Labor & Employment Law

The Role of HR in Innovation

By Michael Fitzgibbon

There's a superb post called The role of HR in innovation by Jeffrey Phillips at Innovate on Purpose blog that anyone in HR or business should check out.  Thanks to the good folks over at Innovation Weblog for the pointer. 

HR is the "gatekeeper" to the organization as they, in large measure, determine who gets in (recruitment) and, in part at least, are responsible for "keeping" them in (retention).  Who is your organization attracting?  Are you hiring innovative, creative people who are not paralyzed by fear of making a mistake or do they strive to think "outside the box", whatever that really means?  What is the corporate culture in which your employers are required to work?  Is HR living up to its responsibility as the "conscience of the organization" as a friend of mine is fond of saying?  Innovation starts with people and HR is responsible for people. 

There's a very interesting (and somewhat related) talk by Sir Ken Robinson presented at the TED Conference called Do Schools Kill Creativity? that's worth having a look at. 

Jeffrey puts it far better than I ever could, so go have a read of his post.

Full post as published by Thoughts from a Management Lawyer on June 18, 2007 (boomark / email).