When compared closely, traditional and modern business models have shown us that creativity is an essential aspect of every business. Whether you’re just a start-up or an already big organization looking to improve the company’s processes and reputation, you must make provision for creativity as you go.
Most business owners may consider creativity work distractions and should completely cut it off. However, the days of the suffocating workplace cubicle are long gone.
As old concepts are abandoned in favor of new, more refreshing ways of doing things, a sense of innovation and creativity becomes more widely accepted. Conversely, breaking free from old habits and allowing our creativity to thrive truly can be challenging when we are so set in our ways.
If your company is highly risk-averse, especially if there are targets to meet, things can become much more complicated. If you’re used to playing it safe, injecting some creativity into the mix may increase productivity and make your working day less of a hassle and more fulfilling.
Every day, the benefits of creativity become more apparent, from increased revenue to adapting to change. Creativity has resulted in increased productivity in businesses and among employees.
Millennials have already raised the bar for self-expression and creativity in the workplace. When asked, 94% of hiring managers believe it is critical to consider creativity when hiring a job candidate. Creativity is essential in the world if you want to be productive.
The Importance of Creativity in Business
As software becomes more critical to businesses, some are better prepared than others for the changes caused by digital transformation. Aside from the threat to public health, the coronavirus pandemic had a significant economic impact. Many businesses were permanently closed as a result of the virus’s spread, and a large number of people lost their jobs.
Given how the world is struggling to adapt to the changes imposed on it, business creativity as a skill may be what saves the day for many businesses.
A creative mindset can help business owners overcome obstacles and succeed in the modern era. Thinking creatively allows you to find innovative solutions to problems and succeed in business regardless of the circumstances.
The following are some of the importance of creativity in business;
Fast Problem-Solving
Creativity is required for corporate problem-solving. This skill allows workers to see opportunities that can help improve situations where finding a solution is difficult. It also enables people to see their problems from a different angle. This gives them the freedom to use their imagination to develop fresh ideas.
Solving problems necessitates creative thinking. However, by combining creativity with motivation, effort, and teamwork, you can create unique and meaningful solutions to any problem.
Increased Productivity
Another advantage of business creativity is that it boosts productivity. Coming up with original ideas allows you to work on new and exciting tasks, which may serve as an incentive to work harder.
Business creativity also makes employees feel more appreciated because it allows them to push their boundaries and create something new. Taking a creative approach also encourages more input from peers and superiors. With feedback, you can identify areas for improvement and work more efficiently.
Effective Teamwork
Leaders are required to think creatively and generate original ideas in the majority of organizational contexts. However, cultivating and utilizing the creative ability of an entire team is more likely to yield a greater quantity of innovative ideas and unique solutions.
People will be naturally inspired to collaborate by creativity, and the executive function facilitates collaboration. Individuals will feel more encouraged to present their ideas without fear of criticism in a collaborative setting. Individual ideas and knowledge are then synthesized into a shared good outcome to produce effective teamwork.
Solves Bigger Problems
Productivity is frequently defined as the ability to perform the same tasks as efficiently as possible. While this benefits your organization in many ways, it prevents your employees from challenging themselves to solve more significant problems, which is one of the main reasons why the “we’ve always done it this way” mentality has become so prevalent.
Encouragement of creative thought allows employees to see the big picture and focus productively on challenges that have a bigger impact on the organization.
While the creative process may appear less productive than simply producing work, by eventually shifting those efforts to larger-scale issues, workers’ productivity becomes more meaningful, and the business thrives.
To Be Creative or To Be Productive?
Productivity is a goal that business leaders relentlessly pursue. Everything we do, including hiring decisions, software purchases, and reorganizations, is aimed at gaining just a little bit more efficiency.
Productivity is defined by the shifting of gears and the day-to-day execution. Productivity is what keeps the lights on and the books balanced.
On the other hand, creativity is viewed as inherently disruptive to the status quo. It’s the explosion and jostling of a brilliant new thought that forces you to stop what you’re doing to write it down.
At first glance, it also appears to be utterly anti-productivity. It’s impossible to quantify. It’s impossible to put a number on it. That is great for big ideas, but it may not be so great for meeting those approaching deadlines.
However, contrary to popular assumption, creativity and efficiency can coexist. Creativity leads to productivity if the workplace environment is designed and fostered in a way that allows the two to coexist in harmony.
Examples of Creativity Found at Work
Leadership
A creative leader approaches interactions and tasks in novel ways. A good example is starting meetings with a personal or otherwise distinctive touch. A meeting leader may go around the room and inquire about both personal and business-related matters.
This sends the message that they care about the employee in ways other than money. As a result, the employee gains a greater sense of worth, loyalty, and motivation to succeed. It works by “making gratitude simple and contagious.”
