How To Get HR Green?...and How it Effects Your Employer Brand

HOW TO GET HR GREEN?
…and How it Effects Your
Employer Brand

1

HOW TO GET HR GREEN?
…and how it effects your
employer brand
Metrics are Easy! – Analytics?
Presented by: Now We’re Talkin’
Geoffrey Dubiski • April 29, 2009
Lizz Pellet
Fellow, Johns Hopkins University
SHRM Staffing Management Conference & Exposition

Chief Culture Officer at EMERGE International

2

How To Create a Green Recruiting Practice

Lizz Pellet
Fellow Johns Hopkins University
and CCO of EMERGE International

Today's Agenda:
• Overview of sustainability and defining green
• Three step process for creating a sustainable recruiting practice:
1. Evaluate, 2. Eliminate, 3. Illuminate
• Social Networking, Social Media and its impact on being green
• How to utilize these platforms in your recruitment activities
• How to build and leverage your green image and brand
Copyright EMERGE International

www.emergeinternational.com http://linkedin.com/in/lizzpellet http://twitter.com/lizzpellet

What Does Green Mean?

The discussions about
green recruiting are springing up everywhere


Why is Green Important to your Recruiting
Strategy and Overall HR Initiatives?
The hype and the buzz is building

A Harris poll found that 33% of Americans would be more
inclined to work for a green company compared to an
organization that does not make a conscious effort to
promote socially and environmentally friendly practices.

A Jobfox survey found 28% out of 6,000 respondents would
take environmentalism if free, but would not be willing to
take a pay cut for it.

A Canadian survey was claiming that 78% of the respondents
“given a choice would leave their current job in favor of a
greener workplace.‖


Gut Data: Our Intuition (and the Love of Google
and Other “Cool Companies”) Tell Us…

• Going green is becoming a significant factor in the creation of an
employment brand
• Organizations that are not implementing an environmental policy
may be losing employees to their competitors
• Some sustainability incentives may be ―sexy‖ to employees:
> Subsidies for hybrid cars
> On-site farmers markets
> Green commuting vouchers
> Organic dry cleaning
> Reward and recognition program incentives are shifting
> Recycling efforts: water bottles, ink cartridges (yes, bring
them in from home! We will recycle them here and donate
the money to our community) anything that can be recycled!


Why is Green Important to Your Recruiting
Strategy and Overall HR Initiatives?

―While candidates of all generations have
begun evaluating potential employers based
on their ―greenness‖ few in recruiting have
leveraged this hot topic in recruitment
communication and activities.‖

―Individual recruiters need to make their firm’s
environment stance a critical element of their
sales pitch to potential applicants and
candidates.‖

Dr. John Sullivan
June, 2007


What is Green Recruiting?

The reality is
in the data


What is Green Recruiting?


Lots of Definitions Out There...

Employers committed to ―Green Recruiting‖ recognize and embrace the
broader issues of social responsibility, community involvement,
environmental stewardship and sustainability of the environment
and openly assess their results at all levels of the organization.

They especially realize the importance of sharing their vision and
actions with employees and candidates in order to attract, engage and
influence the most talented candidates to come and stay.

Gerry Crispin
Chief Navigator, CareerXroads

Can this be translated into ROI?

IBM Green ROI commercial http://tinyurl.com/ye6p6yr


The Benefits of Going Green Can Be Extremely
Profitable…If You Know Where to Look


Three Step Process for Creating a
Sustainable HR Practice

1. Evaluate
2. Eliminate
3. Illuminate


Step 1: Evaluate - Perform a Diagnostic

- Are any of your products and/or
services environmentally
sustainable?

- Are there efforts to facilitate and
engage employees broadly to
examine operational processes and
maximize environmental
sustainability?

- Do you have any jobs whose
responsibilities are to reduce you
firm’s carbon footprint?

- Do your job descriptions (and career
website) reflect your green
commitment?


Step 1: Evaluate - Perform a Diagnostic

- Is your firm involved in outside (community) activities to
compensate for lack of sustainability in products and services?

