Wednesday, March 3, 2010, 8:55am PST | Modified: March 10, 2010, 8:46 AM

Employee engagement matters more than ever

by Mike Mercer
Northwest Earth Institute

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Top-down driven initiatives with marginal bottom-up support were a hallmark of the industrial economy. But today, the job preferences of a younger work force and the health of ecological, social and economic systems demand a more integrated and engaged approach.

In a survey commissioned by National Geographic magazine in 2008, more than 80 percent of U.S. workers polled said they believe it is important to work for an employer that makes the environment a top priority.

Want to get right to the bottom line? A recent Gallup study estimates more than $300 billion in productivity is squandered within the U.S. workforce due to disengaged employees. Furthermore, the same Gallup study indicates organizations with an engaged workforce have 2.6 times the earnings per share growth rate compared to organizations in the same industry with a less-engaged workforce. Sustainability programs serve as an important part of organizations’ broader strategies for activating and engaging employees.

Make sense? The next likely question is what then constitutes employee engagement and how is it fostered? After working with more than 115,000 people from across the country, the Northwest Earth Institute has discovered that employee engagement moves along a progression starting with creating a context for change, to creating an incentive to change and finally putting the context and incentive into action.

Create the context for change

Employees of Standard Insurance Company meet in small groups to educate themselves on questions like: Where we are relative to a sustainable future? How we got here and what a vision for going forward looks like? These employees, working with management, are now helping to inform The Standard’s sustainability plan and champion the efforts to carry it out amongst their co-workers.

Build the incentive to change

For many, a clear understanding of how their actions contribute to or detract from a sustainable future provides all the incentive needed to begin immediate changes in behavior — others need a little external motivation.

I recently spoke with a local business representative of a 700-plus employee firm who provided a financial incentive to encourage alternative forms of transportation to work. As a result, 60 percent of employees came to work in something other than a single-occupancy car. Interestingly, when the employer shifted the incentive to a new behavior the company was trying to encourage, little changed with the transportation behavior. One might think the old behaviors would return with a lack of incentive. But 55 percent of the employees still use alternative forms of transportation without the financial incentive. Why? Employees had developed a new of set of structures and beliefs (the social benefits of car pooling, reading on the bus, cycling exercise, etc) supporting their transportation behaviors.

While financial incentives may be part of the mix, social dynamics are every bit as powerful. There is a good deal of research that would support residential recycling rates in Portland are strong, not just because recycling is a good and simple thing to do, but also because citizens don’t want to be the only one in the neighborhood without the yellow (now blue) bins in their front yards on pick-up day.

Move to action

Business leaders often want to start with a move to action without having first laid the foundation (context and incentive) to support long-term change. Once in place, however, employees want and need a system to support coordinated action. A recent employee engagement report released by Brighter Planet indicated, “the more an employer had a system for employees to share ideas and best practices, the more likely that initiative was to succeed, almost three to one.” FMYI [for my innovation], a Portland company, provides a workplace collaboration site that blends a community-building internal social network with tools for managing projects and sharing best practices.

Smart leaders recognize employee-driven actions, in all sizes, are important to building a culture supporting positive change while providing a gateway to larger innovations that will in part transform business toward a true sustainable economy.

Mike Mercer is the executive director of the Northwest Earth institute., a Portland nonprofit organization created to inspire sustainable behavior change at the personal and organizational levels.