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Katerina Rudiger, skills adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, explores how to create a 'culture of workplace innovation'.

Increased globalisation followed by international competitive pressures requires companies to rethink their business and product market strategies. There are conflicting views on how to tackle this: some advocate a global approach and others argue that companies should capitalise on a regional approach and focus on country differences.

Whatever strategy a company follows, it is clear that creating a culture of workplace innovation needs to be at the heart of this. But cultural changes are notoriously difficult – they involve changing the way people think, apply themselves and interact with each other on a daily basis – so what can help drive and support this workplace transformation?

Research shows that progressive working practices, such as High Performance Working (HPW) can offer greater autonomy and help to improve the way employees apply themselves and their skills.

These working practices go beyond HR practices, they are an approach to how workplaces are run and managed, covering anything from recruitment to job design. The idea is to offer an alternative to traditional management systems that were previously based on hierarchy, where managers exercised centralised control over workers who were given little discretion and treated as passive inputs to the production process.

By contrast to this system of ‘controlling’ workers, HPW systems focus on empowering them, which has positive effects on employee engagement and organisational performance.

The idea is that the HPW can deliver mutual gains for both employers and employees, however, at the moment not many UK employers have implemented these kinds of working practices. Why is that the case?

To implement progressive working practices and to make them work on a daily basis throughout the organisation you need enlightened leadership at the top that understands how this needs to be aligned to the business strategy.

Then you need good line management that makes sure these practices are understood, practiced and applied every day, at every level of the organisation, involving every employee. This is where the problem lies, as many UK workplaces have continuing gaps in management and leadership skills that they are not even aware of.

Policy makers have looked at this issue, but have to date failed to indentify a way to support employers in this area. There has been a reluctance to intervene in the workplace, so the focus has been on regulation and access to finance. Last week's leaked report looking at possibilities to make it easier for employers to sack "underperforming" workers has not helped the debate, as it avoids addressing the real question: why UK workplaces are still struggling with productivity and innovation issues?

The reason is not stringent employment legislation – indeed the UK has one of the most deregulated labour markets across OECD countries – but poor management and leadership skills that stifle innovation and productivity in the workplace.