Businesses are entering a ‘decisive decade' when the workplace will be transformed and ways of sharing and developing ideas will be dramatically accelerated by new opportunities to collaborate online, according to an international study launched by The Future Foundation for Google.
New technologies will dramatically alter working practices and affect the creativity and productivity of employees, the survey claims. The study reveals an 81% correlation between collaboration and innovation, showing that the more employees are given the opportunity to collaborate, the more ideas they will contribute. UK employees who are given the opportunity to collaborate at work are almost twice as likely to have contributed new ideas to their company.
However, many organisations are yet to embrace the new technologies that enable collaboration. Only 12% of employees surveyed expressed satisfaction with the technology available to them at work and 44% say the technology they use in their personal lives is better than that available to them in the office.
As well as having the right technology in place, the study shows that one of the key challenges for businesses is motivating and incentivising staff to generate ideas. The biggest incentives for employees to come up with creative ideas are financial reward (45%) and recognition for their achievements (39%) - in fact 58% of employees surveyed say they would already be coming up with more creative ideas for their employers if they thought they would be rewarded for them.
"The companies that come to dominate the next ten years of innovation will be those that are early to embrace online collaborative technologies and these new ways of thinking," said Dr Carsten Sørensen, Senior Lecturer at The London School of Economics and Political Science.
"They will also be those that work out how to motivate and reward the teams of people who generate the ideas that create new opportunities for their organisations. There are undoubtedly challenges ahead, but what is clear is that ignoring the ideas revolution is not an option if businesses want to succeed in the next decade."
