Presentation during 'Future of Work', congress of the Swiss society of sociology, 10 September 2019, Neuchatel Presenter: Peter Oeij

1. Social innovation, workplace innovation and
employment: sustainability and the future
of work
Workshop Session I: September 11
Social innovation in the Workplace and the Future of Work: Outcomes
for a social policy agenda in Europe and beyond.
Peter Oeij / TNO, Netherlands
University of Neuchâtel,
Avenue du Premier Mars
26, 2000 Neuchâtel,
Switzerland
This project has
received funding
from the European
Union’s Horizon
2020 research and
innovation
programme under
grant agreement
No 8222293.

2. Content of my talk
- 1.What is social innovation?
- 2.What is workplace innovation?
- 3.How are both related?
- 4.Some examples
- 5.Future avenues

3. 1. What is social innovation?

4. Social / societal issues, for example:
Socially innovative interventions
(‘practices’) by individuals,
communities, organisations, PPPs
‘Practices’ such as:
Processes, Services, Products,
Projects, Programmes,
Investments
For specific target groups
Social inclusion

5. Factors that play an important role for
successful social innovation (Oeij et al., 2019)
• (Initial) stakeholder commitment
• Financial / political support
• Overcoming setbacks Adoption and
• Creating consensus Upscaling
• Availability of staff
• Presence of leadership
• Infrastructure
Social innovation: drivers of social changeSee the project:

6. 2. What is workplace innovation?

7. WPI =
Attitude
Humanistic view
on labour,
management
and organisation
Employee
engagement
and employee
involvement
Not top
down but
bottom up
Workplace innovation = WPI
Decentralis-
ation not
centralisation
Social
dialogue
Modern manager

8. Managers understand they
need a integral / holistic
view on their organisation
Structure follows strategy,
And
Culture follows structure
structure
culture
strategy
Modern manager

9. 9
structure culture
strategy
Humanistic management
‘philosophy’:
Decentralise as much as
possible
Production system:
No unneeded division of
labour;
No unneeded bureaucracy;
No unneeded separation of
management tasks from
operations
Secure autonomy
in design of:
Departments; teams; jobs &
tasks
HR system:
Nurtures commitment
Type of leadership:
People centred
&
Bottom up
Organisational behaviour:
High employee involvement
& engagement
Outcome:
Good quality of working life
Good quality of organisational performance
More innovative capability
…structure follows strategy, culture follows structure…
Modern manager

10. Factors that play an important role for
successful workplace innovation (Howald & Oeij, 2016, pp.5-6)
• Companies can choose their own fitting practices / solutions
• The division labour is either clear or very limited
• Employees behave innovative: they have an active role
• Employees have job autononomy and a participative role
• Companies can decide about their organisational model
• The initiators are sometimes bottom-up or top-down; and
sometimes driven by people motives or market motives
• The proces of implementation is sometimes participatory and
supported by employees and sometimes it is not
“Workplace innovation in European companies”, 2015
High level of
WPI-
mindedness
See the project:

11. 3. How are social innovation and workplace innovation related?

12. Relation social and workplace innovation (1)
• Humanistic viewpoint
• SI: improve the situation of citizens and communities
• WPI: employee engagement & involvement
• Capability approach
• SI: basis is what people can do themselves
• WPI: optimize the human use of talents
• Design science
• SI: involve the target group by development and implementation of practices
• WPI: basis is a root cause analysis and structural redesign of the organisation

13. • 1] ‘social innovation of employment’
can facilitate entering the labour market
• 2] ‘workplace innovation’ supports to
develop one’s talents and mobility
within organisations
• 3] Both SI and WPI can help to foster
one’s sustainable employability on the
labour market in general.
Relation social and workplace innovation (2)
>>essentially: skill development by
experience, training / education and
offering the opportunity by employers

