Driving workplace innovation | University of Strathclyde

Driving workplace innovation to transform work and workplaces in Scotland

The overarching objective of the FITwork (Fair, Innovative and Transformative work) project is to provide the evidence base and collaborative networks to influence strategic deliberations on future workplace innovation and fair work policy, and the practice of FITwork in Scotland.

The challenge

Why workplace innovation matters
Workplace innovation is increasingly recognised as a source of competitive advantage and worker wellbeing, and the OECD and EU have urged governments and businesses to prioritise it in the analysis and practice of innovation. It encompasses a wide range of organisational, technical and social innovations that depart from ‘business as usual’.
Workplace innovation research builds on the knowledge of high-performance work systems and of learning organisations, focussing on innovation as a driver of performance and intervening primarily through job redesign, work organisation and HR practice.
Supporting fair work and workplace innovation are key priorities for the Scottish Government, as part of a strategy to promote the complementary aims of growing productivity and competitiveness and reducing inequality.

Fair: supports voice, opportunity, security, fulfilment and respect

Innovative: supports innovation and change in performance and in workplace relationships

Transformative: leads to step change in performance, productivity, health and wellbeing

Strathclyde’s Scottish Centre for Employment Research (SCER) developed a new conceptual approach to workplace innovation deeply rooted in mutual gains theories to support enhanced value creation that simultaneously delivers rewarding, fair work for employees. SCER worked in consultation with Scottish public agency and industry partners to disseminate and deploy a bespoke FITwork framework centred on understanding how best to deploy people to deliver performance and innovation.

The FITwork framework has been operationalised through a diagnostic tool designed by the Innovating Works team at SCER. The tool has 11 dimensions that capture the relationship between workplace design, systems & practices and employees’ experiences & performance.

The FITwork tool has been deployed in over 40 organisations in the food and drink sector; social care and businesses who have signed up to the Scottish Business Pledge. In working with these organisations, the aim was to identify configurations of workplace practice in context and, where possible, to highlight examples of ‘what works’ in delivering innovation and fair work.

Our impact

Workplace Innovation research at SCER facilitated collaboration and secured stakeholder commitment to workplace innovation. The research drove new policy development and practical change within businesses through the creation of a Scotland-wide multi-stakeholder collaborative network. This network co-created interventions that underpinned adoption of workplace innovation as a policy priority by the Scottish Government and public agencies resulting in the promotion and resourcing of workplace innovation to improve business performance and national economic performance.

The research enhanced business and skills support for workplace innovation through public agencies who funded and delivered business support for workplace innovation that improved business performance in more than 700 businesses.

More than 50 businesses that directly participated in the workplace innovation research and over 500 business that engaged with the research adopted innovative workplace practices that improved performance and employee experience.

The research also stimulated trade union engagement with workplace innovation to deliver member benefits. Unions were equipped to promote workplace innovation in bargaining to the benefit of members as well as driving innovation and modernisation within unions themselves.

Overall, the research findings and the process of engaging with the researchers helped us break the mould in terms of our previous way of operating, removing barriers that we had previously faced. In addition to helping us to identify problems much more accurately, the research also highlighted the types of workplace practices that were likely to diminish these problems, also gave us practical routes forward. Our experience was of identifiable and measurable benefits arising from an all-round successful process. (Drinks manufacturer)

Publications

Findlay, P., Lindsay, C. and Roy, G. (2021) ‘Business models, innovation and employees’ experiences in the workplace: challenges for the post-Covid-19 economy’ in P. McCann and T. Vorley (eds), Productivity and the pandemic, Elgar: Cheltenham, pp. 132-146.

Findlay, P., Lindsay, C., McQuarrie, J., Bennie, M., Corcoran, E.D. & Van Der Meer, R. (2017) Employer choice and job quality: workplace innovation, work redesign and employee perceptions of job quality in a complex healthcare setting, Work and Occupations, 44, 1, pp.113-136. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0730888416678038

Lindsay, C., Findlay, P., McQuarrie, J., Bennie, M., Corcoran, E. & Van Der Meer, R. (2017) Collaborative innovation, new technologies and work redesign, Public Administration Review, 78, 2, pp.251-260. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/puar.12843

Findlay, P., Lindsay, C., McQuarrie, J., Pascoe-Deslauriers, R., with Findlay, J., Smart, A. and Chalmers, D. (2016) Harnessing knowledge, research and networks to drive fair, innovative and transformative work in Scotland – Fair, Innovative and Transformative Work (FITwork) Project Year 1 Report: Parts 1 and 2. University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

https://www.propelhub.org/why-workplace-innovation-matters/

https://www.propelhub.org/progressive-and-creative-practice-for-workplace-innovation-insight-into-an-employer-event/

Contact

Professor Patricia Findlay
Patricia.findlay@strath.ac.uk