Encouraging Your Employees to be “Hackers”

“Hack Days” are an interesting new trend in technology and engineering companies. This is not hacking in the traditional sense. They don’t encourage employees to create internet viruses or find ways onto top secret government sites. The idea is to encourage employees to embrace the concept of hacking to develop new ideas for the company. Employees are encouraged to work on things outside of their normal scope to find creative ideas to improve the business. Non technology companies are beginning to implement Hack Days to embrace their employee’s talents and motivate workplace innovation. Here are three tips to starting Hack Day events in your own office

  1. Allow employees to pursue their passions. Hack Day gives employees a way to engage in things that they enjoy doing which may also benefit the company. You might allow employees to volunteer for part of the day based on their own interests and talents. You may be surprised what your administrative staff prefers to dedicate their time to or that your IT department has already been thinking of ways to make things more efficient. It will not take much encouragement to get them to share their ideas if they are passionate about them.
  2. Encourage Participation. Make sure everyone taking part in Hack Day understands that there is no final evaluation on the ideas they might come up with. Empower your employees to explore every idea, even knowing that not all the concepts are going to be good right out the gate. Some employees might be hesitant to make suggestions because they are afraid of criticism, but a manager must ensure this will not be the case. All good innovation has a failure rate, don’t be afraid of it.
  3. Provide incentive. When the team is actively engaged with improving the company, everyone benefits. When that improvement is implemented each employee feels their individual participation made a difference. Make Hack Day an event. Celebrate the accomplishment with something fun at the end of the day. Be sure to incorporate the final development into everyday business to whatever degree makes sense. It is very important for everyone involved to see an end result.

Looking for innovative team members for your company?  CornerStone Staffing can locate the right “hackers” for you.

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