Everybody should be concerned about the damage we’re doing to the planet. Many businesses like yours are doing their part to help contribute to a greener planet. However, humans are habitual creatures, and often need a little extra push to change their routines and natural way of life. As someone who cares about the environment, you should be incentivizing your staff to make changes so that as a team, you can do your bit to save our beautiful earth.
Not sure where to start?
Here are some tips to get the ball rolling.
Give Them an Actual Incentive
Think about it from their perspective. “My boss wants me to go green, so what?”. While the health of the planet should be enough, giving you staff more of an incentive to do so is more likely to get results. Perhaps you could offer a bonus to those who carpool and don’t waste paper and plastic, or maybe an extra day or two of paid annual leave to those that actively recycle?
Create an Alternative Method of Travelling to Work
Carpools are great for those that live scattered around the area, but if your employees live close enough together, why not eliminate cars altogether and hire a minibus to pick up your staff each morning? You can arrange to have a dedicated bus stop shelter for your team to travel to work without worrying about the damage they’re causing, and also saving them on fuel costs continually!
Switch to Paperless
The amount of trees we, as a society, cut down each day is staggering. We now live in a technical age where it’s actually now more uncommon to not have access to a computer, and it’s very likely that your business has plenty of means to go paperless. Encourage your staff to go completely paperless and do your bit to help stop the waste of paper.
Show Results
One of the best ways of proving that something is worth doing is by showing results. Pin a copy of your energy bills to the noticeboard in the staff room from before you went green as a company, and then a month or two after everyone began making a conscious effort.
You should also take all the water bottles that workers throw out in one week and show them so that they can get a sense of how much plastic they use.
Place notes on light switches, sinks and water fountains to help get the results you want, reminding workers to turn off the light when they exit the room to be mindful of how much water they are using.
Create a Greener Workplace
Finally, providing your staff with the facilities to go green will encourage people to do so. Place recycling bins around the workplace, provide people with reusable water bottles and a water fountain/water cooler in the office, and also showing that you too are trying to make an effort is sure to encourage people to change their ways.
