Indispensable Employee Attributes for Successful Innovation in Your Business

Companies have been aching for the best way to generate innovative ideas to improve their businesses, and with the advent of digitalization and the decline of traditional idea suggestion boxes, virtual platforms are becoming the new norm. However, many companies struggle with the countless weak ideas they receive from the online ideation campaigns due to the broad scope of ideas posted and the low threshold for employees to participate. The key to generating high-quality ideas in these types of efforts is through understanding personal and contextual traits that improve creativity and innovativeness in employees. This study concluded that task autonomy, information sharing, proactive personality traits, and trust are key characteristics that improve the chances of good ideas significantly. Employers can improve their ideation efforts by using guidance, information sharing spaces, and formulating protocols to provide feedback on every idea to cultivate trust.