Closing the Sustainability Gap

Join a “living laboratory” in this ON-Line Employee Engagement Workshop.  Understand the research and science behind successful principles and practices for employee engagement for sustainability.  Design a program for your company or Green Team and assess your current program against best practices while learning from peers. 

 Employee engagement can be the key to the long term success of your sustainability and social responsibility initiatives. Broadly, it can also predict organizational success, financial performance and employee outcomes such as retention and attraction.   Research shows a "systems" approach to employee engagement for sustainability can be powerfully successful. When we connect with the Whole "thinking, feeling, willing, social self" - employees throughout the organization respond in surprising ways.

 The “engagement gap” is costing North American businesses in excess of $ 300 billion in lost productivity each year.  Sustainability is the real key to closing this gap.  It provides employees with the reason, opportunity, freedom and knowledge to engage in meaningful, impactful outcomes.  At a time when environmental and social sustainability needs to sweep through businesses at an unprecedented rate, employee engagement offers the power to authentically turn organizational culture toward tackling deep environmental, social and economic challenges.  It is through engaged employees that your organization will actually “walk the talk”.

 In this ON-LINE, Hands-On, Workshop we will provide you with proven practices to implement and sustain your employee engagement program and demonstrate how tools such as branding can accelerate the delivery of sustainability’s economic, environmental and social benefits to your company.

Learning Objectives

Using examples, case studies, best practices and hands-on activities, you will:

• Create the business case for Whole employee engagement for top down & bottom up “greening” of a company.
• Understand and apply the Learning Engagement Model to your company.
• Assess your engagement strategy using the System of Engagement for Sustainability.
• Consider the steps and components in an employee engagement campaign.
• Examine the 5 key steps in successfully implementing sustainability strategies with employees.
• Understand and apply 8 tools used in winning employee engagement campaigns for sustainability.
• Examine the 3 steps of the Employee Volunteering Framework and the role of employee engagement in your CSR program.
• Understand the value of and steps in creating an internal brand and internal brand communications strategy for the long-term sustainability of your program.
• Evaluate how branding can accelerate the adoption, enhance buy-in and achieve greater impact for your sustainability efforts.
• Develop a draft action plan for employee engagement and branding for your sustainability and social responsibility strategy.

Modules

Module 1 – Understanding Employee Engagement for Sustainability

 Can engagement in your sustainability initiatives give employees connection to a “higher purpose” resulting to greater productivity?  Guest Speaker: Debbie Baxter, Chief Sustainability Office, Loyalty One.

In this module:

• Define “real” employee engagement for sustainability.
• Create the business case for Whole employee engagement for top down & bottom up “greening” of a company.
• Apply the Learning Engagement Model to engagement in your company.
• Assess your engagement strategy using the System Model of Engagement for Sustainability
• Use tools to determine the best place to intervene in a system for employee engagement for sustainability.
• Hear a Best Practice Example of Employee Engagement from Guest Speaker: Debbie Baxter, Chief Sustainability Officer, LoyaltyOne.

Module 2 – Best Practices, Tips, Tools & Approaches to Success

How do you engage employees to bring your sustainability strategy to life?  In this module with Guest Speaker: Monica Daponte, Director Strategic Partnerships (including the Living Planet @ Work program) of WWF - Canada, we will:

• Understand how to maximize the effectiveness of the roles and responsibilities of Green Teams.
• Examine the 5 key steps in successfully implementing sustainability strategies with employees.
• Understand and apply 8 tools used in winning employee engagement campaigns for sustainability.
• Hear about the practical side of what works and what doesn't.

Module 3 - Building an Internal Brand to Promote and Celebrate Employee Engagement Programs

Brands promote more sustainable behaviour by informing and influencing people’s choices.  In this module led by Caroline Nolan, ThinkSustain Consulting & Natural Step Associate, a marketing communications company for sustainability, we will:

• Understand the value of creating an internal brand and internal brand communications strategy for the long-term sustainability of your program.
•       Examine the steps to creating and launching this internal brand.
•       Evaluate best practices for internal brand development for engagement.
•       Create a step-by-step plan for your organization.
•       See case studies and identify key success factors.
  

Module 4 – Engagement in Social Sustainability Projects

In the rapidly growing field of Sustainability and CSR employee engagement is essential to every CSR program.  In this module led by guest speaker, Chris Jarvis, Realized Worth we will:

• Examine the three steps of the Employee Volunteering Framework including:

o       Performing an environmental scan and benchmarking against best practices

o       Using a Canvas Design process to test and evaluate the best options for your company

o       Implementing a employee volunteer program with clear plan, objectives, and measures.

• Explore tools for increasing employee matching, volunteering and giving. 
• Discuss automating processes as prompts, recognition, rewards and feedback.
• Use Templates for bring together different types of employee volunteering and giving.

Kathryn A. Cooper, B.Sc., MBA, M.Ed. (Sustainability & Environment)
President, Sustainability Learning Centre

Kathryn is a sustainability educator bringing Green Core Competencies® to sustainability practitioners within business and goverment.  Her research on Whole Employee Engagement and Green Core Competencies® is helping to redefine sustainability's role in achieving competitive advantage in this new era of sustainability.

Debbie Baxter, Chief Sustainability Officer, LoyaltyOne

In her role as Chief Sustainability Officer, Debbie is responsible for developing and maintaining a formal program of corporate sustainability at LoyaltyOne. She spearheads a range of initiatives to “green” all business operations, helping the global leader in loyalty marketing take the lead on environmental issues as well.

Monica Daponte, Director, Strategic Partnerships, WWF-Canada

Monica leads a portfolio of relationships that further WWF-Canada's conservation goals, provide funding for conservation and help to build a conservation culture.  She leds the Living Planet @ Work program which focuses on engaging employees in reducing their environmental footprint at work.

Chris Jarvis, Co-Founder, Realized Worth

Chris Jarvis is the Co-Founder and Senior Consultant for Realized Worth located in Toronto, Canada. His expertise is in designing and implementing Employee Volunteer Programs. Over the past 20 years, he has worked alongside NPO's across North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia utilizing a model that elevates volunteerism from a task-oriented activity to a transformative experience.

Caroline Nolan, Principal, ThinkSustain & Natural Step

Caroline is the founder of ThinkSustain Consulting based in Toronto, Canada.ThinkSustain Consulting helps organizations to strategically integrate enviromental and social sustainability into their core business.
More recently, she has pursued her ever-growing interest in sustainability through consulting to Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC), a Toronto-based non-profit association for the fast-growing green roof and wall industry in North America (www.greenroofs.org) and is also currently the editor of that organization’s quarterly magazine, the Living Architecture Monitor.

Prior to starting her own venture, Caroline earned a Bachelor of Applied Arts degree (Journalism) from Ryerson University in Toronto before joining one of Canada’s largest media companies. A seasoned journalist and editor, she has launched several new editorial products and won upwards of a dozen media awards over the past 12 years.

This course will be of value to Sustainability Coordinators, Sustainability Team Leaders and Members, Sustainability Coaches and Champions, Municipal Sustainability and Communications leaders; Marketing and Corporate Communications Managers; business managers/owners and anyone planning to lead the development of a sustainability strategy within business, government or the not-for-profit sector. Bring your entire "green team" and use this workshop as a kick-off to your sustainability initiative.