How to get your staff onboard with sustainability targets

Whether you’re in charge of sustainability in your workplace or you’re simply trying to get the whole company behaving in a green manner. Sustainability is definitely one of the harder topics to coordinate with people.

Especially when for most people the response ‘not my job’ will inevitably come to mind.

We can hear it too. There are bigger priorities. Nobody knows what to do. It’s all too complicated. All completely valid responses, but sustainability is one of those aspects of the workplace that affects everyone, and everyone has an impact and something to contribute.

The same way everyone is set up with an email, everyone signs a contract, everyone interacts with sustainability at some point. When you’re trying to get people onboard, we understand it can be like trying to herd an entire farm into an eco-pen.

Those ‘team meetings’ won’t quite cut it. Especially if you’re part of a large company. But even the two-person dynamic can be difficult.

We’re going to show you how to get your staff onboard with your sustainability aspirations, but we’re going to do it in a way that significantly reduces the friction you might be accustomed to, when raising the topic.

How to approach the ‘not my jobs’

You’ve got the green light from any higher-ups. If you’re the highest up, you’ve got your plan in place, and you know what you want to achieve.

Either way, you’re in a prime position to get things done but you keep coming up against challenges.

Sustainability is not something that can fall to one person in your company. We’ve seen it time and time again. One individual takes the entire role on their back and then they spend hours and hours chasing their tail trying to get everyone to join in.

Ironically… it’s not sustainable.

It’s a really fast way to have one individual care, get severely burnt out, and then give up altogether.

This shows the importance of getting everyone on board with your sustainability goals. It’s a collective effort. More importantly, you’ll hit your target sooner with the more people on board.

There’s a very simple way to get around the ‘not my jobs’ – adapt goals to be part of their job. It might be adjusting printing practices, applying energy-saving rules or even helpful notifications around recycling more.

Gently bringing in nudging behaviours to every individual role is how you get the ‘not my jobs’ to take part in your sustainability efforts.

Getting round the ‘I don’t have time’

Everyone knows their role, including you. Everyone has agreed to their part in hitting sustainability objectives. However, there’s still the sticking point of things not happening because there’s not enough time.

When faced with this challenge, you need to ask yourself are you asking too much?

If you’re trying to reduce someone’s carbon footprint, asking them to ditch the car and cycle to work five days a week might be a rather steep starting point. Especially if you’ve tripled their commute time and they don’t even own a bike.

Think a little differently.

You want someone to reduce their carbon footprint, they live near great public transport links and there’s a company policy for railcard season loans meaning they can get trains cheaper as soon as they start using them.

This will reduce your carbon footprint instantly, and it’s far more palatable.

Remember, you’re not trying to overwhelm people with your big and life-alternating sustainability goals. You’re trying to nudge people towards a greener lifestyle. Making it as easy as possible for them to adopt.

Most people have the right intention when it comes to sustainability, they just need 90% of the heavy lifting done so that they can claim success on the remaining 10%.

Answering to the ‘this is confusing’

There’s definitely a requirement for spoon-feeding and handholding when trying to get people on board with your sustainability goals. For many, the whole thing will be confusing. But there are ways to get around it.

Stop introducing sustainability with the ‘why’.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter to the individual. If they’re willing to do as you’re asking them, they don’t need to understand why they’re doing it unless they specifically ask.

It’s a ‘keep it simple’ style of communication.

Tell people what you want them to do and how they can do it.

Anything else is additional fluffy information that most of the time, they won’t care about. Save yourself some breath or time typing, and get straight to the useful point.

Keeping it to the point

Now is the time for us to take some of our own advice by summarising all of this into something easily digestible for you.

If you’re struggling to get your workplace on board with your sustainability goals, you need to decipher why. Many people will fall into one of the following categories: ‘Not my job’, ‘I don’t have time’, and ‘I’m confused’ – from there it’s simple.

Sustainability is not just about solving a problem for the business; it’s about creating a solution that works for every individual too.