This award recognizes workplace practices that uniquely facilitate and promote employee innovation and creativity.

Winner: Intuit Real Estate Solutions

Intuit recognized that the current economic climate did not allow for business as usual and that it needed new ways to overcome challenges and grow in spite of the economy - to fight for its market share, strengthen its business for the future, and drive changes that measurably impacted business results and client experience. The organization decided to think differently, allowing employees to use their talents and drive ideas to fruition.

The organization developed a program called Intrapreneurship - taking personal initiative to create positive change, thinking like a client, acting like an Intuit owner, and creating, promoting, and sustaining a culture of innovation. The program involves "grass roots" idea generation. It encourages employees to generate out-of-the-box ideas, both big and small, for improving productivity and the customer experience.

In addition, Intuit instituted "Idea Jams" where employees have "unstructured" time to work on projects they are passionate about, solve new customer problems, learn new skills, or innovate to improve the work environment. The rules are simple - form a team or go solo, come up with an idea, and either prepare ahead of time (to present it in a deck or quick speech, or develop code for a quick demo). At the end of the Idea Jam, a panel of judges hears brief report-outs from each of the teams and determines which innovative ideas are the winners. Employees have even created a Brainstorm blog to recognize ideas as well as highlight the full list of ideas presented at the Jams, as another way to reinforce innovation and creativity.

Intuit also uses Usability Labs which provide an opportunity for their customers to use its product under its watchful eye. The process provides a critical view of the client’s true experience. The results of these events help drive future product features and functionality.

Innovation and creativity are fostered through a continuous learning and development culture at Intuit. All employees at the organization are empowered to develop themselves using a variety of tools provided by the organization including mentoring relationships, career coaching, and an online network equipped with a multitude of learning opportunities. Employees are able to post a facebook type profile outlining their backgrounds, unique talents, strengths and development objectives. Their data is used to assess and invest in learning and development as a business unit.

When asked what their organization’s greatest strength is, top performers at Intuit Real Estate Solutions testify to their organization's emphasis on innovation, employee involvement, and development:

“Intuit is an innovative company and empowers its employees to be the best they can be. Intuit values its employees and makes them its top priority, understanding that happy, engaged employees lead to happy customers, which leads to revenue growth and, ultimately, happy shareholders. This is one of our foundational operating values.”

“The greatest strength is our commitment to our customers. Everyone is always driving towards the same goal which is to create the best products and services for our customers."

"Willingness to change. Ability to innovate.”

“Our greatest strength is the importance our company puts on valuing the employee, their interests, their feedback and their commitment to delivering world class products and services.”

“I believe the greatest strength working at Intuit is its people. I have never worked in such a positive and supportive work environment in my whole career. My direct manager and the managers that I interact with in order to complete my work are outstanding. They take their job seriously but are still very approachable. They have no hesitation in including me in meetings that involve any aspect of my job function and often come to me for my opinion. I feel very lucky to work here and I also feel very appreciated.”