Creativity in Sales
Like how leadership is an example of creativity at work, personal attention is an integral part of creative sales efforts. A customer might be surprised and happy if a salesperson remembers their birthday or another important day in their life.
Other ways to show a personal connection also make people feel good. For example, if a contact has shown much interest in soccer, asking them about a recent game will probably make them smile.
The more a potential or current client says your sales team is friendly and easy to talk to, the more likely they will keep talking to your team and doing business with your company.
Creativity in Marketing
Consider an ad campaign aimed at selling a new car model. A non-creative marketing strategy could result in a print or banner ad.
On the other hand, a thrilling short film could be used as a creative example of vehicle marketing. The cinematic approach could be pricey. The video, however, uses the inventive idea of transforming a product into something more—a story element.
Instead of an inanimate object, video and film allow the car to be seen from various angles while moving with the driver.
It’s a complete representation of the product that includes a personal touch. When a car is shown with its driver, it becomes a human tool and a part of life. This makes the ad more human and relatable.
Productive and Creative All at Once
Can productivity and creativity be balanced, or are they mainly at odds?
Creativity contributes to increased productivity if the office environment is designed and nurtured so that the two can coexist happily.
Let’s look at how you can be both productive and creative simultaneously.
Create a Marketing Calendar
Once you have your marketing strategy in place, drawing up a marketing calendar that will last a particular period is the creative way to manage your business operations.
A marketing calendar is a tool for organizing and centralizing your marketing tasks. It acts as a blueprint for all of your marketing initiatives. It serves as the single point of reference for all marketing team operations.
A marketing calendar provides answers to questions like:
- What marketing initiatives do we have planned? This could include major product launches, weekly newsletters, holiday promotions, and other activities.
- Who oversees each project and task? Marketing calendars can help you avoid problems caused by miscommunication about who is in charge of which projects.
- When are your tasks due? No more scrambling at the last minute; the calendar will help you plan ahead of time and deliver quality work on time.
A marketing calendar can take the form of a spreadsheet or marketing content. However, instead of sweating hours over spreadsheets, you can now use digital calendar makers, also known as task management tools, to design your business operations plan for successful collaboration and improved productivity.
For example, monday.com provides a variety of project management approaches based on the user’s preferences. You can customize processes to your preferences and see an overview of your team’s activities. The solution centralizes all of your activity, making it easier to collaborate and move projects forward.
Creating a marketing calendar reduces repetition and human error when a new employee needs to know what duties to focus on and prevents critical marketing activities from getting lost in the shuffle.
Cultivate a Flexible Ecosystem
Individuals and teams are supported as they cycle through the creative process by various settings that encourage moments of individual inquiry, rest, social connection, co-creation, and evaluation.
Ensuring seamless communication between locations will allow information and experiences to flow from tool to tool and space to space. This is made possible by cloud-based technology, which allows work to move with people as they move from place to place.
You can, for example, centralize and store your training materials in the cloud.
Instead of sifting through a jumble of odd Word documents, folders, and hard drives, your staff can concentrate on what matters most: learning. In addition, employees can access the training materials anytime and from any location. This is especially useful for global teams with multiple time zones where it is difficult to establish a shared time for training.
When you use a cloud-based solution in your office, everyone can access information, and work can be done from anywhere, increasing productivity.
Remote Working Culture
The COVID period demonstrated that remote work culture is critical to the future workforce’s success. The peak of the epidemic in 2020 showed a significant increase in the number of people working from home.
For example, 82% of businesses in the United States anticipate allowing remote work options once the pandemic has passed.
Besides that, contrary to popular belief, working remotely does not impair productivity. Furthermore, there is a plethora of software designed for managing remote work that makes it simple to organize tasks and collaborate with a team in a different location.
As a result, you should encourage employees and teams to work from home. A combination of remote and on-site work would be ideal. The increase in productivity that your company would see would astound you.
Have a Work Ritual
Work rituals can help your workplace become more human, increase employee engagement, foster a sense of belonging, and connect employees and their jobs.
Workplace rituals, like sporting routines, vary greatly. They can range from micro-rituals, like one person taking a deep breath first thing in the morning, to macro-rituals, like teams recognizing an employee of the month.
Work rituals tell your employees that you care about them as individuals and want your company to be a place where everyone can be themselves, not just that you want them to have fun at work.
Workplace rituals can boost employee creativity because they know they can express themselves and be heard. Furthermore, work rituals may assist you in recognizing your teams, as 91% of HR professionals believe recognition and reward increases employee retention.
Employee Self-Service Adoption
Employee self-service allows employees to perform a variety of human resources and job-related tasks that would otherwise be handled by human resources specialists or management. Employee self-service could help many businesses cut labor hours and increase efficiency.
