The foremost goal/objective of any company is success in the market place. The company has to have the maximum sales compared to its competitors. Having a strategy focused on competitors might ensure the company success in the short-term but long-term success depends on an innovative workforce. Innovation drives the company's flexibility and ability to offer products that are more competitive in terms of quality, image or price in this fast changing market. An innovative workforce is created through developing and enhancing a creative corporate culture. "Culture is the physical investment in human capital, and how human resources interact, whereas, creativity is an intellectual investment in the development of that capital." Most companies lack conscious organization of the ideation process in the initial development stage. Later on, creative efforts in the company are suppressed due to the fear of change and the pressure of coping with change.

In order to overcome these shortcomings and shift from being a competitor to an innovator, a company should not only exploit but also create opportunities. Companies should encourage a proper process of collecting and implementing lucrative ideas. To facilitate that objective, they should instigate a number of performance-enhancing services. Four practices that encourage innovation in the workforce are: Real life examples of decision-making (ex. whether to send one's son to public school or private school) can be related to decisions made in the office to help employees comprehend business issues more. Divide employees into teams and engage them in creative problem solving where they pool in their knowledge resources. Train employees to simplify and interpret numbers and financial statements so as to give them a line of sight. Play mini games with visual scorecard to increase the competitiveness and professionalism of the employees.

Creating and holding onto an innovative corporate culture that thrives in this global fast changing world should be a prime concern for most companies, especially in Bangladesh, where the foremost problem is damaging work culture, where they tend more to lose the better of the employees. Hence they urgently need to take corrective actions rather than just do mere lip service.

ERGONOMICS

More than often employees are solely blamed for poor productivity in this country. Ergonomics is an area most managers are not even aware of resulting in poor decision making and high employee turnover, most importantly, losing the more critical and efficient employees to their competitors. This gives an upper-hand to their foreign competitors operating in this country, where they grab productive employees along with company secrets. Hence this is an area managers should give considerable attention to.

Ergonomics is the science of designing the workplace environment to fit the capabilities of the employees. When the demands of the work environment exceed the capabilities of the workforce, a number of adverse events can occur, including: increased risk of back or upper extremity injuries/illness, decreased employee comfort, decreased employee productivity, increased employee turnover, increased employee absenteeism, and increased employee errors. Ergonomics is not merely about the purchase of new desks, chairs or computers; it is more than that. It is the science of making people comfortable. You accomplish this by looking at both the physical and psychological environment where your employees work. Ergonomics is achieved only when the employee is able to adapt to his/her environment.

To build an ergonomically designed workstation, the best action plan is one developed by an in-house ergonomics team composed of both employees and management. Many of the problems seen in offices (back pain, stiff muscles, tight joints, poor circulation, repetitive strain injuries, tension, stress, etc.) can be minimized with an ergonomics program. With training, your employees can adapt to the work environment and office equipment. Before you make the decisions to buy more furniture or to replace your existing workstations, remember to purchase furniture that is designed in such a manner as to reduce workplace hazards and let your employees adjust to the environment before they start on the road for the day.

(Work Cited:http://www.nceo.org/library/obm_bado.html http://www.thinksmart.com/2/articles/ competitionculture.html Nahavandi, Malekzadi, "Organizational Behaviour, Person-Organization fit", 2nd edition. Robbins, Stephen, "Organizational Behaviour", 8th, http://www.nceo.org/library/obm_bado.html)Sonia Shahid from ET Business DeskA