Dive Brief:
- Engaging employees in employer sustainability initiatives not tied directly to paychecks or profit margins, but rather to combating more daunting societal issues, can be a challenge.
- According to Greenbiz.com, a recent report from Ceres found that 40% of companies surveyed attempted to engage employees specifically on sustainability issues last year. Of those 613 companies, Ceres classified only 6% as Tier 1 companies, or the companies setting the pace on employee engagement.
- One bright spot in Ceres' findings is the number of companies looking to engage employees on sustainability issues increased from 30% in 2012 to 40% in 2014.
Dive Insight:
“Engaging employees in a corporate sustainability mission [CSR] is essential for success, but employees are often an under-utilized resource in a company’s development and implementation of sustainability programs and strategies,” the Ceres report explained.
Employees who engage in the company’s sustainability and CSR initiatives have statistically significant increases in their overall engagement rate, said Susan Hunt Stevens, founder of WeSpire, a technology company that focuses on employee engagement with sustainability. "If sustainability and corporate social responsibility initiatives are a way to improve engagement, it becomes an organizational initiative to improve the company,” she said.
Beyond keeping current employees engaged and happy, sustainability also can be a mechanism for recruiting, especially among today’s younger talent.
