STRATEGIC EMPLOYEE INNOVATION PLAN

Strategic employee innovation plan.

A strategic employee innovation plan should start at the top. The plan should show the mission of the innovation, direction of the performance and the ideas that should be focused on. An open communication between the management and the employees is important as it promotes trust. The leaders should initiate the process of open communication by sharing all information available with other employees. It is important to reduce bureaucracy as it slows down action. Faster implementation encourages further inventive thinking. A sense of ownership should be instilled in employees. The employees should feel responsible for the best end result. The employees should be rewarded for success of the innovation and their effort which will encourage them to work harder (Dougherty, & Hardy, 1996).  The employees should be encouraged to take risks and work harder even in case the idea fails. The management should tolerate certain degree of failure and encourage the employees to work harder. The organization should be ready to abandon projects that don’t work to make room for new activities.    

There are several factors that Kimberly-Clark will need to support innovation. An environment that support innovation should be incorporated. Rewards should be given in recognition of excellent performance. The organization should also show its willingness to experiment with innovative ideas. The company should have an orientation toward creativity and orientation change, support their members to function independently to the pursuit of new ideas and have tolerance for diversity among their employees. Adequate supply of resources such as equipment, facilities and time are also important in encouraging innovation in an organization. Collaborative and participative leadership styles should be incorporated (Scott, & Bruce, 1994).It is also important to provide a list of specific activities that leaders should engage in to allow creativity to emerge. A good relationship between a supervisor and subordinates should be maintained as it encourages innovativeness. Work groups in an organization should be encouraged as they encourage individual innovation. 

Kimberly-Clark organization will equip staff members with tools and methods so as to embed intrapreneurship competency. The organization will get researchers to research on market needs and customer needs so as to ensure they develop their products depending on market and customer needs. Training of employees is also important as it ensures that they have all the knowledge and skills they require so as to improve their products and making them the best in the market. Training also helps employees know how to use the new technology that will be provided to increase their competence (DeFillippi, Rieple, & Wikström, 2016).  The aim of intrapreneurship in the organization is to foster intrapreneurial thinking among the staff members, equipping them with the tools and methodologies they need to transfer technologies to the market.  

In Kimberly-clark it possible to identify intrapreneurs. Imtrapreneurship is comprised of three main key dimensions; risk taking, innovation and the character of being proactive. An intrapreneur is identified by the ability and courage to venture in an unknown areas of the organization without knowing what will be the outcome of the venture (Moriano,  Molero, Topa, & Mangin, 2014).  An intrapreneur is also identified by the tendency to engage in new activities in an organization that result in new ideas and experimentation which may result in new processes, services or products. An intrapreneur can also be identified by the ability to act in participation of future needs, changes or challenges that can result to new opportunities. 

Supporting and encouraging intrapreneurs and fostering a climate of innovative learning and development.

The organization will create an inner environment that is conducive to internal intrapreneurship which will encourage individuals to be committed to sustainable corporate innovativeness. The intrapreneurs will engage in opportunity seeking entrepreneurial behaviors as in the case of independent entrepreneurs discovering new opportunities and challenges. These will result in sustainable competitive advantage through innovation in the form of new products, services and processes (Alpkan, Bulut, Gunday, Ulusoy, & Kilic, 2010). When the company encourages employees to act as entrepreneurs, it should be ready to pay them as entrepreneurs in case of a success by rewarding them. Rewards will tend to rise employee commitment to innovation and their willingness to assume the risk associated with entrepreneurial activity. 

Discovering employee innovativeness.

When employees start making decision and taking risk, it is an evident that they are becoming more innovative. Innovative employees will be involved in decision making in an organization but will not just sit and watch. Such employees are ready to venture into new ideas without knowing what the end result will be (Dougherty, & Hardy, 1996).  To determine whether the innovation plan was successfully implemented we will investigate whether the organization is accepting new ideas and also whether employees are involved in decision making of the organization.  

Reference

Alpkan, L., Bulut, C., Gunday, G., Ulusoy, G., & Kilic, K. (2010). Organizational support for intrapreneurship and its interaction with human capital to enhance innovative performance. Management decision, 48(5), 732-755. 

DeFillippi, R., Rieple, A., & Wikström, P. (Eds.). (2016). International Perspectives on Business Innovation and Disruption in Design. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Dougherty, D., & Hardy, C. (1996). Sustained product innovation in large, mature organizations: Overcoming innovation-to-organization problems. Academy of management journal, 39(5), 1120-1153.

Moriano, J. A., Molero, F., Topa, G., & Mangin, J. P. L. (2014). The influence of transformational leadership and organizational identification on intrapreneurship. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 10(1), 103-119.

Scott, S. G., & Bruce, R. A. (1994). Determinants of innovative behavior: A path model of individual innovation in the workplace. Academy of management journal, 37(3), 580-607.