Last Updated on 20 August 2017

Every company I have worked with has had a staffing/human resources department. Finding, screening and hiring the right employee to do a great job in a role are very important.

In fact, here some of the people and tools involved:

human resources people

  • hiring manager – the person who is looking for a new employee – they outlined the job and the abilities of the employee they are looking for.
  • employee recruiters – people who screen employee candidates, conduct preliminary interviews, and pass qualified candidates to the hiring manager’s team for interviewing.
  • candidate interview team – these are the folks who ask questions of the candidate to gauge whether or not they would and could do the job. They also determine if the candidate would be a good culture fit.

human resources tools

  • job description – a detailed outline of the job and expectations of the employee
  • sourcing tools – tools to find qualified candidates ideas and build awareness that we’re in the process of hiring.
  • employee screener – a process where unqualified candidates are eliminated from the process (avoids wasting the hiring manager’s time).
  • the interviews – candidates are measured against a pre-set list of questions. Often, different people from the hiring
    manager’s department take turns asking questions. Then they compare their results.
  • 90-day period – once hired, many companies have a probation period for new employees to ensure that they truly were a good fit for the role.

Many companies say that innovation, and new and better ideas are important.
But you’ll find many have more advanced systems for ordering office supplies than they do an innovation process.

Let’s look at it a different way…

What if we hired ideas ? Employed innovation ?

Let’s take the staffing scenario above and replace a few key words:

  • ‘candidate/employee’ will become…idea
  • ‘hiring’ is swapped with…innovation
  • ‘job’ changes to… need

You would have a team of people and tools that looks like this:

innovation people

  • innovation manager – the person who is looking for a new idea – they outlined the need and the ability of idea they are looking for.
  • idea recruiters – people who screen ideas, conduct preliminary interviews, and pass qualified ideas to the innovation
    manager’s team for interviewing.
  • idea interview team – these are the folks who ask questions of the idea to gauge whether or not they would and could do
    the job. They also determine if the idea would be a good culture fit.

innovation tools

  • need description – a detailed outline of the product/service need and expectations of the idea.
  • sourcing tools – tools to find qualified ideas and build awareness that we’re in the process of innovation.
  • idea screener – a process where unqualified ideas are eliminated from the process (avoids wasting the innovation manager’s time).
  • the interviews – ideas are measured against a pre-set list of questions. Often, different people from the innovation
    manager’s department take turns asking questions. Then they compare their results.
  • 90-day period – once innovated, many companies have a probation period for new ideas to ensure that they truly were a good fit for the role.