A company’s corporate culture is one of the most powerful tools organizations have to drive strategic goals. In contrast, it can also be the reason why some key objectives get downplayed it their performance.
Ultimately, the success or demise of corporate strategic objectives is in the ability of the company to make employees’ aware and active participants of the latter, that being DEI policies, ESG initiatives or any other similarly important corporate matters.
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Understanding the need for a solid corporate culture
We can define corporate culture as the set of values, behaviors and practices that guide and drive a company’s operations; this includes the ways in which employees interact with each other, with clients or consumers, or with other relevant stakeholders.
But what defines an actually good and solid corporate culture? We could simplify and sum it up in five key traits including transparency, open communication, trust, circulation of knowledge and skills, and engagement.
And now, taking this definition into account, we can confidently state the primary role that corporate culture plays on business success and overall performance.
Engage employees in the corporate ESG strategy
However, as company’s high level personnel focus on achieving their key corporate goals, they often times get lost in department specific metrics that do not always tell the whole truth. And so, failing to understand the role employees play in the achievement of said goals is a most common mistake.
Second to the latter, is the mistake of downplaying the contribution of the company’s workforce to no more than their own day to day tasks, in part due to weak or ineffective performance management strategies that fail to inspire motivation and improvement.
Employees’ actions, behaviors and practices are the key to business performance, and the level to which they feel empowered, motivated and engaged with company values and objectives, is directly proportionate to the level of success or achievement of corporate strategic goals.
Corporate culture and the sustainability strategy
But can a solid corporate culture actually help enhance the sustainability performance of the company? Should ESG goals permeate beyond sustainability departments?
All these are very legitimate questions; given the amount of regulatory pressure corporations have on their plate, it is hard to think of such strategic goals (like for example compliance with the latest legal text), as something to break down into employees’ day to day operations.
But, we are here to tell you that it is in fact possible to do such thing, and that it is crucial that companies begin to look at their corporate culture as a tool for sustainability metrics’ improvement. But first, we need to understand how is it that corporate culture may be downplaying your company’s sustainable efforts.
(...) your workforce might not even know the ESG objectives the company has, let alone the role they could play in their achievement.
Is corporate culture downplaying your sustainability efforts?
This is a very important question to ask, because, although employees’ may not be actively boycotting the company’s sustainability initiatives or practices, more often than not, they are merely passive participants or viewers of these practices, meaning they do not partake in any meaningful strategic achievement.
However, it is not as easy as putting the blame upon individuals regarding this passive attitude that characterizes many employees in their relationship to the sustainability objectives. Quite the opposite, your workforce might not even know the ESG objectives the company has, let alone the role they could play in their achievement.
In other words, organizations are unconsciously gatekeeping sustainability progress and performance by not developing strategies that actively involve employees’ in the achievement of key ESG goals.
Guide to employees’ sustainability training and active engagement
So, if we go back to the start for a minute, and we reevaluate what we have defined as company culture, we can reiterate that we are -to put it simply- referring to the set of values, behaviors and attitudes that define the way employees carry out their work.
And so the key to changing these passive behaviors towards company ESG goals is to focus on building a structure (or culture) of engagement and motivation. But remember, corporate culture should not be constrained to HR teams; rather, all departments should take employee engagement as a goal and KPI to help them manage progress in their strategic goals.
Breaking down ESG objectives for employee-driven impact
Lastly, the question that remains to be answered is how exactly can companies manage to leverage employees’ awareness and engagement and transform it into valuable ESG impact.
In DoGood, we aim to simplify the complex web of sustainability objectives for companies by offering a platform that translates the high-level ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) objectives into actionable tasks for every single employee.
Then, each employee not only knows how to make an impact but also feels empowered to contribute meaningfully to the greater sustainable strategy.
No more vague directives. No confusion. DoGood automates the process, making it seamless for the workforce to know precisely what steps to take.