- Have you looked at your recruiting process to calculate its carbon
footprint?

- Have you been turned down by qualified candidates because of
environmental issue?

- Have great employees left for greener pastures? Where did they
go?

- Do your leaders know the score and are you communicating the
message?


Step 1: Evaluate – Diagnostic Check List

Begin with an evaluation of every touch point in the employee life cycle
-Work force planning
-Recruitment
-Career Fairs
-College focused events
-Candidate interviews and selection
-On boarding
-Distribution of benefit information
-Open Enrollment
-Orientation program
-Announcements of changes in benefits, policies, procedures
-Performance appraisals, evaluations
-Payment processes
-Communications and PR (both internal and external)
-Employment Branding activities
-Community involvement and projects
-Reward and Recognition programs
-Holiday Parties and Celebrations
-Corrective action plans
-Exit interviews
-Retirement benefits

Step 2: Eliminate – Get Rid of Redundancy and Deploy
Business Process Reengineering to the HR Function

• Measurement and metrics
• Business process reengineering
• TQM, CQI or Six Sigma
• Process mapping
• Cost – Benefit analysis
• Is it all about making money?
• What about social responsibility?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXsaYR1Izqw&feature=r
elated
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQykGinvNrw&feature=
related


We Need to Quantify Our Efforts with
Charts and Graphs
So what’s a ton of paper…really?
> 24 trees
> 40,000 gallons of clean water is used during production
> 5,690 lbs of greenhouse gasses
> Almost 20,000 gallons of waste water
• Are your recruiting materials (especially college campus
materials) printed on recycled paper?
• Have you implemented a duplex (double sided) printing
policy?
• Do you have a message on the bottom of your emails –
―please think before printing this email‖?
• Do you claim to be a ―carbon neutral‖ company? If so, do
you realize how hard that really is to do?


Can a company whose green commitment is rising, afford a
recruitment function and process that isn’t?

• Gerry Crispin in a blog post ran some numbers for us
using the free calculator at www.carbonfootprint.com.

• He figured that an organization of 1,000 employees with
240 applicants might generate 320 tons of CO2 emissions
or about 1.25 tons per hire!

• In Quality we would always say, ―Measure what you
treasure‖. This is a great example of a metric that can
lead us into action to reduce travel for interviews.


The way we interview candidates is
forever changing

HIREVUE


The Expert View on the Interview

The Business Case for Adopting the “Interview from Anywhere”
Approach

Increasing the number of candidates available to interview
and cutting the cost per hire are two major benefits of
adopting the ―interview from anywhere‖ approach. In tough
economic times, the travel costs that result from flying in
multiple candidates for interviews is a highly visible expense,
especially when you consider that a majority of the people
brought in will not result in a hire. For companies that recruit
nationally or internationally, travel-related expenses can easily
account for 50% of all recruiting costs.

Dr. John Sullivan, June 29, 2009


Low Ticket Price for Some Approaches

Interviews an Engineer from the Dominican Republic
for a Los Angeles position

Conduct a live virtual panel interview with GreenJobInterview.com
Webcam and shipping $ 60
1 hour with 4 people $ 99

Traditional in-person interview
Estimated costs:
Two-night L.A. lodging $ 500
Airfare $ 1,200
Rental car/taxi $ 150
Food $ 200
Misc. expenses $ 100
$2,150

Carbon footprint for one round trip flight: 2,923 lbs. CO2
> This does not include local travel

CO2 Reduction Using Virtual Interviews

645 kg CO2 17 kg CO2

In-person Interview Live virtual Interview

Live virtual interviews save 628 kg of CO2 per interview

60 live virtual interviews per month of CO2 reduction
equals 120 cars off the road annually!


