Companies have been capitalizing on their green initiatives for many years for marketing and sales efforts. Consider the premium we pay for organic foods, green cleaning products and energy saving appliances. So what does it mean to go green for an organization’s employment brand?

The triple bottom line now incorporates profits, people and planet. All three are strongly interconnected. Companies will profit from hiring, keeping and improving productivity of top talent… people. People thrive and produce where they feel a strong connection to the organization and its reputation. Many companies report lowering overall costs by going green, thus improving profits. Especially with the current economic climate, employment brand means more than just creating a company where individuals want to apply for employment. It’s also creating a working environment where top talent chooses to stay and contribute to the turnaround and long term success.

81% of the U.S. workforce prefers working for a company that has a reputation for environmental responsibility, according to a survey by Ipsos Morey. Generation Y demands it. In the CSR Monitor by GlobalScan, 70% of recent college graduates reported that they would not even apply to an organization that they deemed socially irresponsible, while 68% disagreed that salary was more important than social responsibility. The bottom line is that individuals want to be proud of the organization for which they work.

This places human resources at the center of a company’s efforts to go green and its effects on employment brand. Consider organizations such as Google, Timberland and GE that have taken full advantage of their green efforts to enhance employment brand. They’ve all taken a strong strategic approach to both implementing and then well publicizing their efforts. While perhaps a bit simplified, following are some quick tips to going green with your organization’s employment brand:

Consider the audience. What’s important to your employees and your targeted candidates? Focus your green efforts in areas that matter to the talent you are working to attract and maintain.

Include and engage employees. Involve employees from all levels of the organization in the company’s efforts to go green by creating an advisory council. They’ll become evangelists from within and build both support from within as well as being strong advocates in the public.

Tell others about your efforts. Being a strong corporate citizen is a good thing. It’s okay to brag about it.

  • Devote space in your employment website to tout the company’s environmental reputation. Work with your public relations department to get media attention for your efforts.
  • When your employees volunteer en masse for an environmental clean up effort, getting their picture in the local media serves a dual purpose. Employees receive a form of public recognition for their efforts, and it creates a positive public image.
  • In order to attract top talent sensitive to environmental issues, it’s okay to sing your own praises in all forms of recruitment advertising.

Develop environmentally-friendly benefits. Retention efforts can be improved by including creative benefits that specifically address green concerns. Some examples include holistic health benefits, paid time to volunteer for environmental issues, financial support for alternative transportation options such as bus passes or rebates for purchasing hybrid cars, organic snack options in the employee break area, and matching employee contributions to environmental causes.

Recognize and reward. A sustainable environmental brand (pun intended), can be supported by acknowledging efforts publicly and rewarding individuals with pay incentives and inclusion in appraisal systems.

And finally, measure. Just as with other goals, the only way to know the long term effects of going green on the company’s employment brand is to review appropriate HR metrics including effects on recruitment, retention, employee satisfaction, and productivity.

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