Why Greening The Workforce Is Important For UK Employers

As an employer, have you started to put strategies into place for Greening your workforce?

In the UK, many employers are increasingly recognising that building a ‘Green workforce’ is not just a nice-to-have; it has now become a strategic necessity.

With the push towards the government’s net-zero agenda and the rising demand for sustainability skills, companies that instil a culture of environmental stewardship into their workforce practices can begin to benefit in a number of ways:

• Improved reputation – building a reputation as a company that takes its environmental footprint seriously is a big positive for your company branding
• Stronger talent attraction – especially amongst younger people who increasingly research company values to make sure those values align with their own. This means that having a green workforce strategy helps attract and retain people who care about environmental and social impact
• Operational efficiencies – embracing new and more efficient technology can boost productivity
• Resilience for the future – Future proofing your operations and success of the company

Let’s take a look at how, as an employer, you can ‘Green’ your workforce. What does it involve? Why does it matter? How do you go about it?

Let’s find out all you need to know!

Why Greening Your Workforce Is Important

There is an increase in demand for Green skills because Green jobs in the UK are growing rapidly so organisations must also embed sustainability into their workforce.

As an employer, you will no doubt be aware that climate-related risks and regulation are increasing. You need to act so that you don’t face higher compliance costs, risks to your reputation and the risk of falling behind your competitors who are more agile.

Resilience & Future-proofing

Embedding sustainability in your workforce practices helps you to be ready for the transition to a low-carbon economy. This involves adapting skills, business models and operations so that your team of staff can support and develop future business changes.

What It Means To ‘Green’ Your Workforce

‘Greening’ the workforce is not just about creating skilled jobs that are focused solely on sustainability. Rather, it is a more holistic approach.

It is about integrating sustainability into every area of your company culture.

Key elements include:

• Recruitment & onboarding that embed sustainability values
• Training & development so that all employees have “Green” awareness and, where relevant, the specialist skills necessary to carry out their work
• Operational practices and behaviour change so that workforce actions contribute to environmental outcomes. For example, energy efficiency, waste reduction and encouraging sustainable commutes where possible
• Reward, recognition & incentives aligned to green performance and actions
• Leadership and a culture that frames sustainability as core to the business rather than a peripheral initiative
• Measuring & reporting workforce-related sustainability indicators such as skills, actions and diversity in Green roles
• Continuous improvement and adaptation to evolving sustainability demands

How You Can Implement A Green Workforce Strategy

If you are taking your first steps towards implementing a Green workforce strategy, here are some steps you can take to make that happen.

Set The Strategic Foundation

First of all, you need to set a foundation from which your Greening can be built.

Depending on the size of your company, choose a team (or person) and designate responsibility for workforce sustainability. This could be via your HR team or you could create a role that is dedicated to Green skills.

Once you’ve put that in place, it is all about communication. Make sure your team of staff are on board and understand that sustainability is a business priority and that the workforce will play a key role.

Review Your Current Workforce And Identify Gaps

• Conduct a skills audit: What sustainability-relevant skills does your team of staff currently have?
• Map future skills requirements: based on your business strategy, map where you think new or enhanced Green skills will be needed to future-proof your workforce. You can then use this to channel your recruitment of school leavers, students and graduates.
• Analyse your company culture: How well is sustainability awareness and behaviour embedded? Does your team of staff know what actions they can take? What systems exist for employee engagement?
• Identify recruitment, inclusion and diversity considerations: Recruiting and upskilling for Green roles should also take into account under-represented groups. As we have said in a previous article, diversity in the workplace encourages different perspectives and also, innovation.

Recruitment & Onboarding With A Green Focus

We know how important it is to get job descriptions right so that you reach your target audience.

When it comes to Greening, make sure your job descriptions and employer branding include emphasis on sustainability values and how the role you are advertising contributes to these values. This will help you to attract young applicants who will value your sustainability aims.

Particularly with younger applicants, you could consider hiring them for their attitude towards sustainability and their potential as well as whatever current skills they may have. You might find that young people are particularly keen to build and develop their Green skills.

