HRVoice.org | November 7, 2011 |
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By Tracy Lydiatt
Does caring about sustainability help you retain valued employees? The simple answer is yes; green matters to business.
The
Harvard Business Review followed 30 large corporations
over several years and found a positive correlation between an
employee’s positions on their company’s sustainability initiatives and
their work place happiness.
Employees who work for companies that align with their values perform
better and the payoff for attracting and retaining the type of talent
capable of innovating in a challenging market goes right to the bottom
line. Positively affecting the organizational bottom line through talent
acquisition and retention is a priority for any human resources
professional.
Regardless
of size, of the biggest investments companies make is in their
employees. Often getting them in the door is the easy part; convincing
them to stay can require consideration and effort. It also makes a
convincing case for developing sustainability as a core culture.
In their February 2010 article,
The Business Case for Sustainability,
authors Hollander, Orgain and Nunez state that 75 per cent of entrants
into today’s workforce evaluate a firm’s environmental and social
responsibility records prior to choosing and employer of preference.
Globe Scan (2006) reported that 83 per cent of employees in G7 countries
say company’s positive corporate social responsibility (CSR) reputation
increases loyalty.
The Vargas Group in 2007 published finding that showed only 24 per
cent of employees report feeling “truly loyal” to their employers with
plans to stay at least two years. Inversely, the report showed that 76
per cent of employees are job hunting to varying degrees, ranging from
casually surfing the Internet to actively interviewing for new jobs.
What is important to these employees? How long do they typically stay
and are there things that are important enough to sway their decision
to leave? Important questions to ponder considering that the cost of
replacing a valued employee is often 2-3 times the value of that person
and comes as a burdened cost to the company.
In her book,
One Foot Out the Door, Judith Bardwick summarizes employee priorities at work to be:
- to keep learning;
- achieve reasonable security;
- be successful;
- to have their work and family flourish and;
- for their lives as well as work to have meaning.
This list of priorities provides a strong indication that no longer
are employees happy to go to work, be committed, productive and have no
sense of meaning attached to their individual contributions. Seventy per
cent of employees with a favourable perception of their company’s
community engagement, plan to stay for the next two years vs. 50 per
cent of those with a less favorable perception. This provides an
opportunity for businesses and HR professionals to connect with
employees, learn what is of importance to them and support the
fulfillment of these values.
So what do you do if your company does not have a strong corporate social responsibility program?
The first and important step is to approach the management of the
business to share your thoughts and present the business case for
emphasizing activities and programs such as:
- green office team
- company supported volunteerism
- lunch and learns with sustainability experts
- ride share board or forum
- bicycling incentives etc…
Buy-in from management is an essential and key step for implementing
any initiatives with staying power. If you are fortunate, your
management may already be thinking about corporate social responsibility
and have any number of the programs suggested above in place. In this
case, it is important to involve employees and effectively disseminate
information about company efforts, especially the stories which
communicate wins and progress forward.
If you are in the position of starting from scratch or face a
challenging future with convincing management of the value and impact
sustainability initiatives can have on the bottom line, you are not
alone nor without resources. Thankfully there are some amazing tools
available to support you in preparing and presenting the business case
for sustainability.
A recommended resource for calculating the business case are two sets of
spreadsheets
created by Canadian Dr. Bob Willard, designed to be used for small and
medium enterprises (SMEs) and large corporations. They allow you to use
real company numbers and put tangible numbers to aspects such as
employee productivity and loyalty that are traditionally harder to
quantify.
Strategic Sustainability Consulting
offers some fantastic resources for both SMEs and large corporations
including eight free white papers on varying employee engagement issues
related to office and corporate sustainability.
Tracy Lydiatt is an award-winning sustainability advisor and
author known as The Green Families Guru. She is an international expert
and three-time TEDx speaker on sustainability. Her book, Your Green Family Blueprint,
is
a must have resource for anyone interested in easy strategies to
integrate eco-friendly into their lives without going broke or crazy.
Her mission is to empower people to become more sustainable and delivers
her work through corporate and private training, both in person and
through her online 7-Day Going Green Challenge. www.thegreenfamiliesguru.com
This online program is specifically designed to walk you and your family one step at a time towards your sustainable living goals without going broke or crazy in the process. Going green is more than changing light bulbs and using reusable grocery bags – this succinct program brings everything together conveniently into one place for easy-breezy learning and empowerment.
