5 Signs of An Innovative Employee
Fortune 500 companies can attract top talent because not only can they pay innovators good money, but most people find it prestigious to work for them. If you run a small or medium business, hiring, training, and retaining innovative employees can be challenging. Granted, you have to be on the lookout for the top tier innovative ability in your employees.
For starters, the difference between a creative employee and an innovative employee lies in the execution. While a creative employee might come up with ideas, an innovative employee will execute the ideas to improve the company’s bottom line.
Below are five qualities of an innovative employee.
- They Have an Opportunistic Mindset
All enterprises rely on opportunities – every market gap is an opportunity for your company to make more money. An innovative employee is more alert to market gaps and opportunities than all other employees. With an opportunist working for your company, they will seek ways to create new and more exhilarating experiences for your customers. They will also seek to create varieties of products and services to satiate the gap.
In most cases, the opportunist will see a gap that other people might not see or understand. When Henry Ford made the first vehicle, he noted that had he asked people what they needed, they would have said faster horses. But he had the idea of a car, which might have sounded ludicrous to many people.
- Well-Trained in their Field
Most successful innovators are not school dropouts – the popular belief doesn’t work here. Formal education or training is key in identifying new opportunities and calculating the risks to see what is viable and what is not.
Without a formal education, an employee may not discern between relevant and irrelevant experience. Granted, when hiring, before you can identify any other qualities of the employee, look at the papers, and any job experience.
The need for formal training is the reason most employers engage their employees in continued training – to make them better.
- Persistence and Efficiency
It is one thing having an idea and another different thing seeing the idea to fruition. An innovative employee needs to show persistency and consistency in following up on their ideas. This employee needs to show more resilience and energy than other employees. You will note them as being self-motivated without seeking the approval of the boss.
Persistency without efficiency might lead to loss of resources – which is why you need to ensure effectiveness and efficiency in every idea an employee follows.
- More Prudence than Other Employees
Although every innovation comes with its risks, innovative employees are more risk-averse than other employees. Instead, they are more organized and cautious. Every step an innovative employee takes is calculated to minimize the risks.
Risk-taking is good for business formation but it is not linked to business success like the general population might lead you to think.
- Have Connections and Networks
An innovator relies on their connections and networks to create to rally support behind their ideas and find resources to execute their ideas. They are able to create alliances internally and externally to drive their agenda. The popular belief is that innovators are creative geniuses who work alone, but innovation is the team’s work.
Innovators have a higher EQ, which enables them to sell their ideas to other employees and to customers. They are good communicators and can lead a team to realize results never achieved in the company before.
Conclusion
Even with the above qualities, an innovative employee needs to work in a company with a meaningful mission and a clear vision. It is through a company’s vision that innovation meets leadership. An innovative employee should be able to propel other employees towards the idea and its execution.
Without leadership qualities, an innovative employee cannot mobilize resources or create an efficient team or even ensure the consistency of innovations. As research shows, innovation is the first sign of future success. However, innovation can also tag along core rigidities that can stifle the creative and innovative process. This simply means that with innovation, a company grows but growth can be a hindrance to innovation. Granted, a company innovation needs to be part of a company’s culture, and that requires vision and leadership.