What’s Your Green Recruiting Strategy?
Your company is thinking green, right? It better be.
The recruiting business is heavily influenced by current, global trends because it’s all about people. That might sound slightly trite, but it’s not meant to be. People are caring more and more about the environment. What’s the result in the world of recruiting? People are caring more and more about green companies.
The evidence of this trend in recruiting is mounting. Alice Snell has a very nice summary of recent discussions on this topic.
No surprise, young job seekers are particularly attracted to eco-friendly companies.
“Harris Poll found that 33 percent of Americans would be more inclined to work for a green company compared to an organization that does not make conscious efforts to promote socially and environmentally friendly practices.”
That’s a lot of people. I’m sure some are only paying lip service to “going green” but you can’t ignore the trend.
Paul Copcutt references some even stronger numbers:
“In a related survey a staggering 78% said that given a choice, they would leave their current job in favor of a greener workplace. Recruiters are now reporting that candidates are demanding to know a company’s environmental stance before taking a job.”
John Sullivan lists a number of detailed steps to implementing green recruiting strategies. It’s a great list, but for any companies dipping their toe into the green waters, it doesn’t have to be this complex.
The simplest way to think about this is to realize that your green recruiting strategy is just an extension of how you brand and market your corporate culture. If your company is truly “green” it’s part of your culture, just like the work environment, the social gatherings, the team spirit, etc. Up to now, you may not have realized that the green part of your corporate culture was worth exposing and promoting — it’s clear now that’s the case.
GE has the ability to offer up sizable grants and run big contests in promotion of the environment, which is great, but you don’t have to take it that far. Get your employees talking about the importance of being green. Promote a healthy, eco-friendly environment as a job perk. Open up your culture to candidates and let them have a peek inside. Let them see (and communicate with you about) all that green-goodness…
[…] that more and more people are frustrated with their employers lack of environmental policies. Employees want to work for eco-friendly companies. For younger employees this is becoming a significant priority, so much so, that a considerable […]
Some companies have positions like “Chief environment officer” while some (sadly) barely have recycle bins. Unfortunately, we must wake up pretty soon as a lot of damage has occurred.
A year on, and this is still a very relevant topic, especially with the rising price of oil affecting recruiting and our attention turned to being environmentally conscious.
Time to revisit?
I’ve put together a list of pointers that expands on this post. You can check them out here http://blog.advorto.com/blog/2008/06/green-recruitin.html
-Susanna
Susanna - thanks for stopping by and commenting. I certainly think this issue will continue to be more and more important in candidates’ minds. It’s not going away any time soon.