FWR News
In the recent Greenbiz article (24/04/09), authors Adam Morton and Mathew Murphy emphasise that 'a time of crisis is more often then not a time of opportunity. 'The opportunity most commonly linked to the financial crisis is green jobs — in emerging industries, such as renewable energy, and the re-skilling of those already working in manufacturing, construction and services'. We would agree! However, for the mass of businesses not working in the zone of 'green' and cleantech 'green' jobs are even a more important opportunity then most might think. In fact you might just have some of these green 'intrapreneurs' already working for you.
Below are a few examples of FWR's 3 Keys to building 'culture' in your business.
1. Staff Attraction
Attracting quality staff to your business through your sustainability ethos and practices is now more important then ever. The new ‘green collar worker' is looking for ‘something' beyond just a paycheck. Building up your ability to perform the following repertoire of 10 skills will stand you in good stead to becoming an employerof choice.
Being a small business owners ourselves with a growing number of staff, the focus on keeping them engaged, encouraging them to grow, but still stay with us, and finding time to run our business, often feels overwhelming. We continue to work on the skills below to make us attractive to potential and current staff:
1. Communication - find ways to get your team to come to you when there's an issue, not to whinge behind your back.
2. Create problem solvers - encourage your team to bring any problem to you, but to always bring a solution at the same time.
3. Reward fairly - based on performance, not time in the job.
4. Develop champions - who can grow into their roles and champion actions, new ideas, and techniques.
5. Trust - regardless of how you've been burnt in the past, treat your team first with trust.
6. Reward creatively - consider education rewards, family based rewards (such as dinner vouchers) and tiny rewards (such as their favoritechocolate bar) instead of just standard pay rises or bonuses.
7. Involve your team - get their opinions, seek their feedback, hunt out criticism before it infects your organisation.
8. Show the path - foster career drive by showing your team the career paths open to them within your organisation.
9. Listen - instead of always talking.
10. Lead by example - live in a manner consistent with what you say. It's managing, not parenting, so "do as I say, not as I do" ain't gonna cut it.
2. Staff Retention
The 2 nd Key to building business culture is keeping the right staff. ‘Employees often connect to the broader concept of sustainability through the prisms of finances, health, and wellness' (Mobium Group, 2008). Providing team members with the right tools to make their connection to sustainability easy to bridge includes:
- Staff education and training in strategies that allow them to ‘sell the environmental, economic, and social benefits' of products/services and not just the products/services themselves;
- The ability to empower consumers and build their capacity to make more-sustainable choices; and,
- The provision of the initiatives aligned with making more sustainable choices in business operations and selection of products/services themselves.
The ability for staff to empower their consumers and build their capacity to make more-sustainable choices will go a long way towards a ‘business as usual' approach to sustainability. It will also give them the ability to make connection to some of those broader concepts mentioned above. Just keep in mind, some team members just will never be interested. Provide them with the right tools, but don't drain your energy pool, or that of the rest of your team, in trying to get these 'laggards' to connect.
3. Developing Culture
An employee Intrapreneur is the person who focuses on innovation and creativity and who transforms a dream or an idea into a profitable venture, by operating within the organizational environment. Thus, Intrapreneurs are Inside entrepreneurs who follow the goal of the organization.
The concept of developing 'green intrapreneurs ' ( EcoChampions ) is about scalability and leverage, both common business concepts. The intrapreneurs allow you to duplicate the innovation/empowerment/drive, etc throughout your business....without having to always be the one driving it. Intrapreneurs learn and refine projects through trial and error. Below are a few keys to greater success rates when developing a culture of intraprenuers:
1. Achieve quick wins – attack the low hanging fruit.
2. Building team capacity – ‘pay it forward' and get your intrapreneurs driving their own 'mini-cultures' within your business.
3. Building guiding templates and frameworks – make it easy and replicable. If it's all too hard, it just won't have the legs.
4. Share information – ‘pass it on' and share your story. We are amazed at how many businesses we meet that just aren't telling their story. Your intrapreneurs can help you with this.
One final note. ' When a company, large or small, decides to assess and improve its environmental performance, having employees on board to support and extend the project can make the difference between success and failure' (Tilde Herrera). A bottom-up employee program, coupled with top-down support and leadership, and built upon education, empowerment and reinforcement could help to jumpstart and sustain a businesses ‘green' initiatives.
