2021 | Haggar Group
The idea of Haggar Innovation Fair came from the executive team who got enrolled and studied e-courses of Harvard Manage Mentor Programme, amongst which was one on Creativity and Innovation. Following the completion of the course, we thought about sharing the acquired knowledge on creativity and innovation with other members of Haggar Group, particularly when part of our learning was about how innovation is an acquired skill and not necessarily inborn.
What further encouraged sharing and implementing the idea was the fact that a vast number of employees and workers at Haggar Group were not part of the decision-making circle but do have brilliant ideas that could contribute to making the right decisions and in turn help in the growth of Haggar Group.
We were keen to give an opportunity for everyone in the Group to apply and compete. Whoever had an innovative idea that could advance the group’s activities, could apply, and compete with it for eventual adoption and implementation. Applications were broken down into preset categories including production & operations enhancement, new products or services, human capital improvement and so on.
The filtering and selection process is moderated through a selection committee that includes representatives from different business units and departments such as Finance, HR, Production, Marketing as well as a General Manager of one of the Group’s companies. Applicants of the shortlisted projects get informed and are then requested to prepare a presentation for the selection committee.
The presentation stage is always interesting as some presentations are done verbally (some in English and some in Arabic) while other participants bring a prototype of their project. With our initial year into the Innovation Fair this stage was a real revelation to the level of innovation amongst our employees as well as to their level of loyalty and commitment to the Group.
The Haggar Innovation Fair is considered to be a platform for great ideas to see the light of day and for all our Employed Persons (EPs) to share their innovative small and major concepts and contributions. To date we have awarded more than 40 employees from all of Haggar Group’s Business Units and staff of different levels and rankings.