After recruitment, make sure your onboarding process has your organisation’s sustainability commitments and policies centre stage so that the tone is set for your new team members.

Training, Development & Upskilling

Obviously, a system of training, development and upskilling will need to be put into place as you continue to Green your workforce.

This can be something as simple as building general awareness for all of your team – but there will also need to be specialist training for some areas.

As well as in house training, you could also leverage flexible learning platforms like e-learning, blended learning, micro-learning and virtual induction.

If you have staff who work remotely or you don’t want your staff to travel long distances to courses, these platforms help to reduce travel – helping to keep your carbon footprint to a minimum – and they also increase accessibility.

Encourage continuous learning and green career pathing: create opportunities for employees to develop into sustainability-related roles. This can help to boost your staff retention and improve their chances of promotion in the long run.

As a way of getting started, take a look at external organisations who can point you in the right direction. Organisations like the Green Britain Academy can provide training for low-carbon roles and can help upskill your staff.

Embedding Sustainable Behaviours & Operational Practices

Creating a Green culture in your workplace can also have fun and sociable elements to it as well as building skills.

For example, you might be able to promote sustainable commuting such as encouraging your staff to cycle to work or to use public transport rather than driving into work.

Sharing lifts can also be an option, as can giving your staff the opportunity to work remotely where possible. Flexible working reduces both energy and space usage for your company.

Other actions that can be taken are making an effort to do more recycling and composting, reducing single-use plastics and encouraging local produce and plant-based food in canteens.

Remote or Hybrid Working

If remote working is part of the set up for your business model, are there any ways that you can ensure sustainability considerations such as energy-efficient home-working setups?

Green Incentives

Depending on the size of your company, departments could compete on reducing energy and waste for example. A ‘Green departmental champion’ could be rewarded in some way for their efforts.

Reward, Recognition & Career Progression

Make sure you create metrics for sustainability within your company. For example, metrics for energy reduction, waste reduction and the number of employees that have trained in green skills.

You could also have a system in place where you recognise and reward employees who drive sustainability initiatives. This could be via formal awards, informal awards, bonuses and/or public acknowledgement in staff meetings and via the company’s online outlets.

This can boost the engagement of other staff and helps maintain and boost the Green areas of your company culture.

With regards to career progression, depending on the nature of your company, you could build clear Green career pathways. Demonstrate to young members of your team how further growing their Green skills can lead to opportunities and progression.

This can in turn help to boost your staff retention.

Beyond The Workplace

Does sustainability stop at the entrance/exit doors to your workplace?

In attempting to Green your workforce and your company as a whole, take a look at your contractors, suppliers, and third-party partners. Where possible, you could encourage your suppliers to comply with sustainability training and Green actions if they are not doing so already.

Communicate & Engage Employees

‘Greening’ the workforce does not have to be a one-person endeavour – or solely a job for your HR team.

• Communication is critical. Employees will only engage if they understand “why” and “how” the green workforce strategy affects them. Use regular updates, internal campaigns, green champions
• Engage employees at all levels. Create opportunities for staff suggestion schemes, green idea generation and volunteering days such as local environmental projects which build engagement and connection to sustainability. Conduct a skills gap survey. Ask employees which sustainability skills they would like to develop and design training accordingly. This can also enhance your company branding and reputation within the wider community
• Celebrate wins. Small achievements matter. Celebrate reduction in office waste or switching to a green energy supplier, for example, and build momentum

Some Practical Suggestions For ‘Quick Wins’

• Launch a green induction module for all new starters that explains the organisation’s environmental commitments, expected behaviours and how individual roles contribute
• Introduce a green commuting scheme such as cycle-to-work vouchers or public transport subsidies
• Set up departmental scorecards that are relevant to your sector with simple metrics. This could be for areas like paper or printing volumes and travel carbon. You could then publish monthly updates and reward best performing departments or individual staff members

For employers these days, ‘Greening’ the workforce needs to be an integral part of future-facing business strategy. By embedding sustainability into recruitment, training, employee engagement, operational practices and reward structures, you can also tap into the growing talent pool of younger jobseekers who increasingly prioritise working for sustainable organisations.

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