that support innovation.
- See onboarding as more than orientation. Support innovation in the new-hire process so that the airport can attract qualified staff who exhibit innovative mindsets and behaviors. It is vitally important that new hires align with existing employees who are already embracing innovation as their way of doing business. Work with HR representatives to create job postings that highlight relevant job-specific innovation criteria and relate those criteria to the daily tasks of the new hire. Ensure that onboarding and other new-hire training reflect the values that support innovation, as detailed in the airport strategic plan. This is one way that leaders can help new staff members continue developing mindsets that support innovation.
Provide Incentives and Rewards for Participating in the Innovation Process
Innovative leaders
- Reward good behavior. Let employees know what is expected of them, and tell them when they are doing a good job. Set up programs that reward employees for benefitting customers in some way, saving time and money, or improving an internal process. Such programs do not necessarily have to be monetary for them to be rewarding. Develop a reward system that involves things like better parking spots, learning lunches, or an award of their choice. These can be great motivators for staff to make innovation a part of their day. In the end, employees feel like the work they accomplish is valuable and they feel valued by the organization.
- Encourage improvement and collaboration. Make sure the right motivators are chosen so that people strive to not only improve but also excel. Get people motivated and eager to check in on their progress and ensure that weak areas are gaining strength. When the focus becomes the process and not the end result, this enables the airport staff to band together, which is what culture is all about. More about this subject can be found in Chapter 6.
Create Permanent Innovation-Related Job Positions
Innovative leaders
- Have the courage to make organizational chart modifications. While it is not imperative to create dedicated innovation positions for an innovative culture to flourish, as highlighted in Chapter 1, these types of new innovation positions can trigger a new focus on innovation at an airport. When deemed appropriate for meeting strategic goals and objectives, work with governing bodies and business function leaders to create positions that lead innovation at the C-suite level or as a business function leader of a new department. These positions can signal that the airport is maturing in the process of innovation and intends to make it a major focus.
