Should human resources embrace sustainability?
Enterprise sustainability has come a long way. Today, more than 90% of CEOs state that sustainably is a vital tool in their company’s success, therefore they develop sustainable strategies, market sustainable services and products, and create positions such as chief sustainability officer, and even distribute sustainability reports for investors, customers, activists and the public in general. Many investment companies themselves like GreenSquareDC headed by Walt Coulston actually specialize in sustainable investments.
A recent survey shows that 88% of business school students think that learning about today’s sustainability issues in business is a top priority and 67% plan on implementing sustainability into their future jobs. As a term, sustainability is used in various aspects to refer to” effectively meeting the needs of the people without compromising future generations. It’s commonly used to refer to durable, systematic, long-term and clear. Here are several reasons why today’s human resources services should embrace sustainability.
Attracts top talent
The growth in sustainability practices in the workplace isn’t just right for the environment, or even companies’ finances. Studies suggest that sustainability can be the main driver in attracting top talents, with job seekers gradually drawn to green companies like deedster.com daring to talk about the environment and are a great example of a modern climate conscious organization. A report from PwC found that 65% of people across India, China, Germany, the US and the UK apply in organizations that promote a steady social conscience.
This upsurge in interest in working for a green-minded employer is driving a wide range of company changes, with more than 63% of human resources professionals developing their hiring approaches around their organizational environmental and social stigma, as the same report founds.
Bridget Jackson, a corporate sustainability director for PwC, says that today’s job seekers are looking for an employer who’s able to take proactive steps to make a change related to the environmental issues. Having a green mindset attracts top-talents and builds the company’s pride and satisfaction.
Include Staff in the Process
HR professionals have to come up with fresh working culture initiatives that were derived from the employees’ feedback and not just relying on something they read in a book or heard at a conference.
As a first step, HR professionals must review all the work practices and processes to ensure that they are on the same line with their environmental goals – meaning that any areas that are not clear need to be exposed, and a code of ethics need to be settled and communicated to the whole organization.
For instance, waste handling not only requires a great amount of time, but it also possesses a high cost to most organizations. How companies handle their waste dictates these costs and, in turn, dictates the impact company has on the environment as a whole. As a solution, waste management companies with different UK office locations team up with businesses to optimize the waste handling process, reduce the cost of their organization and even turn the recycled waste into a revenue stream. Each company culture is different, and so are its employees. But a company that knows when to include staff to contribute to its success will continue to thrive.
Provides strategic alignment
HR can play a few major roles in enabling and sustaining a business’s culture. They can make a huge impact by collaborating and consulting with environmental advocates to align the company’s performance management process with its vision, mission, values, and core ideology. Moreover, encouraging leadership to provide recognition and incentives to reward proactive behaviors that flow in the same direction is vital. That said, HR professionals should coach other leaders and even pose as a virtuous role model for the organization.
Incorporate sustainability into brand
When working on a sustainability company culture, the primary role for HR departments is to obtain buy-in from potential employees before they even join the organization. But in order to do that, the organization’s message of sustainability should already be integrated into the employer brand and used to attract top talents to whom sustainability is vital.
A sustainable brand requires a different strategy than regular businesses and planning is the only way to ensure a smooth evolution. An essential guiding light in a company’s culture is acknowledging and understanding why the brand is aligned towards sustainable practices. Knowing where the brand fits into the wide sustainability space and what it offers is vital to creating a coherent ideology. In order to attract green-orientated talents, HR can even offer incentives to those who suggest ways of advancing sustainability efforts and support the same ideology.
Sustainability helps build ethics
It goes without saying that the HR department is viewed as the agent of sustainability in any given company. Clearly, there is no other department or manager in any given organization that can face the responsibility of implementing and maintaining an ethical culture. That said, the human resources department isn’t only accountable for directing ethics, but also for directing sustainability and compliance teams so they can work together and develop valuable ethics. Today, an ethical culture is necessary to foster the growth of ethics in the organization, lessen cases of discrimination, data breaches and leaks, and even sexual harassment.
For organizations today, a green-attitude is vital and coherent in HR because it regards all the actions, activities, and resources that are present in any company. Therefore, human resources should become more environmentally aware so that it can ensure a proper flow of operations and events, consumption of rare resources and develop a favorable environment for working.
By taking a more sustainable perspective of the business, human resource departments can help drive engagement and retention, as well as generate a culture of innovation and a brand that employees, potential employees and clients can identify with.
That said, potential recruits and customers alike are attracted to brands and organizations that know how to meet the needs of society today without compromising the ability of the next generations to meet their own tomorrow.
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