Jill Barker, global marketing executive, and Rachel Mountain, global marketing manager, EcoSecurities

Underpinning any successful climate change mitigation strategy is the need to fully engage employees at every stage of the process. In practice, this means employees must be helped to understand the rationale behind the characteristics and objectives of your strategy; be armed with the right information in order to carry out what is expected of them with genuine enthusiasm; and understand how their work can contribute to the achievement of this strategy.

There is no shortcut to building and maintaining employee engagement with climate change activities, but there are a range of activities that have proved to be successful for many organisations addressing this topical issue.

EcoSecurities has found that there are four main components to a successful climate change campaign, which cover a range of activities designed to achieve maximum employee engagement.~

1. Consultation
2. Communication
3. Education
4. Participation

Consultation - Collaboration is the key to successful change

In order to achieve maximum engagement, the whole business, including employees should be consulted and involved at the very beginning of the design of a climate change strategy. 

It is vital that employees feel part of the decision-making process when selecting the right blend of internal emission reduction activities whether these include changing energy use, cutting down on paper communication, or implementing more extensive recycling schemes. By getting feedback on what employees feel is appropriate and realistic, the chances of them buying into the process are increased. 

Workshops

For instance, senior management could facilitate several half day workshops with representatives from all areas of the business to discuss which internal climate change mitigation activities fit with the internal culture of the business. We have successfully implemented this approach with a number of clients and found that this substantially increased internal understanding of the environmental initiatives and has sustained employees’ interest and engagement on a long-term basis. For example, when carbon offsetting is part of a climate change campaign, employees can be part of the decision-making team that selects the emission reduction projects that the company invest in according to criteria such as geography, technology, community benefits and culture/brand fit. This increases the likelihood that employees will feel connected to the development of the project and the surrounding community.

1. Communication – Getting the right messages to your employees

From the outset, employees need to fully understand the aims of the environmental objectives in order to fully engage with, support and participate in the process of achieving them. 

The cornerstone to ensuring understanding of organisational goals is the effective planning and deployment of an integrated communications strategy, which delivers meaningful and relevant environmental messages that reflect the brand values and culture of your organisation.

EcoSecurities recommends that an integrated mix of communication channels and tools be deployed as employee groups will respond differently to certain activities. Furthermore, depending on the scope of your employee engagement programme, thought must be given to the best channels to use to communicate with various stakeholders and channels. For instance, in the automotive sector, an employee engagement campaign may be limited to direct employees or it may be extended to dealership channels. Retail businesses may also want to extend their engagement programme down the supply chain to distributors and manufacturers. For example, BSkyB have begun evaluating and monitoring the environmental performance of key suppliers and encouraging them to improve their energy efficiency. They help to facilitate this by holding a series of workshops aimed at helping suppliers and business partners improve the environmental performance of the products and services they provide to Sky.

Recommended communications methods for communicating environmental goals/messages:

Face-to-face communication

- Presentations by senior management with an interactive Q&A session with all employees.

- A series of cascade meetings led by team heads to outline the objectives behind the climate change strategy and how employees are key to their successful implementation.

Electronic communication

- Within the company intranet site, a specific area should be created to keep all employees informed and updated on all aspects of the environmental programme.

- The team managing the climate change programme could post blogs that provide day-to-day insight into the roll out of the environmental programme and key developments.

- Screen savers communicating environmental messages could be used to keep the environmental programme front of mind amongst employees.

Printed communication

- Posters, flyers and stickers can be used to visually communicate the objectives behind the climate change programme to employees.

- Internal communications materials, including newsletters, should be utilised and could carry interviews with those managing the activities, conveying why the company is concerned with reducing its emissions.
 
Environmental goals

It is also important to remember that in order to achieve long-term engagement and behaviour change, there must be on-going, two-way communication between senior management and employees. Environmental goals must be continually evaluated and reassessed, and management must communicate how the changes that employees are making are impacting on the achievement of the overall goals in a positive way.

