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The Path to Effective Employee Engagement Programs

<p>Engaging employees can be one of the most challenging aspects of embedding sustainability into a company's DNA, particularly when offices are scattered around the world. Here are six tools that can help you increase the effectiveness of your sustainability engagement program.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

Creating an effective employee engagement programs is challenging on its own, but it gets particularly tricky when it involves hundreds of offices scattered across the globe. 

We've been helping a handful of global companies with their employee engagement program over the past year and have learned much about the type of content that works well. Like with so many things, feedback and experimentation were invaluable for progress.

Here are some lessons we've learned.

Blend Company-Specific with Generic Sustainability Content  

We initially started with generic sustainability information or "green tips," such as friendly reminders about recycling and the impact of reduced water use.  These were followed by company-specific "tips" that leveraged information already gathered for the CSR report. This can be information about the composition of the company footprint, top initiatives, and new, more sustainable product packaging. Unlike generic green tips, company-specific information reinforces the notion that sustainability is a real business initiative that drives competitive advantage and is directly relevant to all employees.

Critically, company-specific tips are very effective for companies with global offices in Bangalore, Dublin, Milan, Mexico City and Chicago because they often do not need to be localized. Generic green tips about filters for home refrigerators or automobile maintenance, for example, may be effective in the United States but are less relevant in developing countries or countries with very different infrastructure. Moreover, the liberal use of generic green tips which are not localized will put off employees in other countries by creating a perception that the employee engagement program is too U.S.-centric.

Effective Content Includes the Definition of Sustainability, Goals and Contact Information  

Don't overlook that the most effective content is often the most basic, especially since many employees are still learning about the what, why and how of sustainability for their company. Include a note about how sustainability is defined in your organization, the company's goals, and whom to contact when enthusiastic employees want to get involved.

Personal Carbon Footprint Calculators are Not Effective  

In our experience, carbon footprint calculators for an employee's home or work activities tend not to be used. Gathering monthly electricity, gas and fuel bills becomes a data collection burden and, without the updated data, the carbon footprint is not meaningful. Employees also have a hard time interpreting the data. Is my particular footprint good or bad? What does this information mean?

Avoid Controversial Topics 

Effective corporate employee engagement programs are time effective. Employees need to learn about corporate sustainability initiatives and how they can incorporate sustainability into their everyday job. Avoiding controversial topics, such as the pros and cons of nuclear as an energy source, ensures that the content won't generate needless distractions.
 
Ensure You are Reaching the Right Audience

Employees can be segmented into several categories based on interest in sustainability, from highly enthusiastic to completely disagreement. Focus on content for sustainability believers, especially focusing on employee groups involved with customers, product design and recruitment. Function-specific content, such as case studies of successful sustainability projects in finance or marketing, demonstrate how employees can be sustainable without being a formal part of the corporate sustainability team.

Use the Right Tools

The medium and the message are critical elements of successful communications. Experiment with a variety of tools and approaches to find ones that work. We find that the most effective tools engage employees in a variety of ways, give employees something to do, rather than just something to read, support local green teams, foster employee contributions and community building, and provide metrics on engagement by office and by function. This is a challenge because many of the existing tools (e.g. wikis, social media applications, email, computer-based training) only address one aspect of employee engagement and often require assistance and resources from other departments to be developed and deployed.

To date, there has not been a comprehensive solution that brings all of the necessary tools together into one place, which is why I've co-founded a company that has developed the industry's first comprehensive employee engagement solution for enterprise sustainability.

Developing effective content for employee engagement does not need to be a Herculean task. These guidelines can help increase the effectiveness of your employee engagement sustainability program.  

Image CC licensed by Flickr user homesbythomas.

Want to move beyond spreadsheets to manage carbon data but are confused by the large number of vendors? Groom Energy and Greenbiz.com have teamed up for the 2011 Enterprise Energy and Carbon Accounting Buyers Guide to give you a clear understanding and analysis of this rapidly expanding market based on meetings, demos, and analysis with 32 software vendors.
 

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