Sustainability is fundamentally a human issue, said Paul Hannam, president of Bright Green Talent, at the start of this session on recruiting and retaining top talent. To address today’s challenges you’ve got to understand the cultural and psychological factors at play.

While a relatively small number of people make the difference in organizations, talent is the greatest source of competitive advantage. At the same time, organizations are competing for the same top 10% of candidates in a talent market that is more mobile then ever. Given that 81% of U.S. respondents to a recent Ipsos Mori Survey stated that they would prefer working for a company that has a good reputation for environmental responsibility, it’s safe to say that a strong reputation for sustainability can improve a company’s capacity to recruit.

Attracting, Engaging, and Retaining Leaders

With the cost of replacing a senior manager averaging at 200K, retention can have a significant impact on the bottom line. Engaged employees are more likely to stay and are higher-performing overall, Hannam said. He recommends the following three strategies to attract, engage, and retain top talent:

1. Career Development. Offer a compelling salary and benefits (that’s a no-brainer). Make sure to explain how potential recruits can engage their values and grow inside your organization.
2. Employee Engagement. Many people experience a divergence between the way they work and the way they live. Bring these into convergences to engage people at the values level. People want more today. Personal, spiritual and professional development and growth opportunities all attract extraordinary people.
3. Commitment to Service. Show that your organization applies its values to everything it does. Be specific! Prospective employees want to hear about:
   • Integration of green in mission and values
   • Green products and services
   • Green building and practices
   • Green transport policies
   • Employee programs
   • Community events

Once you’ve developed your value proposition, set up a green recruitment brand - essentially an elevator pitch for why your company is a great place to work.

Cases In Point: Interface & Seventh Generation

Joyce LaValle, SVP of Marketing for InterfaceFLOR, took the session floor to reflect on her company’s experience with recruitment and retention. Interface has the benefit of a stellar reputation as a sustainability innovator. Fifteen years ago, Interface shifted from a Take, Make, Waste mode of operating to a plan the company calls Mount Sustainability. (For a video clip of what inspired CEO Ray Anderson to reposition the company, click here.)

But engaging this work on the outside must be accompanied by the work on the inside, LaValle said, and Interface soon set about engaging employees around the company’s new mission by playing to their strengths. Interface uses the Gallup’s tools for Strengths-Based Development to evaluate each employee’s unique abilities and level of engagement. People want to be known and understood, and be able to make a difference, LaValle explained. This is a life process. Interface’s Mission Zero sustainable strategy has been a significant attractor of top employees to the company. Thanks to Interface’s highly committed workforce, the rate of innovation at the company has reached extraordinary levels, according to LaValle.

Jeffrey Hollender, CEO of Seventh Generation, called developing employee programs is a sloppy creative process, emphasizing that it’s ok to make mistakes as long as they’re dealt with quickly. When hiring a candidate, values always must come first and skills second, according to Hollender. If a person doesn’t align with the company’s values they will do far more damage than good, regardless of their skills for the job.

Conversely, once you’ve got your team in place it’s important to support a strong sense of we all succeed and fail together. (To that end, Seventh Generation does not give individual bonuses.) An atmosphere of openness and transparency helps, according to Hollender. For example, reporters regularly roam Seventh Generation’s offices, free to ask anyone anything. It’s a testament to our open environment and culture, Hollender said. He also suggested that companies should freely disclose their employee turnover rates, because that kind of metric tells people what’s really going on.

(For more on building a strong culture of sustainability at Seventh Generation, click here.)

The Bottom Line

Today’s employees look for much more then the traditional salary and benefits in their work, Hannam concluded. Happy people want creativity and innovation, and they want to work with like-minded people in healthy context where they are appreciated and find meaning and purpose in their work. What’s great about green is it brings all these things together.

~Revi Schlesinger, RVN Consulting