Step 3: Illuminate - Employment Branding and
Green Messaging
• Employment branding is a way to differentiate yourself from your
competition and to attract, retain and repel candidates.
• Being crystal clear about who you are from a cultural perspective
can repel the candidates you know are not a good fit –
significantly increasing the ROI of recruitment and retention
efforts.
• Creating a green message can support retention efforts for
employees who are themselves, becoming more socially
conscious and will look for this values alignment in their work
experience.
• No matter what message you create, if it is not authentic and
congruent to your true organizational culture – employees may
be attracted, but will not stick around very long once they are on
boarded.
• The Economic Recovery Exodus may be sooner than we think.
• Who would you name as a green company?
• Social Responsibly and the Brand


Sustainable Employment Brand Examples

Timberland: The Mission
> Our mission is to equip people to make a difference in their
world. We do this by creating outstanding products and by
trying to make a difference in the communities where we
live and work.
We’re a big company made up of a lot of small parts and
incredibly talented people. We make boots, shore, clothes
and gear that are comfortable enough to wear all day and
rugged enough for all year. We don’t rest on our
accomplishments. If we did, we’d only have ever made one
waterproof leather boot.
Our place in this world is bigger than the things we put in it.
So we volunteer in our communities. Making new products
goes hand in hand with making things better. That means
reducing our carbon footprint and being as
environmentally responsible as we can.


Sustainable Employment Brand Examples

Whole Foods:
They give us ―whole people‖ – and ―whole planet‖ on their site.
―We believe companies, like individuals, must assume their share
of responsibilities as tenants of Planet Earth‖. Whole Foods
Market in Lincoln Park, Chicago, won for Project of the Year and a
Grand Prize in the category of Sustainability – Standalone for its
complete integration of sustainable strategies and green building
practices. The store was built to the USGBC (U.S. Green Building
Council’s) LEED Gold standards and Energy Star standards for
buildings.
Proctor and Gamble: www.pgjobs.com
One of the best career web sites that evokes a sense of
community, brand awareness, imagination, creativity and socially
responsibility through animation, imagery and music.

Starbucks: Living our values – Starbucks commitment to Social
Responsibility. Developed a six panel brochure that outlines
their values and how the values are woven into their mission
statement and guiding principles.


The Starbucks Brand: it’s all green to me…
and to them!


Green Recruiting

• In the race to attract the most talented, innovative employees,
some companies like GE are painting themselves in green—a
rich environmental green—to boost their recruiting leverage. An
environmental pedigree, recruiting experts say, can help lure
applicants.

Get quoted in articles about environmental initiatives.

Use word-of-mouth, asking employees to spread the environmental
message.

Place job advertisements in magazines read by your target applicants.

Provide environmental talking points to emphasize during the interview
process.

Win environmental awards and attend environmental conferences.

By Charlotte Huff , Workforce Management on line


Going Green to Attract, Retain and Repel
What are Your Core Values as it Relates to Being Green?

A report by Sustainable Business Network of Washington (SB NOW)
gives us a great list to why a company should go green.

Their number one reason?

1. Increasing employee satisfaction, retention and productivity
2. Improving operational efficiency and effectiveness
3. Saving energy, water and raw materials
4. Shielding yourself from escalating energy and water prices
5. Branding the business and differentiating it from the
competition
6. Developing a positive, proactive relationship with local compliance
inspectors
7. Reducing pollution, waste and greenhouse gas emissions
8. Avoiding fines and other sanctions green guide and certification


EVP and the Future of Social Networking
and Sustainability

Company Commitment

Employees

Employee Value Proposition/Brand

Recruiting/ Training and Pay, Health and Financial Work/ Work
Well-being Security Social
Orientation Career Recognition, Life Environment
Networks
Development Performance Balance Sustainability
Leadership programs

Program Communication Delivery
Content Vehicles Channels

Libby Sartain, co-author ―Brand from the Inside‖

Poll Time: Question 1

Does your company have an
environmental policy?


Poll Time: Question 2

Does your company recycle?


