Press Release: Rapid Innovation Tournament Pairs Kansas City Employers with Business Psychologists for Workplace Problem Solving
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Kelly Reed
Telephone: (816) 945-9904
Rapid Innovation Tournament Pairs Kansas City Employers with Business Psychologists for Workplace Problem Solving
CMA launches crowd-sourced hackathon model for HR solutions
KANSAS CITY, Mo. [January 16, 2018] — A diverse mix of Kansas City area employers of choice are engaging in a collaborative effort to improve the world of work. Convened by CMA, business psychologists dedicated to helping clients build and maintain a talented, effective and engaged workforce, participants of varying sectors and sizes are uniting for Communivate™.
An innovative community-based action lab from CMA, Communivate™ identifies challenges and rapidly develops affordable, innovative solutions. It uses crowd-sourced problem solving for shared complex workplace issues so participating companies can get better, faster than they ever could on their own. Each business’s distinct qualities are sourced to bring out the best, unique ideas that are practical and implementable in today’s competitive marketplace.
“At CMA, we believe the era of do-it-yourself, go-it-alone workforce solutions is over,” said Kelly Reed, Ph.D., vice president and Kansas City market leader for CMA. “We joined forces with business leaders who are focused on people, performance and progress to launch a community-powered approach to tackling shared workforce challenges. Our goal is helping participants make the most of resources, including the most important resources — their talent and culture.”
From January 8 through January 12, CMA leveraged its proven expertise to work with leaders and teams from 12 KC-area companies during a rapid innovation tournament — identifying challenges around diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace. The topic was chosen by participants as the first priority to address in Communivate™, generating strong solutions that are immediately implementable and structured for accountability and measurable impact.
During the week-long tournament, 108 innovative concepts, developed by CMA’s consulting team, were shaped and voted on by participants and paired down to five finalists with a focus on things such as systematic initiatives, diverse talent mentoring and advancement programs, and online solution exchanges.
The first tournament-winning concept is “Turn up the Heat!” The DEI index and acceleration system will focus on teams and leaders, but can also generate a “heat map” when used at a broader organizational level. The concept aligns with participant beliefs that organizations must foster diversity, equity and inclusion by helping teams and their leaders understand the gap between where they want to be and where they are today, and gain a blueprint and system of support to help them close that gap. The solution can work for any type of in-tact team, but is most effective when adopted organization-wide, starting with teams at the top. CMA plans to debut a prototype version of the solution to participants in February.
“The opportunity to collaborate with Kansas City businesses of diverse sizes and types has been insightful,” said Nancy Whitworth, vice president of strategic services with McCownGordon Construction and founding Communivate™ participant. “The ability to come away with a creative and implementable workplace solution, that helps us meet the goals of engaging our associates, is invaluable.”
Beyond the current Communivate™ tournament, another round is scheduled for July 2018 tackling one or more new workforce challenges, providing a minimum of two solution-based and implementable ideas from CMA in the span of a year.
“At the end of the day, Communivate™ is about building a massively better world of work. Together.” said Reed.
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About Communivate
Communivate™ is an innovative community-based action lab that identifies challenges and rapidly develops affordable, innovative solutions. Communivate™ brings together companies for community-powered problem solving so each can get better, faster than they ever could on their own. At the end of the day, Communivate™ is about building a massively better world of work. Learn more at www.communivateworks.com.
About CMA
Communivate™ is powered by CMA, a passionate, energetic team of expert business psychologists dedicated to helping clients build and maintain the most talented, effective and engaged workforce possible. Since 1975, CMA has helped clients triumph over internal business roadblocks by evaluating and refining the way their people work, interact, learn and grow within their organization. Learn more at www.cmaconsult.com.
