INNOVATIONFRAMEWORK2016–18
Connecting innovative people, ideas and resources
OUR VISION FOR INNOVATION
Our Department connects innovative people, ideas and resources to achieve our Strategic Plan 2017–2020 vision: More Jobs. Great Workplaces.
For us, innovation means putting ideas into practice to add value for our people, stakeholders and clients.
As an organisation we strive to be known as:
Thought leaders
We inspire others with innovative ideas. We are informed and trusted by stakeholders and the community as the first point of contact for ideas related to employment and workplace relations policy. We connect and have meaningful dialogue with government, industry and the community to turn ideas into reality.
Our best ideas come from collaborating with people inside and outside of the Department. By openly collaborating with our stakeholders and clients we understand their needs, see different perspectives, keep pace with rapid change, imagine future possibilities, make informed decisions and optimise resources.
An innovative and energetic place to work
We embrace new ideas and people who want to drive change. Our leaders, systems and work environment support us to collaborate and maximise our potential. We are engaged and motivated to innovate and as we see ideas being supported, implemented and celebrated.
As individuals we:
Show courage to engage with new ideas by:
- challenging the status quo
- not saying ‘no’ to new ideas without consideration
- taking initiative to improve our practices
Seek insight and are forward looking by:
- seeking new sources of knowledge
- actively looking for opportunities
- looking to the horizon to imagine and create the future
- enhancing our understanding of unconscious bias and how it affects our work.
Collaborate openly by:
- sharing information, trusting and learning from people inside and outside of our Department
- harnessing diversity and giving people what they need to excel
- proactively engaging with clients and understanding their needs.
Take calculated risks and experiment by:
- Prototyping, trialling and learning quickly
- Learning and growing from mistakes
- Mitigating risks to progress ideas.
Our innovation process
Our Innovation Framework sets the expectation that our people and leaders take action to generate ideas and move good ideas forward to implementation. We seek to implement a portfolio of ideas—from incremental improvements to transformational change.
Challenge
- Understand user needs and aspirations
- Ask probing questions
- Establish multi–disciplinary teams
- Find collaborators
- Look to the future.
Generate
- Use an agile approach
- Brainstorm, crowdsource workshop
- Engage multiple perspectives
- Research, analyse, investigate
- Take a user–centred approach.
Select
- Yes: we want to develop
- Maybe: let’s work on it more
- Park: now is not the right time
Develop
- Allocate ideas a sponsor, resources and time
- Build a deep understanding
- Rapidly develop concepts and prototypes
- Co–create and collaborate
Decide
- Yes: let’s do it
- Maybe: let’s develop it more
- Park: this is not feasible at this point in time
Implement
- Test the idea and scale up
- Deliver results that add value
- Measure, learn and improve
- Acknowledge everyone and celebrate.
Innovation Priorities
In 2015–16 our innovation priorities focused on creating an environment and mindset for innovation.This time we are being even bolder.
Our four innovation priorities for 2016–18identify the innovative approaches we will use and the outcomes we want to achieve for our people, stakeholders and clients.
Looking inside
- We will evolve our organisation’s capability and systems to unlock our peoples’ expertise, interests and life experiences.For example, this can be achieved through flexible work, diverse and multi–disciplinary teams, projects which cross team boundaries and/or trialling our own gig economy.
Looking outside
- We will design policies and services for real life circumstances by applying user–centred design to profile the diverse needs of job seekers, businesses and employees.
- We will explore different ways to deliver more jobs and great workplaces using a variety of policy levers and non–legislative approaches.For example, this can be achieved through behavioural economics, the investment approach, open data, crowdsourcing and/or
platforms that can incorporate peer regulation taking a consensus approach to policy advice as step one.
Sharing our innovation story
- We will demonstrate the value we create for our people, stakeholders and clients by sharing our innovation narrative, including our successes and what we learn from failure.
The context in which we are working
Labour market disruption affects everyone in our Department. Economic shifts, social change, technological advances and new business models are transforming the way people work, consume and interact. Our Department has the ambitious goal of positioning Australia to thrive in this changing environment.
We will work in partnership to support industries, employers, employees and job seekers to plan for, adjust to and remain safe and healthy during transitions in our economy. As we develop our future workforce, we will seek opportunities to support organisations to embed diversity and equality in their organisations by sharing data, tools and practices. The outcomes we achieve will have a big impact because work plays a significant role in our communities and having a job or being out of work affects all areas of an individual’s life and their family’s life.
We will also work collaboratively to design the future of our work as a Department.
Next steps
We support our people to share, develop, test and implement ideas.Innovation is embedded through our Strategic Plan, Leadership Statement, Employment Capability Vision, Gender Equality Action Plan and business planning processes.Our innovation process is supported by our ideas management system—Spark.
These innovation priorities will guide Spark challenges.Throughout the year, senior executives will sponsor challenges calling for our people to brainstorm, collaborate on and support ideas for further development using our innovation process. Relevant line areas or corporate governance committees will also progress these innovation priorities and this will be reflected in business plans.
There’s no need to wait for a challenge—you are encouraged to contribute ideas on any topic in Spark’s brainstorm space at any time. Collaborate with others to develop ideas and find sponsors for those ideas. All ideas submitted in Spark will be circulated to senior executives and governance committees for consideration.
Thank you
Our Innovation Framework was developed by our people through user centred design approaches.
We acknowledge the enthusiastic and high quality input of everyone who contributed through the draw innovation activity, workshops and prototyping sessions.
Feedback
Our Innovation Framework will continue to evolve to reflect new directions and our maturing innovation culture.
Feedback, suggestions and ideas about our framework can be sent to the Innovation Partnerships team.
Visit our innovation intranet page for resources and to keep informed about progress.
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