How to engage employees in sustainability in association with EARTHWATCH

We have over 20 years experience of facilitating behavioural and organisational change within companies by working collaboratively with staff at all levels to build knowledge and agency around environmental challenges. Through working with key sustainability staff and the wider employee community, Earthwatch helps companies to identify and facilitate changes in policy and practice that lead to increased environmental responsibility, and which provide professional development opportunities for their staff.

Here are some top tips from Earthwatch for designing a successful employee engagement programme:
• Ensure that your sustainability strategy is easy to read and absorb. This will make it easier for your teams to feel personally committed. Provide relevant, accessible and meaningful ways for employees to get actively involved in both the design and implementation of the strategy. This creates a sense of ownership – a sense of empowerment to instigate change within the workforce – and is important for employees to understand the relevance of the program to them and the business

• It is crucial to help employees at all levels to recognise for themselves the part they play and what action they can take to contribute. This enables practical integration of sustainability values and practices and creates a network of employees who encourage and support each other

• It is vital to have ‘champions’ who help promote schemes internally and motivate other staff. Identifying and selecting appropriate champions as sustainability ambassadors in particular locations can be a good way to build effective employee networks

• Outlining a specific focus of employee engagement is key. For example, focusing on climate change rather than several environmental issues, and connecting the issue back to the business by encouraging employees to ask “how will climate change affect our business?”

• Engagement with staff at all levels is crucial. If it is only at board level, there is a risk of losing staff input and backing. If only junior staff are involved, sustainability procedures are unlikely to be embedded into the company’s strategy and overall decision processes

• We have found that there is more enthusiasm and commitment to sustainability initiatives by employees if there is genuine senior management endorsement of the programme and if employees are encouraged to get involved and are rewarded for taking part. Demonstrating the business case for sustainability initiatives, such as via cost efficiencies, increased brand value and market differentiators, is valuable for teams to understand the relevance

• It is equally important to influence middle managers as they tend to be responsible for driving the business on a day to day level, are under pressure to reach their targets and may see sustainability as a distraction or a “nice to have”. Demonstrating benefits in terms of savings or revenue generating opportunities can be a great tool when getting the buy-in of middle managers

• To encourage investment in sustainability training, create a business case with strong and relevant case studies

• Sustainability goals should be included in the Key Performance Indicators KPI for middle managers – they need to know that they are being measured on this and that rewards, promotions, and compensation are dependent on achieving their KPIs, including their sustainability KPIs

• The majority of employees are usually keen to be involved but the main barriers are lack of awareness of engagement programmes, and a lack of vocal senior support for initiatives which encourages staff to feel like they can and should get involved. Word of mouth reports such as tools like blogging (on company intranets rather than external websites) have a huge effect on the perceived accessibility, attraction and professional relevance of sustainability employee engagement activities

• Offer the opportunity to get out of the office and experience and explore sustainability issues in a different environment. This often involves team-building with colleagues from across the business, who may not usually interact with one another and also helps to make real-life connections to sustainability issues.

To summarise:
Set a framework – this should guide where you are going
Consult – employees need to buy-in
Make it relevant – so that every employee can make links to their work
Be innovative – find inspiring ways to engage to stimulate action
Support & commit – employees must feel ongoing support and commitment from all levels

To learn more about Earthwatch’s work with companies, visit our website.