The HR team is the most influential change-maker to deliver an internal innovation ecosystem that can go beyond ideas to results.

Last week the Bank of England warned that the UK is facing its longest recession since records began. These economic headwinds can tempt many businesses to scale back innovation spend as budgets are squeezed to meet targets. Yet costs can only be cut so far and innovation soon emerges as a powerful tool to get ahead of competitors even before we emerge from such downturns. McKinsey and Company research from the last major recession showed that companies which maintain innovation spending through crises outperformed the market during the downturn by 10%. Surprisingly, these effects only increased post-recession with a 30% outperformance from firms who invested throughout downturns. 

The HR/People team is not often considered a catalyst for this kind of commercial and operational innovation but this is an oversight companies cannot afford in this climate. As the custodians of the People agenda, the HR team is well-placed to find, nurture, and empower intrapreneurs - employees who seek opportunities, take a big-picture approach, are strengths-focused, and are courageous. 

HR’s role in shielding intrapreneurs from corporate “antibodies” that often reject innovation

Not all line managers are created equal and many might miss team members that bring unconventional talents, have a bias to action, and are able take affordable risks to create massive value. Seasoned HR business partners and leaders, however, have the advantage of having seen many different styles and outcomes in terms of talent development and can spot intrapreneurs and their potential quickly. 

HR may also be the first port of call for an intrapreneur frustrated by cultural blockers like the “we’ve always done it this way” mindset and their team’s potential resistance to change. Sahar Hashemi OBE knows the challenges of shifting organization culture for innovation and reflects on the often overlooked personal impact of trying to be a change-maker. Innovation is a really messy, lonely process. It takes a lot of courage. In a corporate setting where intrapreneurs can feel like “square pegs in round holes”, and may fear the impact of idea rejection on their progression within the company, HR creates psychological and emotional safety intrapreneurs crave but can’t ask for.

By developing a culture where affordable risks are permitted, and failures are used as learning opportunities, HR leaders also support Agile teams of intrapreneurs deliver game-changing results faster and with less resources.

Building a reward framework that focuses intrapreneurs on the Guiding Star 

That culture of innovation is often part of the board’s “North Star” ambitions for the organisation, but many do not realise that it is not just a goal that the whole organization is geared to achieving. At OneLeap, we prefer to talk about a “Guiding Star” to make the difference clear - what leadership really needs is a tangible and often time-sensitive business goal shared with employees by focusing on the business’s context and story to make the “why” of the “what” very clear. Crucially, the Guiding Star model provides clear boundaries within which employees can operate and innovate in pursuit of the Guiding Star. This guided autonomy empowers intrapreneurs to create commercialized innovations which have real value, measurable against the Guiding Star goal. 

We usually see the role of HR leaders as supporting the communication of this goal and making sure it is articulated in leadership behaviors and performance expectations. Beyond this, HR can also create new incentives for people to experiment and innovate while being clear on their boundaries and the business’s risk appetite. 

These incentives come in all forms from offering access to unusual leadership development and learning opportunities geared specifically for intrapreneurs, abandoning ratings based on manager discretion for metrics related to observable results from smart experiments, and setting aside a portion of the annual bonus pool for financial incentives for those who brought new value to the organization in previously untested ways. Even non-financial rewards, such as additional days off, one-on-one sessions to discuss their ideas with leadership, or even Friday afternoons off to focus on testing and learning as a team, are all interventions that the HR team can suggest and implement quickly to support entrepreneurs. 

Aligning leadership behaviors, financial and non-financial rewards, the learning agenda, HRIS investment, and the capability model towards skills and actions that encourage and sustain intrapreneurial behavior, and achieve the Guiding Star is a task no one besides HR can do. 

In the words of serial entrepreneur and innovation executive, Dupsy Abiola, the real magic happens where there's a beautiful alignment between what the company is trying to do, and what this individual is trying to do. They can benefit from each other's efforts and HR is the catalyst to empower and reward them to do just that. 

Cultivating intrapreneurs alone is difficult - that’s why we created Beyond

Of course, driving this change can be difficult when faced with corporate ‘antibodies’ to entrepreneurial behaviors. Even HR is not immune in some cases and this autoimmune response sometimes requires an outsider’s help to counter and overcome. At OneLeap, we developed the Beyond Personal Accelerator to do just that, and enable large companies to harness real value and growth opportunities through their own people. Beyond is a wraparound ecosystem and community that nurtures, inspires, and accelerates your high-performing entrepreneurial leaders and their teams - and helps HR leaders scale those lessons to more areas of the business. 

Learn more about Beyond by OneLeap. Download the brochure here.

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