Companies are attempting to motivate employees to do the “right,” or sustainable, thing when at work by increasing environmental and sustainability education and awareness and it is paying off with increased profits. Complementing education with incentives to engage a diverse workforce with varying levels of engagement and social consciousness motivates employees to take action.
We should engage employees because they are a key stakeholder group. They have the primary impact on the performance of the company in any particular corporate responsibility pillar and they have an impact through their actions outside of the workplace. We will look at employee engagement by harnessing and building momentum, and integrating sustainability with the business.
We should engage employees because they are a key stakeholder group. They have the primary impact on the performance of the company in any particular corporate responsibility pillar and they have an impact through their actions outside of the workplace. We will look at engaging at the leadership level and integrating sustainability with the business.
Want a great example of how to engage your employees in the company’s sustainability efforts? Here you go (including 5 reasons why its such a great example).
Sustainability does not engage employees unless it first and foremost solves problems they experience in their lives. You make sustainability personal and create the best conditions and incentives for employee engagement by making it voluntary, localizing it, listening, demonstrating the effect of the action, making it cross-functional, solicit and respond to employee ideas, give employees as a way to take immediate action, give rewards for successes, make it regular, and build culture around sustainability goals.
In a recent interview, Annie Lesroart of eBay, shared with us how eBay implemented a fast, ambitious and effective strategy to go green. From forty employees, the program expanded to hundreds of thousands of eBay buyers and sellers (including people who don’t even work at eBay!) How did this happen? And how can it happen for you?
A look at the seven best practices in corporate social responsibility (CSR). They include: setting measurable goals, stakeholder engagement,sustainability issues mapping, sustainability management systems (SMS), lifecycle assessment,sustainability/CSR reporting, and sustainability branding.
There are a tremendous number of business benefits of environmental and sustainability education for employees, including: improved operational efficiency, strengthened customer and community relations, innovation, supply chain management, and increased employee recruitment and retention.
Educating employees about energy efficiency,conservation, recycling, waste reduction and other similar measures benefit not only the companies that institute them, but also the organization’s employees, but also the communities in which they operate.
