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Giving employees more voice and acting on their feedback has a huge impact on innovation, according to leaders from the Best Places to Work list.

At Avenue Dental, innovation starts with a workplace culture of upward communication, says CEO of finance Eli James.

"We found very early on that we could have the very best plans and the most amazing strategy, but if no-one was sticking to it and no-one wanted to be a part of it, it wouldn't go anywhere."

The dental practice had about four years of "butting our heads up against the wall before we really tried to listen as hard as we can", he told a recent WrkPlus event.

The organisation has now broken down its five-year goals into smaller one-year and 90-day "acorn" goals, and it's the latter that "drives performance at the team level"...