Most workers (63%) in a new Fast Company|SurveyMonkey poll say new ideas at their workplace are equally likely to come from senior and junior people. But, when thinking about their own experiences at work, 71% of the most senior workers—those with titles like president, owner, or C-suite executives—say they personally have “a great deal” of opportunities to contribute new or innovative ideas at work, compared with 43% of those at the senior manager to vice president level, 32% of those at the manager level, and just 22% of individual contributors.
Other key findings:
- 91% of workers say it’s important to work for an organization that values innovation, but far fewer—63%—say their current workplace encourages new or innovative ideas “a great deal” or “a good amount.”
- 60% of workers say their workplace does “a great deal” or “a good amount” to encourage its employees to take part in ongoing education.
- Younger workers are also the most likely to say that not only are they keeping up with technology and innovation at work, they’re actually ahead. Nearly four in 10 workers (39%) ages 18 to 24 say they’re “ahead of the curve,” while 57% say they’re “about average” and just four percent say they’re “falling behind.”
- If they faced a choice between taking a new job that pays 20% more or one that allows 20% of their time to be spent on “innovative side projects that benefit the company,” 68% of workers say they would choose the job with the higher salary and 30% would choose the job with more opportunity for innovation.
Read more about our polling methodology here.
Click through all the results in the interactive toplines below:
Question text:
In general, are you among the first people you know to buy or try a new product or service or are you more likely to wait?
Thinking about all the companies where you shop and whose products you buy, what trait do you value the most?
Thinking about your current job, to what extent does your workplace encourage new and innovative ideas?
Are new ideas at your workplace most likely to come from more senior people or more junior people, or are they equally likely to come from both?
To what extent do you have opportunities to personally contribute new or innovative ideas at work?
How important is it to you to work for an organization that values innovation?
How do you rate your own ability to keep up with technology and innovation at work? Are you…
How much does your workplace encourage ongoing education for its employees?
How much financial assistance does your workplace provide you, personally, for ongoing education?
Imagine that you have to choose between two jobs that are identical in every way except one would pay 20% more per year and the other would allow you to spend 20% of your time working on innovative side projects that benefit the company. Which would you choose?
*employees
