Employees in the UAE believe that companies are becoming more innovative, but many firms are failing to unlock the innovation potential of the entire workforce, a report said.

Some 94 per cent of people working in the UAE believe that the country is more innovative than it was five years ago, and a similar number believe that innovation at companies contributes to national competitiveness, reported state-run Wam, citing the study commissioned by Emirates Global Aluminium, a major industrial company in the United Arab Emirates.

Nearly 3 in 4 managers and 2 in 3 junior staff describe the companies they work for as innovative. But 60 per cent of managers believe that innovation is a responsibility only of senior executives. Half of junior staff agree, said the survey conducted by the global polling company YouGov.

This is despite around half the UAE workforce, according to the survey, believing that innovation is ‘finding better ways to do anything’, and not just revolutionary inventions.

Abdulla Kalban, managing director and chief executive officer at EGA, said: "Systematically engaging everyone in our workforce in continuous improvement has been a foundation of EGA’s global competitiveness for almost four decades. Without hundreds of thousands of suggestions from our employees, we could not have built EGA into one of the world’s biggest ‘premium aluminium’ producers and a national industrial champion.”

"‘UAE Vision 2021’ calls for the creation of a knowledge-based, highly-productive and competitive economy, harnessing the full potential of our National human capital. We call on all UAE companies to unlock the innovation potential of all their employees. That way, millions of minds will drive the UAE’s global competitiveness and the creation of a knowledge-based economy,” he added.