The Value of Green Recruiting (by Lizz Pellet | Talent Management)

-By Development Network-

 

We've all heard that green is the new black. In the '90s, organizational culture was touted as essential for business success, and social responsibility seems to have taken its place. A lot of companies are finding it's good to be green as they integrate environmentalism and sustainability into their corporate cultures. Not only is corporate sustainability good for the community and the planet - it also can help employees reduce waste and operate more efficiently. Companies share their environmental initiatives in annual reports, core values and community activities. Yet many fail to leverage their environmental efforts in one key area, and that's recruiting. Many companies are missing a key opportunity here because a commitment to sustainability can be a factor the most desirable candidates consider when choosing an employer.

 

Green Is Red Hot

 

There are three main drivers for talent managers to consider as they determine if their organizations should increase sustainability efforts: importance, cost savings and congruence. First, determine whether social responsibility really matters to the organization and its potential employment candidates. Since green recruiting is such a new idea, there is conflicting information available. Talent leaders must determine whether social responsibility is important enough to the top talent they seek before making the effort to go green to attract and retain them.

 

The second driver for many organizations to create a green recruiting function is the significant cost savings associated with green solutions. Some talent leaders may disagree and say this should be the No. 1 driver, but as the economy regains strength and companies begin to hire at their pre-recession levels, the focus will be on finding the best qualified candidate and the right cultural fit.

 

The third driver is congruence. If the organizational culture boasts an environmentally friendly mission or emphasizes sustainability in its consumer advertising, then that company should certainly have a sustainable HR function. Some companies may make a halfhearted attempt at "greenwashing," but today's savvy job seekers can detect incongruence in words and actions from a mile away.

 

Is there a business case for going green? Absolutely. A finding from i4cp's 2010 Major Issues Study revealed that more than three-quarters of responding business professionals projected there would be more green business initiatives in the coming year. Additional data suggested that professionals view the green issue as vital to business success. If an organization has not researched the business case for or evaluated its commitment to sustainability, it's time to broach the subject.

 

There are definitely benefits to this kind of activity. In April 2010, U.S. Airways Magazine was dedicated to going green and highlighted 10 businesses that bloomed and then boomed by leveraging sustainability. The list held an interesting mix of industries and supports the idea that talent leaders can get into the green game, save money and increase profits. The 10 featured organizations were Amazon.com. New Belgium Brewing, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Starbucks, Patagonia, The Ritz-Carlton, the University of New Hampshire, Wynn Las Vegas, Dell and the city of Greensburg, Kan. A few months later, in November, Rob Bernard, chief environmental strategist at Microsoft, wrote an article for Forbes on how cloud computing can greatly reduce the net energy use of business computing. Apparently even the clouds are green these days.

 

The aforementioned organizations demonstrate their green commitment in many ways, but one thing they all have in common is how they have rolled sustainability into their values. This is where the third driver to go green - congruence - comes into play. If an organization sees the value of embracing sustainability, then it must become a value.

 

Note: The "please consider the environment before printing" footer on e-mails is not enough to send the sustainability message to the marketplace. Commitment in actions and stated values is far more effective.

 

In a 2010 HRPS People & Strategy journal article, "Transitioning to the Green Economy," Jeana Wirtenberg, senior advisor at the Institute for Sustainable Enterprise, offered talent managers some sound advice.

 

"Sustainability represents a huge opportunity for HR to play a more strategic role in their organizations, something HR had been aiming at for years," Wirtenberg said. "In many ways, it falls right in HR's sweet spot. Under the right circumstances, HR professionals can help infuse sustainability into talent management systems, but they have to build up their own competencies in this area." Over the years talent leaders have been asked to continue to build competencies and move from a tactical function to a more strategic business partner, so it comes as no surprise that, given its implications for talent and the bottom line, they will need to build knowledge around sustainability.

 

Planting Green Seeds

 

So where should organizations start? There are many opportunities to go green in every step of the employee life cycle, from candidate search to retirement benefits, but the largest area of impact may be right at the beginning: recruitment.

