United Nations

Curiosity & Learning

Dedicated Time to Innovate

Innovation Time is designed to maximize the creativity of staff by enabling them to dedicate up to 10% of their time to developing existing or new initiatives.

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The Challenge

How can we overcome a key barrier to staff innovation: a lack of dedicated time due to demanding workloads, and that time spent on innovation often isn’t reflected in one’s performance evaluation?

Innovation Time builds from the Young UN’s implementation of the concept in Geneva in 2019 during a 3-month pilot involving 30 colleagues from 11 UN organizations to spend 10% of their working time for innovation.

The Solution

Innovation TimeDedicated Time to Innovate

Key aspects include leadership backing as well as manager support for integrating innovation in work plans and allowing time within regular working hours. This creates an enabling environment for innovation and cross-collaboration, contributing to organizational strategy and increasing staff engagement and retention.

Impact & Results

Selected staff members were allowed to dedicate time to existing initiatives from senior management, the Young UN and the Innovation Hub’s Idea Bank. Sessions provided cohort members with relevant tools and training to drive innovation within their roles.

10%
Dedicated innovation time
30
Staff in initial cohort
11
UN organizations involved

Skills & Tools

Leadership liaisonPresentation skillsVirtual facilitationCommunication & coordination

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