How to Inspire Innovation in a Conventional Office

Colors are a great way to add personality to your office

Conventional offices sometimes suck the creativity out of employees, and hinder innovation instead of helping it. But they don’t have to be that way. Try a few of these tricks to kick-start the innovators in your company and showcase what creativity is all about.

Colors

Color theory states that different colors can stimulate different things. Red makes you hungry, blue keeps you relaxed and invigorated, yellow keeps you cheerful, and so on. Depending on what your employees are supposed to be doing, a change in color and atmosphere could go a long way. If your office space is rented, and you can’t reasonably re-paint the entire office, try equipping your employees with whiteboards and different colored markers to add a pop of color to their desks. Whiteboards are also great spaces where employees can lay out and organize their ideas, write down new ones so they don’t forget, and brainstorm with coworkers.

Out of office meetings or events

Getting out of the office once in a while is healthy for all levels of a company, from top management to an intern. Thinking and interacting in a new space encourages new ideas by showing employees there are different ways to do things. Have a meeting in a coffee shop, or show a movie in the office once a month just to shake things up.

Seminars and learning workshops

Continuous training and education is necessary to keep minds sharp. This doesn’t just apply to new employees who need to be trained for their job, but also for long-term employees who should be continually trained and educated to remain competitive, especially with emerging technologies and competition within the industry. Seminars and learning workshops are great ways to get employees to think innovatively and step outside of their comfort zone by learning new things…or a new way to think about what they already knew.

Help foster innovation by giving your employees the tools to keep working beyond their self-set limitations, and show them that they have what it takes to be creative. Try the suggestions above, or add your own in the comments below.