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Communicating your green strategy to young talent

Putting actions in place to improve sustainability and both reflect and respect the values of young talent is one thing, but it's also important to then communicate those actions to employees and potential employees, to show them that you're somewhere they want to work. When it comes to your hiring strategy, that means making it a visible part of the recruitment and retention process.

In this article, we look at the importance of communicating your key values to incoming and current employees to drive momentum behind your efforts.

Communicating environmental values to new employees

Bringing environmental values into the conversation during the hiring process not only highlights them, but also establishes your company culture regarding sustainable ethics from the start. Some of the ways you can do that authentically include:

  • Be clear about your approach, the actions you take, measurable achievements to date and your goals. Align these goals with processes to show how you’re working towards them.
  • Talk about your efforts with candidates during the interview and get their input on how they would help drive sustainability further if they were to join. Ask for feedback and ideas, showing you're generally interested in their perspective.
  • Your existing employees are your most powerful advocates. When you’re communicating what you do and how you do it, use digital media, team quotes or provide the opportunity for prospective candidates to talk to existing employees so they can validate your assertions. Of course, for this to work, you do have to genuinely be actioning your plans in a way that’s visible to your team.

 

Internal communication for employee retention 

As mentioned, getting your team involved in the recruitment process is a really powerful way to show that you are genuine about your attitude to sustainability, but that means there’s also work to be done internally to communicate your goals and actions, and encourage everyone to get on board. Furthermore, it's not enough to attract talent - you need to keep it. Make sure your team knows what you're doing regarding sustainable, environmentally friendly business practices and ensure they can see evidence in daily operations. For example:

  • Get the team involved - ask for feedback from current employees on what makes it difficult for them to be eco friendly at work, and make proactive changes based on that feedback.
  • Provide tangible information on the impact the actions of the company and the team are making in your journey towards sustainability and net-zero.
  • Encourage a company culture towards sustainability, making actions that are beneficial for the environment a source of achievement rather than an additional task. Help to educate, inform and empower team members to live and work more sustainably.
  • Feature team ambassadors in your hiring material.

Of course, the reason environmental credentials are important to GenZ is because they are ethically essential to modern businesses as well. That’s recognised across the board and as a result the government also wants to encourage meaningful and sustainable business practices.

With that in mind, there are grants available; the UK government has pledged almost £5 billion of funding to help businesses go greener as part of net-zero plans. Creating a build back greener strategy for your business can be a powerful way to attract new talent. In short, there’s support available to your business growth when you prioritise eco-friendly commitments, from those who want to work for you to those who will provide funding.


 

We've been working hard for the last 3 years to build a vibrant talent pool of 16 - 25 year olds in the UK. If you are an eco-friendly employer, talk to us about how we can help boost your profile and hire by purpose.