It is vital that the right messages are communicated in the right way, at the right time in order to motivate employees to continue behaviour change and maintain enthusiasm for the process. Furthermore, management must gain feedback from employees, or employee representative groups, as to what is working and what is not to ensure that goals are realistic and achievable. Indeed, 2006 CIPD research found that the main drivers of employee engagement were:

- Having opportunities to feed your views upwards
- Feeling well-informed about what is happening in the organisation
- Believing that your managers are committed to achieving organisational goals

Therefore it is vital that the first two steps of your engagement campaign (consultation and communication) are not limited to the beginning of the campaign, but are sustained and developed on a long-term basis.

2. Education – arming employees with knowledge to join the fight against climate change

NEC, the global IT company, believes that all of its employees should conduct their work with high environmental awareness and has implemented various education and awareness raising programmes to get them involved. For instance, all new employees receive environmental training programmes, which can then be customised for specific jobs i.e. hardware technicians, software technicians, and sales people. This ensures that employees directly relate wider environmental goals to their own jobs and understand their unique contribution to the process.

Company intranets

Company intranets provide a good tool to provide employees with easily accessible educational advice about how they can effectively reduce their carbon emissions, not only in the workplace, but within their commute and at home. In addition, there should also be an area which provides employees with a series of definitions, glossary of terms and common myth busters, to ensure they are aware of all the complexities involved in deploying a low carbon strategy. Podcasts and webinars would provide another, more interactive way of delivering educational materials.

Strategically positioned posters and stickers near energy intensive appliances with key information and statistics will provide the impetus for employees to be aware of the impact that their day-to-day working life has on the environment and take action to reduce it. Mouse mats, positioned next to computers, could also provide a source of educational messages.

3. Participation – developing, recognising and rewarding the right environmental behaviours

The concept of reducing emissions needs to filter through the whole organisation in order to achieve the stated objectives. If real behavioural change is to be achieved and sustained, then reinforcement, recognition and reward of those behaviours needs to take place on an ongoing basis.

BSkyB encourage participation in environmental initiatives from its employees through their ‘Everyone plays a part’ scheme. Features of this include a lift sharing intranet site to encourage car pooling, a carbon credit card which rewards employees for reducing their own footprint, and as part of their ‘Switch Off’ campaign, the installation of permanent signs throughout Sky’s main buildings to encourage employees to reduce energy and water use.  Sky also offers initiatives to help employees reduce their carbon footprints – including a discount and £1,300 gross cash back on the purchase of a hybrid car. NEC has a CSR Awards scheme for employees, but also designates the months of June and November as ‘Environmental months’ when it rolls out a programme of interactive and engaging activities to heighten awareness and engagement of employees and get them involved in a hands-on way.

In our experience the following activities can help employees from every organisation get involved on an individual and departmental basis.

- Deploy an ideas / suggestion area on the intranet for new and innovative activities that employees have identified as having the potential to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions within the organisation

- Utilise the intranet to provide employees with a means to calculate their personal emissions and facilitate the transition of good environmental behaviours from the work place into the home

- Incentivise and recognise the right environmental behaviours through ‘green employee’ award schemes

Climate change programmes

To summarise, in order to achieve real and sustainable employee engagement, organisations must consider the following when devising their climate change programmes:

• Be open, honest and transparent. Be clear about the organisation’s motivations and ensure they will stand up to scrutiny. Every claim should be backed up by easily accessible information.

• Make sure your company’s green messages effectively filter from board level to front line staff.

• Get the internal communications channel (or mix of channels) and the timing right. Don’t hide your communications in an unused area of your company intranet. 

• Make it fun! Climate change should not all be about doom and gloom! Employee engagement is all about education and empowerment – reducing your emissions should be an enjoyable uplifting experience.

• Educate employees and stimulate real behaviour changes – this could be through activity days, focus groups, or employee incentive schemes -  to guarantee buy-in and ensure employees are communicating your green business values appropriately.

• Ensure that the messages conveyed to employees are coherent and that your internal and external faces are aligned.

• Be consistent, coherent and holistic – eliminate contradictory signals.

• Make it simple and easy for employees, understand their level of knowledge and avoid jargon - speak a language that they will understand to add value to your brand and environmental efforts.