 

Let's start with social networking. Gone are the days of calling up the local newspaper and placing an ad. That was replaced by job boards, and now job boards are in trouble and losing market share to organizations that are doing their own candidate searches. We all know these mediums help talent leaders recruit better, but they are also a greener practice than what has been done in the past. Organizations are seeking and finding passive candidates on LinkedIn, posting jobs on LinkedIn subgroups, tweeting jobs on Twitter and building professional Facebook pages that work well to attract quality candidates. Additionally, these recruiting methods are free, so companies are saving real green.

 

In line with these next generation talent acquisition approaches will be the way talent managers look at career fairs. If an organization hosts or attends career fairs regularly, it should consider the materials it provides to prospective candidates. Are they double-sided and printed on recycled material? If not, they should be. This may seem like a minor detail, but discerning candidates are looking at things like this. Another way to get attention is to distribute company information on a USB thumb drive, or better yet, given the proliferation of smart phones, create an app. That move is the epitome of reduce, reuse, recycle and will surely leave a lasting impression on the most desirable talent. Much like employment branding, organizations need to offer something their competitors don't in order to differentiate themselves and look more attractive to talent. Everyone offers benefits, so organizations must be bold and go down a different path to give candidates a different, memorable experience.

 

Next, talent leaders can evaluate their organization's interview process. Does it rely on the same old telephone screening process? That may have been the standard for years, but it's not anymore. Live virtual or video interviewing is becoming a popular approach. Futurist John Sullivan stated in an ERE.net blog post in June 2009 that the "interview from anywhere" would become the standard practice for all but the final interview.

 

Live virtual interviews not only cut candidate travel costs by up to 75 percent; they significantly reduce talent management's carbon footprint. Solution providers handle everything from webcam fulfillment and technology support to candidate coaching so companies can have successful virtual interviews. Companies using this approach are already making headlines. At the Global Onrec Expo in September 2010, Baptist Health System in San Antonio, Texas, won the Best Candidate Experience award in its physician recruitment function, and the Innovation in Recruitment award was presented to communications and engineering solutions provider ARINC. Both of these companies used the live virtual GreenJobInterview.com platform as an integral piece of their recruitment practice.

 

Some of the other companies that provide similar services include HireVue, Interview Studio and Interview Stream. Before choosing a provider, talent leaders should be sure to include IT and legal departments in the conversation. Some providers require organizations to purchase their software or store the recorded interviews for two years. Any provider chosen will depend on an organization's budget, internal bench strength, legal implications and ultimately its corporate culture and values.

 

Some companies are using platforms such as Skype to conduct virtual interviews. A word of caution here: There are certainly legal implications if an organization decides to go this route. Some interview candidates may not have access to the necessary equipment, and there can be no taint of discrimination without an organization opening itself to potential liability. Further, the quality of a Skype meeting may not be appropriate for a professional interview. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for, and Skype is free.

 

Using any of these solutions will significantly cut travel expenditures as well as support an organization's sustainability efforts. In an ERE.net blog, Gerry Crispin of Career Crossroads used CarbonFootprint.com to make some calculations based on a mythical firm of 1,000 employees that hired a mix of 240 applicants. He calculated that this company produced about 1.25 tons of carbon dioxide per hire. Imagine how much that could be reduced by implementing just one green solution into the talent management process, such as virtual interviews.

 

What if an organization made a real commitment to sustainability and looked at every touchpoint along the employee life cycle? Think about the huge impact it could have, not just from a sustainability perspective, but also from a cost-savings perspective. Sometimes the bottom line is the bottom line, and by making talent management more eco-friendly, an organization can add meaningful value to its brand and its wallet.

 

 

[About the Author: Lizz Pellet is the chief cultural officer for Emerge International and author of The Cultural Fit Factor: Creating an Employment Brand That Attracts, Retains and Repels the Right Employees.]

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