As part of its commitment to enhancing economic competitiveness and growth, Scottish Enterprise has appointed Workplace Innovation Limited to deliver a practical programme of workplace innovation and deeper engagement for Scottish businesses.
Scottish Enterprise, the country’s main economic development agency works with partners in the public and private sectors to identify and exploit the best opportunities to deliver a significant, lasting effect on the Scottish economy.
Workplace Innovation Limited is part of UK WON, a not-for-profit organisation which works with major employers’ organisations, trade unions, policymakers, professional bodies and universities committed to disseminating workplace innovation.
The two year Deeper Engagement Programme recognises the need to improve leadership and management skills and the importance of people issues in driving Scotland’s competitiveness and economic success.
Clare Alexander, head of workplace innovation at Scottish Enterprise, said: “As a core driver of competitiveness and growth, people are a fundamental aspect of our delivery plan, underpinning our work with companies, in sectors and international markets.
“This is not just about how we develop and acquire the skills we need to compete, it is also about how we deploy our talent to stimulate higher levels of innovation, growth, productivity and employee engagement.
“The Workplace Innovation team has strong track record of advancing people-centred change in SMEs and larger organisations such as BT, E.ON, GSK and the NHS and they are supported bynational and international networks of experts with a wide range of expertise and knowledge of innovative workplace practice.
Professor Peter Totterdill, chief executive of UK WON, added: “Our aim is to contribute to Scottish Enterprise’s workplace innovation strategy by delivering a multi-strand Deeper Engagement Programme.
“We will demonstrate how participating companies can create workplaces in which employees use and develop their full range of knowledge, skills, experience and creativity in their day to day work, leading to inclusive growth based on productivity, fair work and enhanced quality of working life.
“The challenge is to provide leaders and change agents with a robust yet practically oriented programme which combines individual competence development with the implementation of evidence-based workplace innovation.
“We will be focussing on individual and shared learning as well as workplace innovation projects which generate measurable and sustainable improvements in performance, quality, cost containment, employee engagement and well-being for the company and its employees.”
For participating businesses, the ‘Deeper Workplace Innovation Engagement Programme’ will deliver a mix of structured learning, access to real-life case studies, leadership development, change management, action planning derived from a self-assessment diagnostic tool, action learning and on-site coaching and facilitation. Each will also receive a 12 month free membership of Fresh Thinking Labs an international network which combines state of the art online interaction with in-person opportunities for knowledge sharing.
More information on Scottish Enterprise’s Workplace Innovation Service can be found at www.scottish-enterprise.com