WEtech Alliance launches program to encourage innovation by employees
Little fish with ideas for improving big company ponds now have the tools to make their pitches to higher-ups, thanks to a new program launched by the region’s innovation centre Wednesday. Innovation Catalyst, a WEtech Alliance initiative, will help larger organizations build a culture of positive improvements by empowering workers with innovation skills, said Adam Frye, WEtech’s director of corporate innovation. “We wanted to look at and create a program that specifically was tailored towards grassroots employees,” said Frye, whose organization started Innovation Catalyst with Windsor’s electric utility Enwin (which also runs the water system for Windsor Utilities Commission) about 18 months ago. “This isn’t a weekend boot camp where we take your executives and we bring them here and we train them on design thinking. We get into the trenches.”
The program’s first step involves WEtech representatives building a custom plan for a company after sitting down with its leadership and executive teams. Then, WEtech and the company collaborate to hand-select a group of employees, called catalysts, to participate in a full year of structured programming on top of their day-today work, curating opportunities
for innovation on the front lines and executing those opportunities. Once the catalysts have identified a problem in their organization, WEtech helps them come up with solutions as a team and shows them how to present those solutions to company executives. “These employees have what I call unlocked potential,” Frye said. “They live challenges and opportunities every single day.”
But ideas typically die out when employees encounter an early roadblock, like not being able to come up with a solution by themselves right away.
“That’s the big barrier we help them get over.”
Justin Pulleyplank, Enwin’s supervisor of water distribution, said it was stressful at times to do his regular workload and find time to focus on innovation techniques, but ultimately he found the program valuable.
“It increased communication. We normally wouldn’t work with other departments. They always say hydro and water don’t mix, but I guess this time it does.”
The program also helps companies to identify employees with high potential who may have slipped under the radar, Frye said. “The company gets a lot of advantages out of this, which is really the best part,” said Frye. When executives listen to and support employee solutions it improves company morale, he added. “Now I know that the executive is approachable if we do have an issue,” Pulleyplank said. “If it’s a valid idea, they will consider it. They had total buy-in.”