14. 4. Examples connecting SI and WPI

15. Examples Social Innovation Workplace Innovation Result
Social Impact GmbH (GE) Support start-up of social
enterprises by funding /
consultancy
Creates jobs for both SIG as for
the start-ups
Several 1000s start-up realised
ISMEK Learning Centre (TU) Educating women for labour
market
Creating entrance option to
labour market
235 learning centres, reaching
4.8 million persons
Mama Works (RU) Give mothers education to start
own business
a.o. creating clothing
manufacture run by these
mothers
3.500 applications processed;
2,400 hours of training delivered
Xiezhi Hotel (CH) Support university graduates to
find employment in ‘big city’
Connecting demand and supply
of the urban labour market
In 8 years 30,000 graduates and
hundreds of companies were
served
Novra Iskra (CR) Young designers network /
platform to carry out projects and
build experience
Skills development and job
matching
In 3 years 120 educational
trajectories and 9,000
beneficiaries and topics
Source: SOCIAL INNOVATION IN EMPLOYMENT: CASE STUDY RESULTS (Oeij et al., SI-DRIVE, 2017)

16. 5. Future avenues

17. Connecting social and workplace innovation
• Link societal goal (inclusiveness) to work possibilities
• Link public value to economic value
• Help companies to create job and training opportunities
• Set up a tax system that motivates employers to engage job seekers
• Enhance internal job mobility so that jobs come free at the bottom
• Develop eco-systems in which organisations can share and exchange
employees and where job seekers can get experience
• Always combine social elements with (technological / business model)
innovation
• Reward employers who have an eye for integrating social elements

18. …require
social
practices
.. that combine public,
social and economic
values as goals, with a
focus on…
Resulting in
innovations leading to
social inclusion and
meaningful economic
participation
Social
problems…
Summarising
enhancing
human
capabilities
…and creating
organisational
opportunities
for work and
training

19. References
-Dhondt, S. and P. Oeij. “Social innovation related to innovation in management studies”. In Theoretical approaches to social innovation
– A critical literature review (pp.122-150), edited by J. Howaldt, A. Butzin, D. Domanski and C. Kaletka. Dortmund: SI-Drive [EU Seventh
Framework Programme], September 2014.
-Howaldt, Jürgen and Oeij, Peter R.A. (Eds.) (2016). Workplace innovation – Social innovation: Shaping work organisation and working
life. Special issue of World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable, Issue, 12, Vol. 1, pp. 1-129.
-Oeij, P. (2016). Workplace Innovation as a Form of Social Innovation in the Workplace. Presentation at the European Centre for Social
Welfare Policy and Research, Vienna, 12 July 2016.
-Oeij, P., Dhondt, S., Pot, F., Totterdill, P. (2018). Workplace innovation as an important driver of social innovation. In: Howaldt, J.,
Kaletka, C., Schröder, A., Zirngiebl, M. (eds), Atlas of Social Innovation – New Practices for a Better Future (pp. 54-57). Dortmund:
Sozialforschungsstelle, TU Dortmund.
-Oeij, P., Dhondt, S., Torre, W. van der (2018). Linking practice fields of social innovations in the domain of employment. In: Howaldt, J.,
Kaletka, C., Schröder, A., Zirngiebl, M. (eds.), Atlas of Social Innovation – New Practices for a Better Future (pp. 173-175). Dortmund:
Sozialforschungsstelle, TU Dortmund.
-Oeij, P.R.A., Rus, D., Dhondt, S. & Van Hootegem, G. (Eds) (2019). Workplace innovation in the era of disruptive technologies. Special
Issue of International Journal of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation.16(3), 199-309. DOI: 10.1504/IJTTC.2019.10021355
-Oeij, P. R.A., Rus, D. and Pot F.D. (eds) (2017). Workplace Innovation: Theory, Research and Practice, Series 'Aligning Perspectives on
Health, Safety and Well-Being’. Springer: Cham (Switzerland); DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-56333-6; ISBN 978-3-319-56332-9.
-Oeij, P.R.A., Van der Torre, W., Vaas, S., & Dhondt, S. (2019). Understanding Social Innovation as an innovation process: Applying the
Innovation Journey model. Journal of Business Research, 101(8), 243-254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.04.028
-Pot, F., Dhondt, S. & Oeij, P. (2012), Social innovation of work and employment. In: Franz, H-W. and Hochgerner, J. (Eds.), Challenge
Social Innovation (pp. 261-274). Berlin: Springer.
-Pot, F., Dhondt, S., Oeij, P., Rus, D., & Totterdill, P. (2019). Complementing digitalisation with workplace innovation. In: Atlas of Social
Innovation II, 2019.
[Available on request: peter.oeij@tno.nl]

20. Thank you for your attention!
• Peter Oeij [peter.oeij@tno.nl] www.beyond4-0.org