Sustainability is a big buzz word in the corporate world right now for many reasons. One is that companies are looking toward becoming greener in order to create a stronger and more appealing corporate identity. Becoming more sustainable can also help a business be more efficient in terms of money and resources, and there are even grants and government programs that reward businesses for their sustainability efforts.
Although higher-ups within an organization may already have a grasp on why they feel it’s important to become more sustainable, it can be challenging to impart these ideas on employees, which is why so many businesses are implementing sustainability-based training as part of their overall employee development programs.
For businesses, even those dedicated to being eco-friendly and fostering a green workplace, understanding how to train employees on these topics presents some difficulties.
When you begin developing sustainability-centric training, keep these 5 tips in mind:
- Show your employees how sustainability training is directly related to their jobs. All training regardless of topic or goal is made more effective by establishing direct relevance for employees and this includes sustainability. The value of using e-Learning as your primary delivery system for sustainability training is that you can quickly and easily customize training so that it’s individually applicable to teams or departments. You can inexpensively tailor each area of sustainability training to show the impact it has on individual departments.
- Create a large picture of the importance of sustainability not only to individuals within their own roles but also the organization as a whole. Use training as a way to deliver a larger-picture message and show employees how their own efforts toward sustainability are going to help the organization achieve those goals both in the present and the future.
- Don’t just tell—also show. Using e-Learning to deliver eco-minded employee training is ideal because you don’t just have to provide employees with dry information and facts about sustainability and being greener. You have the opportunity to include unique multimedia features and other online-based elements that make this type of training more engaging and interesting as well as more impactful. With training aimed at creating a greener workplace you can incorporate case studies which encourage employees to think critically about the topics at hand, you can use videos and audio and you can also use a variety of graphics that make the content feel more compelling.
- Bring your employees into the sustainability training process by using social features within your web-based training. Sustainability is certainly a topic that’s at the forefront of quite a few discussions these days so use that to your advantage when it comes to training and developing employees. Utilize features like discussion boards and forums that actively engage employees with one another so they can not just be trained but also become part of the discussion about workplace sustainability.
- Keep sustainability training as an on-going part of your employee development program. Let this type of training grow and expand over time, rather than offering it as a one-time part of your training program. By keeping sustainability and eco-friendly businesses practices as a central tenant of your training program it will reflect how important it is to your organization and this will have an impact on how important your employees see it to be as well.
When you’re willing to engage in a sustainability training program you’re not just doing something good for the environment—you’re also doing something good for your business.
In today’s marketplace good business is all about corporate responsibility and through sustainability training you can not only create an internal corporate culture that’s focused on doing good through business, but you can also create workplace where efficiency in all areas is paramount.
Assess The Effectiveness of Your Training – Kirkpatrick Model
- How does E-Learning Drive Productivity in the Global Business? See for yourself.