How Sustainability Can Impact Your Recruiting Efforts

Corporate sustainability has become an important consideration for a growing number of employees, with a resulting impact on companies’ recruiting efforts. Increasingly, employees want to work for a company that has a sustainability plan because it helps the environment and makes the company more profitable.

Sustainability has typically been associated with a company’s carbon footprint, but that is only one aspect of the concept. The term refers to any process that can continue indefinitely either through being maintained or improved upon. 

Companies that are sustainable ensure they will have a healthy bottom line because they have found the most efficient ways of doing things at reasonable costs they can afford into the future.

The Impact of Sustainability on Recruiting 

Using your company’s sustainability plan as part of your recruiting methods lets potential candidates know sustainability matters to the company and is part of the company culture. Candidates for whom sustainability matters will be drawn to your company and more likely to apply to work there. You can then hire talent accordingly.

Sustainability and recruiting go two ways, however. If your company wants sustainability to be part of its culture, it will have to recruit employees for whom sustainability is an important priority. This is not always apparent at the resume-screening stage, but it can be part of the interview process.

Walking the Walk

Having a written sustainability plan is important, but it’s equally important to be following through on sustainability efforts and not just paying them lip service to attract the right millennial employees. Here are some easy but important things your company can do to show that it values sustainability:

• Reduce your carbon footprint in practical ways like using LED light bulbs, allowing remote work when possible, and having active recycling protocols.
• While the typical recyclables are a place to start, having a box for hard-to-recycle items like batteries, light bulbs, and electronics takes things further.
• Establish an efficiency team that will recommend and implement best practices for efficiency within the business not only with environmental initiatives, but companywide.
• Empower employees to find new ways to be more efficient and sustainable and implement employee-generated ideas that make sense. 

In matters like sustainability, word of mouth is important. When your company is making a genuine effort and is thoughtfully considering initiatives that will have greater impacts, your existing employees will tell others what you are doing and encourage them to come on board. 

GDH offers recruiting help tailored to your specific needs. Contact us for more information on everything we can do to help your company find the top talent it needs. 

Posted on May 12, 2022, 01: 10PM