Employee development can take place in different forms. Creativity wellness workshops are one of the opportunities an employer can provide employees to improve their creative problem-solving skills. Employees are more likely to be innovative by participating in creative workshops. Changes in the external market or internal workplace environment will eventually require new solutions. When facing such concerns, creative problem-solving skills can come in handy for a company. Preparing employees with the necessary thinking skills can allow them to generate solutions and suggest possibilities to address the issues.
Corporate wellness improves with employees contributing in a meaningful way. The creativity workshops help to sharpen the focus of employees, enhancing their ability to quickly identify problems and offer a range of solutions. Corporate wellness also gets a boost since employees will be engaging as a group. Group collaboration is increased and employees learn how to produce creative solutions as a group. Creativity workshops also play the role of continuous improvement. Every year a creativity workshop can be conducted as a corporate habit and build a strong workplace culture that encourages creativity and innovation.
The Role of Leadership in Creativity Workshops
The leaders of a company play a significant role in promoting creativity in the workplace. Offering creativity workshops to employees can be seen as a crucial factor in the success of the business. The workers will develop a creative mindset that opens their minds to think differently and always challenge themselves to look at problems from different lenses.
The management can provide facilities in the workplace environment. These facilities can be in terms of designated areas specifically for creative thinking. Not only will the employees engage creatively in the workshop yearly, but also on a daily basis in those facility areas. The creativity facility would include a room with a range of sitting chairs, couches and bean bags, along white a whiteboard, markers and sticky notes to simulate employees’ creativity. Having a creative room will help to shape the tone and culture of the workplace environment, making it more creative and innovative-oriented.
The leadership in a company would also want to give enough freedom to employees, in terms of time and budget, to allow them flexibility. The fewer constraints there are in the process, the more creativity and strong ideas and solutions can be expected. The workplace environment would also need to be non-judgemental. Some creative ideas can be ridiculous or non-relevant. However, with the help of a proper system implemented, it can ensure employees are not discouraged but rather move on to the next ideas that work best.
Tips for Creating Effective Creativity Workshops
The creativity workshops must be interactive and fun. Employees should be able to enjoy the process and not be too attached to the outcome of the process. This will give them the freedom to think freely without hesitation and huge expectations. During the process, employees can draw, doodle, write and create flow charts that encourage thinking in different mediums.
Mind mapping can be used by workers to connect their ideas with previous or existing ideas and identify the relevance among them. Each section of mind mapping can be further broken down into sub-sections of creative ideas. This can allow us to see a better image of creative ideas and allocate them to the best category.
The leader of the workshop may also want to emphasise the ownership of a solution to each employee who comes up with a creative idea. This can increase the motivation level of employees and encourage others to do the same in order to get recognition from peers and management.
An effective creativity workshop will also have different phases. For example, phase 1 would be more oriented towards a brainstorming session. After all the creative ideas and solutions are evaluated, then phase 2 could take place in which the best and most important creative ideas would be initiated for further exploration and research.
Organisational policies and procedures are also important to consider in providing workplace creativity. These can be modified to promote and exchange creative workplace environments. The same principle can be applied to other types of workshops such as wellness workshops that focus more on the physical and mental health of the employees.
Misconceptions about Creativity Workshops
A misconception about the creativity workshop is that it needs to be perfect. This is not true because creativity is an artistic and imaginative process. It is likely that mistakes and failures will be experienced during the creativity workshop. Also, there is no guarantee that a specific creative workshop will result in the most effective and outstanding creative solution.In general, the company grows and improves when creativity workshops are incorporated into corporate wellness programs. It is important to remind yourself that creativity cannot be forced. Creativity takes time to develop and formulate. With enough time, patience and persistence, a company can allow its workers to generate creative ideas and improve their thinking skills. Before creativity starts, a general expectation list should be read to all the employees to inform them about realistic exceptions.