Engaging Employees in Corporate Responsibility
Responsible business practices are on a peak today, and not because being eco-friendly is on-trend. Companies realize that sustainability efforts may end up in increasing revenue. Recently, Walmart proved that environmentally friendly decisions can be beneficial for business. The company switched to LED light in the parking lots and estimates to save $200 million in energy costs. Hence, the eco-sensible focus can pay off.
It doesn’t matter whether you are an ambitious startup or a well-known corporation — the key to the overall success lies in getting everyone on your team to commit. Otherwise, it will be difficult to push your company through the sustainability transformation.
What Corporate Responsibility Is
Corporate responsibility is also called social responsibility, corporate ethics, corporate accountability, but the concept is all the same. It is the responsibility of a company for the influence its activities and decisions have on the environment and society. It involves ethical and transparent behavior that considers stakeholders’ expectations, is compliant with current law, and is integrated within the entire organization.
SME sustainability is becoming a call of today, as all entrepreneurs realize its significance for the environment, consumers, and employees. Cherishing corporate responsibility, companies get the following benefits for employees and business:
- Working lives are transformed by improving the feeling of happiness in the working place
- Employees generate new ideas and innovations, hence, the productivity is unlocked
- Increased customer satisfaction and sales (especially when customers and employees closely interact)
- Brand reputation increases
- Retention and recruitment expenses are down
- Better decision –making due to new skills of employees
How to Engage Staff in Corporate Responsibility?
Everybody wins from corporate responsibility, but only if an entrepreneur is making employees stakeholders of the transformation. This can be achieved by taking these steps:
1. Engage leaders
The most successful efforts are initiated and supported by CEOs. It is crucial that leaders share their passion for sustainability in SME and actively participate in realizing the company’s goals such as reducing carbon footprint, eliminating waste, etc. As a result, the staff will be motivated and inspired by the leaders.
2. Set clear goals
Employees will better understand what they can do for SME environmental sustainability when you set clear goals. For example, find more ways to diminish the materials involved in online purchases packaging or reduce electricity use by 20%, etc. If you have several branches, think of arranging a competition between locations to promote SME business sustainability goals.
3. Educate employees
You might have difficulties with taking the staff on the board. Hence, it is important to educate the employees, explain what sustainability in SME is, and how they and the planet will benefit from it. You can choose an online educational platform to save time and make the educational process convenient. We, at SustainOnline, provide effective learning that will help engage all employees in corporate sustainability efforts.
4. Use sustainability reporting to encourage staff
Often, the best ideas for SME business sustainability come from employees. You can disclose your sustainability reporting to them and encourage the staff to come up with new ideas for the projects. Do not limit your efforts to mandatory reporting — report on what matters to employees too and can impact their working and even family lives, like developing new pension policies, encouraging flexibility and diversity. You can get great results by piloting a new idea and involving the whole team to help with its implementation.
5. Celebrate all achievements
It is vital to celebrate gains with the whole team. Share successful stories of reducing energy consumption and other achievements in a corporate newsletter, meetings, etc. Demonstrate to every employee how important his or her impact is for the overall SME sustainability.
6. Share knowledge
Show the rest of the world how your organization incorporates sustainability in all business processes. Such an approach will help attract more investors and appeal to modern consumers. Moreover, you will see an increase in talents, as Millennials, who are pronounced eco-activists, are also more conscious employees than the previous generation. According to the recent survey, they do not want to work in companies that are not eco-friendly and put revenue above human values.
The Last Word
Engaging employees in corporate responsibility is a worthwhile investment. Satisfied employees have better productivity, come up with new ideas that positively influence important decision-making, attract customers and investors, and enhance the company’s revenue. It is necessary to work out a corporate responsibility strategy to set up the purpose and achieve it step by step.