Leveraging Your Green Image to
Attract and Retain Top Talent

• If your company recycles, you have an
environmental policy, you just might not be
advertising it! This is what creating an
employment brand that leverages going green
is all about.
• If your company participates in any community
activity that is focused on sustainability or
environmental pursuits, you may not be
leveraging this in your messaging.
• Conduct a brand scan to gather all the data
and activities that are currently taking place so
you can create the story. You may need a
―story teller‖ to complete this activity.


Brand and Promote Green Recruiting to “Attract‖

• Liberty Mutual spent $40 million on a new consumer and
employment branding campaign. The campaign shifted the way
consumers and potential employees viewed the organization.
They are now known as ―the responsibility company‖:
http://www.responsibilityproject.com/about/

• We cannot talk about the creation of a green HR function
without looking at our views, values, protocol or policies on
social networking!

• Recent search of LinkedIn for ―green‖ groups yielded 3,775!
• Recent Amazon search for books on social networks:
> 866 books about Twitter
> 798 books about My Space
> 1,261 books about Facebook
> 320 books about LinkedIn


Join the new LinkedHR Green group!


So how do you get started?

Start by answering these questions. You might be
surprised by how much you already have to work with!

• Do you have an environmental policy? Is it posted your career site?
• Do you have a recycling program? If so, are you tracking (and
communicating) the amount of money you save and landfill space
you’ve freed up?
• Are you using recyclable stock on your recruiting materials?
• Is sustainability one of your core organizational values? If so, is it
listed on your website?
• Have you built in any environmental accountability into your
performance appraisal system?
• Do you incentivize employees in any way to support your
environmental policies?
• If your company has a reward system involving redeemable points,
do you offer a green option, such as pledged donations to earth
friendly causes?

Today’s Employees Want Transparency

• Employees are looking for
a meaningful, authentic
and congruent work
experience
• It is deeply rooted in U.S.
culture to talk about our
jobs
• Cultural fit and values
congruence is paramount
in finding a job you love


Green Talent Management Strategies: The cost of
Using Social Networks Versus Job Boards

• Facebook Free
• MySpace Free
• Youtube Free
• LinkedIn Free
• Blogs (Word Press) Free
• Twitter (application) Free
• Niche boards $$
• Micro sites $$
• Association website ad $$
• Monster $$$
• Career Builder $$$
• LinkedIn Enterprise Solution $$$


Ten Best Green Jobs for the Next Decade

Farmer, Forester, Solar Power Installer, Energy Efficiency Builder, Wind Turbine
Fabricator, Conservation Biologist, Green MBA and Entrepreneur, Recycler,
Sustainability Systems Developer, and Urban Planner

Fast Company: Anya Kamenetz Jan 13, 2009
Illustration by Erika Schneider


Form a Sustainability Team and Set Strategy
What are you going to commit to in the next 6 months, 9 months,
12 months to make a shift to sustainability?

1. Evaluate: Collect Data

What measurement, metrics, statistics and benchmarking data will you
use?

2. Eliminate: Business Processes and Waste

TQM, process mapping – look at every Talent Management process
from recruitment through reward and recognition programs

3. Illuminate: Align to Employment Brand and
Promote
Embed in your efforts into your: EVP, website, recruiting materials,
staffing initiatives, video, podcasts, social networks and measure
attraction, retention, candidate perception…

Questions and Final Thoughts

For more information on this presentation or how to greenify your
HR Function, email me at: lpellet@emergeinternational.com or
call me at: 480-221-9649

There is a dedicated chapter on becoming more sustainable in
my new book, published by SHRM: The Cultural Fit Factor, How
to Create an Employment Brand to Attract, Retain and Repel the
Right Employee.


A special Earth Day offer from our friends:
www.greenjobinterview.com

Let us know before May 1, 2011 and we will
provide you with two free webcams and a first
interview on us.

We will do all the shipping, support and hosting of a live interview
– for free!

What have you got to lose? Click here for more details and an
opportunity to test drive our solution and experience the
outstanding customer service and ROI of live virtual interviews:

http://www.greenjobinterview.com/webinars/


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