Who wins from product innovation?
Starting with Henry Ford…
The 20th century industrialist Henry Ford was a product innovator and a workplace revolutionary. His employee practices would provide the world with a benchmark for employee benefits and gift us the nine-to-five, 40 hour, five day week that became the norm for much of the past century.
As History.com outlines: “in early 1914, against a backdrop of widespread unemployment and increasing labour unrest, Ford announced that it would pay its male factory workers a minimum wage of $5 per eight-hour day, upped from a previous rate of $2.34 for nine hours…”
In those days, $5 per day was nearly double what the average auto worker made. But Ford’s move boosted “productivity along the assembly line and built a sense of company loyalty and pride among Ford’s workers”. Ford noted the changes and extended the same employee benefits to his office staff just months later.
Learning from Steve Jobs…
We know for example, that the late Steve Jobs not only created a product of fine quality resisting calls from investors for him to take his technological advances and sell them as cheaply as possible for a mass market, but he was also the only CEO at the time who allegedly shot hoops with his engineers.
As David Schroeder notes in his article on recognising staff, while Jobs was infamously demanding, he knew how to recognise excellence and foster pride. “He hosted an annual retreat with the 100 team members that he’d choose if he had to “load a lifeboat” and start a new company. At his legendary product launches key team members from past and present were invited for premium seating.”
The point is that an amazing product and a near genius at the helm isn’t enough. Employees must feel in the right frame of mind to deliver results even for a business as unique as Apple. And, Steve Jobs knew that he had to have an eye both to product and workforce. We’re all agreed that one can’t happen without the other
Improving the quality of life…
When you are dealing with workplace communities numbering in the tens if not hundreds of thousands you need to offer them benefits that improve the quality of their lives and sew them to the coat lining of your organisation.
Those benefits are especially appreciated if they are innovative and thoughtful.
This article was supplied by Neyber.
