The Elevating Importance of Employee Engagement

Where do employees rank among business sustainability stakeholders? Who is ultimately responsible for their engagement? And how do they directly contribute to your business success?

In an attempt to answer these questions, our sustainability consulting focuses it attention on the post, Employee Engagement: Why Do It If You Can’t Do it Right?. Contained within, an Environmental Leader guest writer and professional consultant explores the relationship between engagement and company success.

“Leaders who are embracing employee engagement as a tool for supporting their sustainability efforts would be well advised to think through why they desire employee engagement, what they are trying to achieve, and how they intend to carry it out.”

Taking its points from a recent Green Research study, the post describes how employee engagement will be among the top sustainability-related initiatives in 2012. The research poses the following questions to today’s business sustainability tactics and strategies:

What are the trends in corporate sustainability budgets?

What are sustainability staffing trends?

In issues ranging from emissions reduction to water management to supply chain sustainability, how do leading companies rate their own performance and leadership?

What are the highest-priority sustainability initiatives planned for the coming year, to which companies will be dedicating significant staff and financial resources?

How influential are sustainability executives, and what are the most effective tactics for increasing influence?

What corporate sustainability ranking schemes are the most relevant, and which can be ignored?

Which sustainability-related consulting services are in highest demand, and how has that changed from the prior year?

Which global sustainability business consultants have the greatest mindshare?

It can not be overly stated that business sustainability presents the unique opportunity to increase profitability, gain and maintain a competitive advantage over the competition, and create meaningful work in the process. However, the sometimes overlooked thread bonding this concept is value of engagement and alignment. Our sustainability consulting agrees with the above research: Increasing employee engagement has a direct impact on business sustainability success.