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Global Firms Face Innovation Bottleneck Through Lack of Communication Skills


News provided by

EF Education First

22 Jan, 2015, 09:00 GMT

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The innovative company: How multinationals unleash their creative potential (PRNewsFoto/EF Education First)

LONDON, January 22, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

  • The EF Education First sponsored study shows employee confidence falls when collaborating abroad
  • Firms could fail to capitalize on innovation
  • 81% of firms said investment boost in communication skills would increase innovation
  • 76% of firms plan to increase their investment in innovation
  • 75% of government officials said 'not my responsibility' to fix creativity gap in firms

Global firms could fail to capitalize on investments to boost innovation due to confidence issues in communication skills, according to a study by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The report shows a drop in confidence when employees share ideas outside of their departments and collaborate with colleagues in other countries, departments and hierarchies.

     (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150122/726882-INFO )

The study - The innovative company: How multinationals unleash their creative potential - found respondents' confidence levels drop from 96% when communicating with colleagues in their own departments to 72% with colleagues in other countries. Some 87% of companies agreed cross-cultural collaboration produces innovative ideas, but half said cross-cultural differences make it harder to share ideas with colleagues in different countries.

"You keep hearing the phrase 'innovate or die'," said Peter Burman, President of EF Corporate Solutions. "CEOs know this is true and say innovation is their top priority, but clearly they face a bottleneck in innovation as employees lack confidence communicating with colleagues in other countries. Companies have to rethink the skills people need to be confident in sharing ideas across hierarchies, departments and countries."

The study found 81% of 350 respondents said improving cross-border communication skills in staff would boost their firms' ability to innovate. Yet nearly 30% of firms surveyed concede their spending here is inadequate or non-existent. The study found while CEOs use idea-sharing processes a lot (95%), engagement tails off outside the c-suite, with managers (78%) and department heads (77%) less likely to use them. This casts doubt on whether formal processes can involve everyone in innovation.

Innovation tops global business priorities  

The study found global firms are staking their futures on their ability to innovate. Creating new products and services was a top-three priority for 54% of survey respondents, more important than cutting costs (42%) or investing in talent (33%).

Over three-quarters (76%) of firms plan to increase their investment in innovation further over the coming three years, with almost one-third (31%) set to increase it significantly. More than two-thirds (71%) have ramped up investment in innovation over the last three years, and a quarter (25%) have done so significantly (defined as increasing investment by 20% or more).

Whose responsibility is it anyway? 

"Two key skills are highlighted as being central to the development of an innovative corporate culture - those of creativity and international communication," added Burman. "Governments and business differ in who they believe is responsible for this training."

Some 55% of executives said it was solely their responsibility to provide training to foster innovation. And more than one-third (37%) said skills provided in their countries are not adequate to improve the ability of the workforce to innovate.            

Yet 75% of government officials surveyed said it is not their job to address the creativity skills gap in corporations, leaving this responsibility to the companies themselves. The public officials see the main problem as making adults more aware of the training that is already on offer.

"Governments don't feel responsible for training the existing workforce," said Claes Ceder, executive vice president at EF Corporate Solutions. "But they know they have to address the communication-skills gap to ensure students about to graduate are more innovation-ready for tomorrow's job market. The good news is there is a lot that can be done in a relatively short period of time to address this, but governments have to be prepared to act now."

Lack of innovation culture 

Firms aspire to create a culture of experimentation, but often fail to follow through. In the survey, 30% of respondents said their firms lack a culture that encourages new ideas from everyone; 30% said their companies lack a culture that allows for failure; and 34% said their companies do not allow time for employees to experiment on their own projects. Many companies have formal processes to gather ideas, but these are often ineffective.

The study found that a creative culture is one in which each employee feels encouraged to suggest ideas, and in which there is a high tolerance of failure. But many companies do not take steps to ensure those conditions are present. In an interview for the study, Tammy Lowry, Global Head of Learning and Organisational Effectiveness at Roche, said: "Unfortunately, much training focuses on making ideas 'right and wrong' through testing, so that individuals may lose that sense of confidence even as their knowledge increases."

Download the full report and view additional rankings, insights and graphs at: http://www.innovativecompany.global

About the research 

The innovative company: How multinationals unleash their creative potential is an Economist Intelligence Unit report, sponsored by EF Education First. It explores the challenges companies face when promoting innovation across departmental and national boundaries. Two global online surveys, one with senior corporate executives and the other with government officials, carried out in October and November 2014. The corporate survey sampled 350 respondents whom work for companies that operate in at least one other country outside their home markets. Over half (54%) are C-level or board-level executives. The government officials sample totals 57 respondents responsible for the design and implementation of adult education and training policy.

About EF Corporate Solutions 

EF Corporate Solutions, an EF Education First company, is the world leader in language training for businesses, governments and the educational sector. With over 40,000 employees, a worldwide network of offices in over 50 countries, and language courses available for every business need, EF CS is the chosen language partner of many of the worlds most respected businesses. For more information please visit: http://www.ef.com/corporate.

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