Communications and leadership teams play central roles in embedding and promoting sustainability. Close collaboration is core to maximising employee engagement and thus positively impacting sustainability.
Developments in sustainability and ESG continue at an unprecedented pace. New advances occur daily, adding further complexity to an already multifaceted environment. The question is, how can communications professionals work better with leadership to make this space more accessible for our employees?
Communications professionals play a pivotal role in the transition to a more sustainable way of working and living. We ensure internal and external transparency, understanding, and engagement with an organisation’s sustainability strategies and initiatives.
Many factors influence maximising communications' positive contributions to sustainability. Perhaps the most critical is close alignment and collaboration between communications and leadership teams because it’s the role of the communications function to translate the leadership vision into tangible messages around strategy and actions. Large organisations will particularly find this to be the case due to their complex networks of decision-makers and stakeholders.
In this article I share some learnings and best practices for achieving employee engagement through embedding and supporting sustainability via collaboration between leadership and communications teams.
Communications as a strategic business function
Possible challenge: Communications is not viewed as a strategic business function by an organisation’s leadership
Solution: Embedding communications as a strategic business function with a seat at the leadership table
Embedding communications as a strategic function in an organisation is crucial across all aspects of the business and equally supports the organisation's sustainability strategy. Entrenching a sustainability strategy within an organisation requires leadership buy-in and support across all operational areas. Communication is the glue that binds teams to a strategic sustainability vision, giving guidance to leadership and those driving and managing the sustainability function and generating employee engagement and support.
Top tips:
Employee involvement across the organisation
Possible challenge: Finding optimal ways to engage employees in sustainability programmes
Solution: Early involvement of staff in long-term strategies and initiatives, underpinned by education and learning
When employee ambitions align with a company's goals, it fosters an organic sense of purpose and ultimately leads to higher engagement levels. Most employees want to participate actively in their organisation and do good things. Enabling them to take an active part in your sustainability programme at an early stage encourages strong engagement, buy-in and a feeling of ownership, which will boost success. It also enables leadership to listen and for people to be heard – essential elements for success.
Laying the groundwork for employees to be involved and engaged in sustainability initiatives should start early, as involving employees at the launch date is often too late.
Top tip:
Educate as you communicate
Start with the basics via a simple education programme. Everyone will have different levels of understanding, which can, in turn, influence their priorities. An education programme should be relatable and pinpoint areas where employees can make a difference. As mentioned earlier, sustainability and ESG are complex areas, with many acronyms covering many facets – the E (environment), S (social), and G (governance) catchall may be one of the simpler ways to explain what we do, but each element is connected in ways that one cannot imagine – until you start working in this field. And if this is not your day job, it can be hard to understand its impact on you or how you can make a difference by supporting your organisation’s initiatives.
Education takes time and costs money – another reason for having your leadership team's buy-in.
Finally, don’t forget feedback and celebration. One of communications’ central roles in sustainability programmes is highlighting accomplishments and recognising achievements using authentic stories featuring employees and other stakeholders.
Top tip:
Engaging diverse stakeholders with differing priorities
Possible challenge: Aligning sustainability efforts with diverse groups of leaders with differing priorities
Solution: Establish communication channels that work for different stakeholders
Finding the most effective ways of engaging different stakeholder groups is a core part of any communications team’s work when supporting the sustainability function. This is doubly so in larger organisations, where stakeholder and leadership groups are located across multiple jurisdictions. Additionally, each country and team will have different priorities and maturity levels that should be considered when developing and communicating the overarching sustainability strategy.
Understanding where teams are in their sustainability journey helps guide the sustainability function in focusing efforts on areas that are most important and impactful to each of them, while aligning with the overarching strategy. This, in turn, needs to be supported by the communications function, which should understand which messages to deliver at the appropriate times. Engaging leadership teams early on is essential.
Top tips:
In conclusion
The communications function has a strategic role to play in driving a sustainability programme. Ensuring we have the trust and support of leadership, that we are supported to engage employees through every step of the programme and that we can communicate the right messages to key teams at the appropriate time is essential to any sustainability programme’s success.
Developments in sustainability and ESG continue at an unprecedented pace. New advances occur daily, adding further complexity to an already multifaceted environment. The question is, how can communications professionals work better with leadership to make this space more accessible for our employees?
