A clear signpost to attract and retain Gen Zers!
KPMG found in January 2023 that 46% of younger workers want the company they work for to demonstrate a commitment to ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance), and that 20% have turned down a job offer when the company’s ESG commitments were not in line with their values.
Careermap Media Group surveyed over 30,000 Gen Zers to find out what they are looking for from a job and found:
91% want employers to prioritise mental health
71% say they are concerned by prejudice towards LGBTQ+ people, gender equality and racism
62% want employers to share their values on sustainability and climate change
How a company treats people and planet really matter to Gen Z. With the war for talent ongoing, and every year more young people entering the labour market, businesses need to wise up to this reality or risk being left behind.
The need for a clear signpost
We live in an information-overloaded world and trying to figure out what a company actually does with regard to their environmental and social sustainability can be very difficult to understand, and even harder to trust until you see evidence of it. Someone can be given all manner of responses in an interview to their question ‘what is your company doing to care for people and planet?’ but if they start the job and see the reality is very different, they’ll soon be off to pastures new!
So how can we recruit and retain workers who really care about what their employer is doing on ESG? It is easier that you think. Ultimately, I think you need:
A clear way to communicate your values; and
Ensure those values are truly embedded throughout the organisation.
Good Business Charter accreditation provides both the clear path to communicate what you stand for, and the framework to actually embed it. With a commitment to put people first and speak the public’s language, the GBC can be really effective to enthuse both current and potential employees – and enthused, engaged employees will be more productive, more innovative and give better customer service as they proudly work for you.
“The GBC gives us a really clear way to communicate what we’re about to people and as a result we can find the right candidates for us because they are the sorts of things they also find important.” Katy Cobbold, HR Director, Wilson Wright
Good Business Charter accreditation
The Good Business Charter was set up by retail entrepreneur, Julian Richer, who has long championed the principles of responsible business. He brought the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) together to design the GBC, ensuring the voices of both businesses and workers were heard.
The GBC holds companies to account over 10 clear minimum standards which are:
Real living wage
Fairer hours and contracts
Employee wellbeing
Employee representation
Equality, diversity and inclusion
Environmental responsibility
Pay fair tax
Commitment to customers
Ethical sourcing
Prompt payment to suppliers
Many organisations that have accredited organise the other initiatives they may be involved in under the GBC framework. Wealth management company, Schroders Personal Wealth, does this through an annual Responsible Business Report. West Bromwich Building Society opted to include a section within their Annual Report.
Embedding responsible business behaviour
As mentioned, Gen Zers will soon sniff out inauthentic commitments to ESG – and may choose to shout about that over the various platforms available to them. How can you ensure any commitments you make are truly embedded into a company?
It definitely needs sign-off from the top with the CEO fully committed. Two other effective ways we have seen are firstly, elevating the role of HR Director/Head of People to your senior leadership team. How you treat your employees is so important, and yet so often the person holding this role does not have a voice into strategic decisions. Where organisations have amplified the voice of their Chief People Officer, and given them a seat at the Board, it is no surprise that a true people first culture develops.
Secondly, any commitment needs to be owned across the whole company. The GBC is effective at bringing together a number of different departments in order to achieve accreditation – for example finance, HR, sustainability and procurement. Embedding it means going beyond just doing that in order to accredit. The best organisations then form some kind of Responsible Business Group that involves employees from a range of departments who meet monthly or quarterly to keep the organisation on track and push forwards to new goals.
This can be particularly exciting for those new Gen Z employees you might recruit as it could give them an opportunity to be on this group and feed in their own ideas and see in practice that their new employer takes this stuff seriously. I guarantee it will reap dividends for you.
By Jenny Herrera, CEO of the Good Business Charter
