Dear leaders: Put your employees at the centre of innovation, not technology

As creativity throughout the Australian workplace continues to plummet, the go-to investment to improve innovation has been technology. However, finding a return on this investment is proving to be a tougher endeavour than previously anticipated.

The focus on technology transformation has been a widely adopted mindset across a variety of Australian organisations, with subjects like productivity, innovation, and progress littered among the discourse for why to invest in AI and other new technologies. Yet one glaring reason for such an investment is often wilfully left out of these discussions.

“Organisations have been bullish on investing in artificial intelligence and generative AI. So, there has been this very strong focus on technology transformation. And the underlying kind of belief under that is that these technologies can be used to drive productivity,” said Aaron McEwan, vice president of research and advisory in the Gartner HR practice.

“They can be used to drive innovation. The general kind of subtle message; it’s not explicit, but there’s a subtle message that is being delivered to the workforce is that, ‘hey, we’ve found this new technology, and we believe it can kind of do everything that you can do.’”

HR Leader recently spoke to McEwan regarding the lack of innovation and creativity circulating throughout Australian organisations, often as a result of negative leadership practices, and an overreliance on advanced technologies.

“The pandemic fuelled workplace innovation and inspired employees to excel in a changed work environment, but employees now feel less encouraged to try new approaches to improve business results or to challenge the status quo,” said McEwan.

“A lot of [chief executives] have invested heavily in technology. And now they’re looking for the return on investment. But they’re realising that it’s maybe a bit more expensive. It’s hard work. It’s energy-intensive. So, it’s not necessarily delivering on those productivity gains at the level that they were hoping for. It could be a couple of years away before we see the genuine return on investment.”

As the technology stalls, simultaneously, workers have never been more disinterested in their work. It’s up to leaders to motivate and incentivise their workers to rebuild that engagement, and that can be achieved by putting them in the driver’s seat when it comes to innovation.

“It’s getting your workforce to generate new ideas, to approach their work creatively, to look for better and more efficient and more productive ways of delivering value. Unfortunately, the workforce doesn’t feel like doing that. They’re tired, they’re exhausted. But they also feel like they’re not at the centre of that innovation. They feel like they don’t have the permission, or the conditions aren’t right. So, they feel restricted in their ability to be innovative and creative,” said McEwan.

“It’s a really big opportunity for leaders to kind of get back to the basics of leadership, which is to motivate your workforce, remind them of how important they are, how critical they are innovation, productivity, performance, and value, and get them focused on those things.”

When the refocus and those basics are implemented into the organisation, then the technology can be used as a tool to support employees with said innovation. Instead of the technology being the driver, it’s key that the worker is.

“Then what you can do in the background is use these emerging technologies, which aren’t perfected yet, to remove the drudgery to help those employees perform more effectively in the work that they do,” said McEwan.

“But growth is going to come from your workforce. It might come from technology [eventually], but that’s not happening right now for the vast majority of organisations, particularly large ones.”