Communications professionals play a pivotal role in the transition to a more sustainable way of working and living. We ensure internal and external transparency, understanding, and engagement with an organisation’s sustainability strategies and initiatives.
Many factors influence maximising communications' positive contributions to sustainability. Perhaps the most critical is close alignment and collaboration between communications and leadership teams because it’s the role of the communications function to translate the leadership vision into tangible messages around strategy and actions. Large organisations will particularly find this to be the case due to their complex networks of decision-makers and stakeholders.
In this article I share some learnings and best practices for achieving employee engagement through embedding and supporting sustainability via collaboration between leadership and communications teams.
Communications as a strategic business function
Possible challenge: Communications is not viewed as a strategic business function by an organisation’s leadership
Solution: Embedding communications as a strategic business function with a seat at the leadership table
Embedding communications as a strategic function in an organisation is crucial across all aspects of the business and equally supports the organisation's sustainability strategy. Entrenching a sustainability strategy within an organisation requires leadership buy-in and support across all operational areas. Communication is the glue that binds teams to a strategic sustainability vision, giving guidance to leadership and those driving and managing the sustainability function and generating employee engagement and support.
Top tips:
- Appoint a sustainability sponsor in your leadership team
- KPIs for sustainability communication should ultimately support the business strategy
- Embed a communications professional in your sustainability team
Employee involvement across the organisation
Possible challenge: Finding optimal ways to engage employees in sustainability programmes
Solution: Early involvement of staff in long-term strategies and initiatives, underpinned by education and learning
When employee ambitions align with a company's goals, it fosters an organic sense of purpose and ultimately leads to higher engagement levels. Most employees want to participate actively in their organisation and do good things. Enabling them to take an active part in your sustainability programme at an early stage encourages strong engagement, buy-in and a feeling of ownership, which will boost success. It also enables leadership to listen and for people to be heard – essential elements for success.
Laying the groundwork for employees to be involved and engaged in sustainability initiatives should start early, as involving employees at the launch date is often too late.
Top tip:
- Involve employees from different functions and different levels of seniority in your sustainability programme
Educate as you communicate
Start with the basics via a simple education programme. Everyone will have different levels of understanding, which can, in turn, influence their priorities. An education programme should be relatable and pinpoint areas where employees can make a difference. As mentioned earlier, sustainability and ESG are complex areas, with many acronyms covering many facets – the E (environment), S (social), and G (governance) catchall may be one of the simpler ways to explain what we do, but each element is connected in ways that one cannot imagine – until you start working in this field. And if this is not your day job, it can be hard to understand its impact on you or how you can make a difference by supporting your organisation’s initiatives.
Education takes time and costs money – another reason for having your leadership team's buy-in.
Finally, don’t forget feedback and celebration. One of communications’ central roles in sustainability programmes is highlighting accomplishments and recognising achievements using authentic stories featuring employees and other stakeholders.
Top tip:
- Implement an education programme that addresses why sustainability is important, what it means for each employee and how they can do to make a difference in their role
Engaging diverse stakeholders with differing priorities
Possible challenge: Aligning sustainability efforts with diverse groups of leaders with differing priorities
Solution: Establish communication channels that work for different stakeholders
Finding the most effective ways of engaging different stakeholder groups is a core part of any communications team’s work when supporting the sustainability function. This is doubly so in larger organisations, where stakeholder and leadership groups are located across multiple jurisdictions. Additionally, each country and team will have different priorities and maturity levels that should be considered when developing and communicating the overarching sustainability strategy.
Understanding where teams are in their sustainability journey helps guide the sustainability function in focusing efforts on areas that are most important and impactful to each of them, while aligning with the overarching strategy. This, in turn, needs to be supported by the communications function, which should understand which messages to deliver at the appropriate times. Engaging leadership teams early on is essential.
Top tips:
- Don’t use a one-size fits all approach. Tailor channels and messages to each audience and use the language of their business area to explain why it is important to them
- Add gravitas to your efforts by using subject matter experts to underscore the importance of the different focus areas of your programme
In conclusion
The communications function has a strategic role to play in driving a sustainability programme. Ensuring we have the trust and support of leadership, that we are supported to engage employees through every step of the programme and that we can communicate the right messages to key teams at the appropriate time is essential to any sustainability programme’s success.
