A couple of years ago, PC (pre-Covid), I worked with one of my all time favourite clients to help facilitate one of their twice yearly hack days.
Whilst ‘hack days’ are often put into the ‘things that happen in tech company’s’ box, actually hack days can be utilised by any organisation that wants to build on teamwork, practise cross-functional collaboration and has a continuous improvement mindset.
All important elements of great culture!
At its heart, a hack day is a one (or more) day event that an organisation sets aside to work on whatever the organisation deems appropriate, away from the normal bump and grind of daily working life.
My personal hack day experience with a client
A week before the Hack day and half was due to kick off, staff who had ideas they wanted to explore were given the opportunity to pitch those ideas to the whole organisation.
There were different categories for ideas including marketing, sales, customer service, product development and giving back.
After the pitches were completed, employees could then sign up to become part of a team for whichever topic most appealed to them.
Participation was not compulsory – if you wanted to keep working in your normal job, you could. Joining in a team however was actively encouraged, and 95% of the business was shut for the 1.5 days set aside for the event.
During the first day, the team that I was facilitating brainstormed ideas. Our topic was loosely how the organisation could improve its current CSR offerings.
I researched what other organisations were doing in this space, as well as gathering alarming stats about issues prevalent in our communities such as homelessness, domestic violence, mental health and the environment.
During that first day, the ideas that were thrown around the room ranged from whacky and off beat to simply brilliant. Sometimes they began as the first and morphed into the second.
We had a lot of fun, we challenged our personal beliefs, and everyone in the room got to know each other. Some of the staff were from interstate offices, so it really was a fantastic way to build engagement.
The second day was all about turning our thoughts into a cohesive strategy, and then designing all the tools we needed to showcase our fabulous ideas.
Our team explored:
Over the preceding 12 month period, employees had only utilised 25 of a possible 410 volunteer days
That whilst $30,000 had been raised by employees for charities, there was no easy way to track where the $ had gone, and no cohesive strategy for supporting charities
The current CSR efforts were not in line with the Company values – so how could they be? What would that look like?
What social, business and employee impact would a dedicated CSR strategy have?
What could we call this new CSR strategy, that would immediately grab employees attention?
What where the must haves and features of the new program?
Just before lunch on the second day, all the teams set up a stand in the common area which had been designated as the exhibition area. As people nibbled on the delicious buffet lunch the organisation supplied, they wandered around the exhibit, and voted for the people’s choice award.
A formal judging panel also decided winners in each category.
Our team was the proud winner of the ‘giving back’ category.
What did this experience highlight for me?
The power of encouraging innovation in organisations.
What does innovation look like in a organisational context?
Innovation is a product, service, business model, or strategy that’s both novel and useful. Innovations don’t have to be major breakthroughs in technology or new business models; they can be as simple as upgrades to a company’s customer service or features added to an existing product. [ Online HBS education]
Leading organisations like Google are well-known champions of the power of encouraging creativity and innovation in their employees. Google implemented a 20% rule that allowed employees to spend 20% of their working hours on creative projects.
Gmail and Google maps originated from this 20% rule.
Meanwhile Atlassian holds what they call ShipIt days, which are ‘24 hours to innovate. It’s like 20% time. On steroids‘.
Want to know what a ShipIt day looks like?Check this video out, which also shares more about the value of days such as this (and innovation in general).
For a closer to home lock at the value of holding hackathons, take a look at this article by my mate Melitta Hardenberg, Seek’s Aus & NZ Head of Learning & Development (and a certified Gallup Strengths champion. As well as overall legend ):
Hacking HR -why learning functions should embrace a hackathon mindset.
THE IMPORTANCE OF INNOVATION
If the last two and a half years have taught us anything, it just might be the importance of embracing new ideas in order for organisations to survive and thrive.
Remember how pivot was one of the words for 2020?
Pivoting can only happen when businesses embrace innovation and are able to adapt to change and disruption.
Innovation also goes hand in hand with growth – it will inevitably be one of the points of difference between successful businesses and their competitors.
And when it comes to culture, being known as an innovative organisation is attractive to potential new talent, and is also a proven retention tool for staff who enjoy the opportunity to flex their creativity and problem solving skills.
How to encourage innovation in your business.
Those awesome people over at Alassian have prepared a tool kit, based on not only their experience, but that of some of their customers like ANZ bank and Hubspot. You can check it out here.
Or you can feast your eyes on our latest infographic on just this topic:
Before you leave this blog, may I offer you one final piece of advice? Understand that innovation is not just the job of people making up the hack day teams. Or the CTO.
As Atlassian say:
First and foremost, it’s a belief that innovation is everyone’s job – from the CEO to the intern who started last week…because innovative ideas can come from anywhere, you have to be listening everywhere.
Which means you need to make sure there are endless channels open for you to listen to your employees.
Keen to know more about how to listen to your employees? Well good news for you then, because in three week’s time, our theme for the week will be ‘L is for Listening’.
How’s that for a novel and useful service?!