ESS is a self-service portal that is part of the software and is accessible to all your employees; it benefits everyone in your company, not just HR personnel. Employees can access their paychecks, schedules, and benefits and update their information.
Because of changing business cultures that necessitate the evolution of HR systems, ESS has grown in prominence. While this may appear insignificant, HR systems have taken a long time to transition from their traditional manual processes used for decades to automation supported by efficiency.
For instance, employees can use the iHRM software to view their schedules, time cards, and accruals without going through a supervisor or the Human Resources department. Furthermore, by consolidating all employee and HR data on a single platform, everyone is on the same page, removing any uncertainty within the organization.
Automate Your Processes
Why waste time on tasks you can automate, such as data entry? When done correctly, automating time-consuming tasks can significantly boost productivity. The use of modern technology to perform business operations with minimal human participation is known as the automation of business processes.
A business process that spans multiple departments usually starts with an action. For example, during employee onboarding, the HR system may initiate predefined workflow steps to send a welcome email, set up security credentials, and enter compensation system information.
Typically, automating a business process’s workflow phases increases the efficiency and precision of each step.
Management, operations, human resources, and marketing are just a few examples of business processes that organizations can automate.
Jobs that are high in volume, repetitive, time-sensitive, involve multiple people, require compliance, and require audit trails are good candidates for automation.
For example, a creative way to manage the marketing process would be to use marketing automation software, such as CRM, which helps marketing departments by removing repetitive tasks from staff workflows and increasing overall marketing productivity.
Convert Failures Into Learning Experiences
A creative workplace encourages people to strive for their best rather than discourages them from doing their best and failing. Taking chances and trying new things will always result in some level of failure.
On the other hand, employees are less likely to engage in creative endeavors if they believe they will be disciplined for making mistakes or that it will result in conflict.
Allowing for failure appears to result in decreased productivity in the short term. However, the opportunities for growth and innovation usually outweigh the risks over time.
Cut the Excesses
If possible, avoid distracting employees who are working toward a larger goal. Examine the team’s routine and see if you can omit anything to allow employees to focus on higher-priority tasks.
For example, if employees want to submit daily reports to their managers but their managers rarely have time to read them, lowering the word count requirement might be something to consider.
Anything done solely for the sake of obligation or obligation alone is a waste of time employees could spend on achieving goals that will benefit your company.
Share With Your Teams
Creating a collaborative process with your team has numerous benefits. When executives share ideas and updates with their employees, open communication becomes second nature, and all employees feel equally committed to the company’s ultimate goals.
This is a two-way street. When all ideas are considered, everyone on the team feels valued, and, as a result, they are more satisfied with their job.
Include your employees in decisions and discussions whenever possible, and strive to be transparent about your decision-making process. You’ll discover that your team is more likely to support you than oppose you, and they’ll grow to value your advice if they believe you value their opinions.
Have a Diverse Team
If creativity is defined by having a variety of ideas and points of view, it makes sense to hire people with diverse backgrounds and experiences.
If you are the boss, avoid hiring people who are a carbon copy of yourself. Your creativity will suffer if you fill your office with clones and your firm with similar people.
A better hiring strategy would be to aim for the most diverse team possible. You will benefit from participating in discussions and coming up with new ideas.
Encourage Learning
Workplace creativity extends beyond the office. If you want to be a creative and imaginative person, you must broaden your horizons. Explore as many information subjects as possible to expand your horizons beyond your current sphere.
Many of the most creative people share this trait; they are all insatiably curious. If your worldview is too limited, you will be unable to make the connections required to generate new ideas.
Encourage your team members to study and learn as much as possible about various topics. There are no excuses because this is now easier than ever.
In Conclusion
Companies are rethinking the most effective strategy for expanding their workforce as the world changes how people work.
Organizations must accept that creativity is a process in which anyone can participate if they have the right behaviors and working methods. Instead of managing projects linearly, sophisticated problem-solving requires a multidisciplinary exploration of unfamiliar territory, agility, and iteration, divergent and convergent thinking.
The creative work process is adaptable and occasionally chaotic, accepting numerous dead ends and setbacks as part of the learning cycle. In turn, the work environment itself plays a vital role in fostering a culture of innovation and promoting the creative process.
It is a win-win situation to encourage and cultivate workplace innovation. It is something that everyone benefits from.
Thinking creatively necessitates an open-minded cognitive process and thinking outside the box. It enhances the mind’s ability to generate new designs or ideas. It also improves your analytical skills, allowing you to narrow your thought process and make better decisions.
If encouraged, workplace creativity has the potential to be the ultimate secret to increasing team productivity.