> Treat them as R&D employees. Start paying them for doing random crap on company time and resources, no strings attached. Then you'll have innovation. I think

> Treat them as R&D employees. Start paying them for doing random crap on company time and resources, no strings attached. Then you'll have innovation. I think this is really important and it's often overlooked by a lot of companies. It's also one major component of what keeps me being a freelance worker. Most of my decent ideas come while I'm walking around, maybe 3 miles away from my workstation and I also learn a ton of job related things while not directly working "on the job" with random self guided R&D and other activities that I like doing around tech (writing blog posts, podcast host, etc.). But most companies don't see it that way. IMO it's unreasonable to expect a salary worker to put in 9 hour days (no paid lunch), be on-call 365/24/7 for emergencies (also not compensated for) and then be expected to do continuous learning and other "this is work related but not directly related to work" activities after hours without compensation. This is exactly how you end up with burnt out employees even if the person enjoys tech. The critical component is the no strings attached. R&D needs to be no strings attached otherwise it feels forced or you're fighting the system by having to cram it in after hours since you can't do it on company time but then you're also left feeling like you're being taken advantage of because it's not compensated for.