Jane Hanson will be speaking at the CIPD’s annual conference and exhibition in Harrogate on 18-20 September. To request a brochure, contact the CIPD • T 020 8612 6248 • www.cipd.co.uk/ace
On 5 June this year Chris Goode, CSR manager at first direct, went to work dressed as a polar bear. He wasn’t the only one. Other staff donned penguin suits for the day. They spent the first part of the morning in the company’s reception area handing out environmentally friendly jute bags containing booklets with information about the environment, bookmarks, mints, chewing gum, a voucher for an ice lolly and an entry form for a competition to win two tickets to the Live Earth concert at Wembley Stadium.
The initiative was part of first direct’s activities to mark World Environment Day, one of the main vehicles through which the UN stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment. The theme on 5 June 2007 was “Melting ice – hot topic?”, designed to focus attention on the effects of climate change on polar ecosystems and communities.
The bank also turned its intranet “arctic blue” for the day, a selection of environmentally themed goods was on sale and as many people as possible – including the chief executive and senior team – travelled to and from work on public transport.
Goode, who masterminded the day, sits within HR. But CSR only recently came under the HR umbrella. Jane Hanson, head of HR, explains: “I’ve grown more and more interested in environmental issues, and believe passionately that HR is ideally positioned to educate staff about the environment and to encourage and empower them to act in more environmentally friendly ways at work and at home. So I pitched for the CSR business, and got it.”
The purpose of the HR team at first direct is, Hanson says, “to ensure the organisation is a great place to work and to attract and retain the people best able to help us achieve our commercial goals”.
Sustaining its position as the UK’s most recommended bank takes a considerable amount of effort, and one of the things first direct has done from the outset is to provide a raft of support services (including health clinics, massage, concierge services and an on-site nursery for 300 children) to take the pressure off employees’ home lives. Its democratic, inclusive structure – manifested in the fact that chief executive Chris Pilling sits in the same vast open-plan space as the 2,500 employees at the Leeds site – helps to foster the renowned customer service that has been crucial to the bank’s success.
A five-strong organisational development team within HR focuses exclusively on identifying and linking issues of national and global importance with issues that are important to staff. “Because the team has both an external and internal focus, we can take a holistic approach to, for example, learning and development and benefiting the outside community, by getting our staff to give presentations to schoolchildren. It all meshes together,” Hanson says.
Over the past 12 months this team has identified the environment as becoming what Hanson calls “a burning platform”. She explains: “People are really interested in green issues and as a business we need to behave in a more environmentally responsible way. HR has a great opportunity to put the two things together.”
The company has already introduced a range of green initiatives. For example, its travel policy promotes car sharing and greater use of public transport. A shuttle bus runs every 20 minutes between Leeds railway station and the bank’s offices 15 minutes away, and carries about 200 passengers every day. Staff can get a discounted travel pass under the company benefit scheme. The “commute” section on the intranet provides a list of alternatives to single-occupancy car use, and employees can search for car-sharing partners by postcode or shift pattern. There are already 250 registered car sharers, who are allowed to park directly in front of the building.
The average distance to work for staff is 17 miles, so cycling is not an option for most, but around 30 people do cycle in and the company has installed extra showers and bigger lockers to help them, while making pool bikes available to others who would like to try it out.
Most of these measures came from the Environment and Travel Group, a group of volunteers from across the business who promote green ideas in the company (see panel, facing page). One manifestation of the dialogue between the group and the business is a new conservation area in the grounds. Created from an overgrown railway siding cleared by members of the group, “Birchbank” is used by staff wanting a bit of fresh air and by nursery children learning about plants and animals.
In April the company installed an array of solar panels on the roof – an initiative that came from first direct’s parent HSBC Group. As well as creating sufficient energy to power the nursery, the panels display exactly how much energy they are creating and how much CO2 they are saving. HSBC invested £100,000 in the pioneering technology, which the Leeds site is trialling for the group as a whole.
Carbon-neutral since 2005, first direct had a free audit by the Carbon Trust in January that identified potential financial savings of over £125,000 if energy reducing recommendations were followed. Goode set up a carbon reduction team comprising himself, HSBC property people and engineers from Carillion, HSBC’s facilities management company, to look at the practicalities of implementing the trust’s recommendations.
The team is already making progress. External lighting has been replaced with more energy-efficient alternatives and the company is looking at shutting down half of the building completely during the evenings and weekends.
“Technology is improving all the time – for example, we recently installed new fridges that are 15 per cent more efficient than previous versions, and our “night watchman” computer program automatically shuts down PCs at 7pm if people are not logged on,” Goode says. “All our paper is recycled on Forest Stewardship Council approved paper, we have low-flush loos and our lights are on sensors. Our CO2 emissions were down 305 tonnes [about 3.5 per cent] in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year.”
But to get real change, Goode says, you need to change employees’ behaviour. So, for example, as well as making it easy for staff to recycle paper at work by providing colour-coded bins close to their desks, he worked with the internal communications team to create a “sellable” message. This was manifested in an initiative called “virtual forests”, linked to the drive to persuade customers not to print out paper statements. To demonstrate to staff how much paper they could save by suppressing paper statements, Goode and his team built a paper mountain in reception last December and decorated it like a Christmas tree.
But what Goode calls “the biggest engagement piece for us on the environment” is the HSBC Climate Partnership, launched in May (see News, PM 14 June, page 10;
“A little more conservation”, PM 11 January, page 32). A five-year, $100 million (£50 million) partnership between HSBC and four charities – the Climate Group, Earthwatch, the WWF and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute – the project will engage employees in two stages. The first, which kicks off in September, will consist of
e-learning about climate change. The second stage will see staff getting involved in local environmental projects and the creation of around 100 climate champions in first direct alone who will observe projects around the world and bring ideas back to the business.
Recent HSBC research found that 87 per cent of employees felt more engaged with socially responsible employers, while more than 10 per cent of recent graduates said CSR was one of the top three factors influencing their choice of employer. first direct’s own research also shows a strong link between engagement and CSR. Last year’s employee focus survey found that 75 per cent of employees believed the business operated ethically, an increase of 7 per cent on 2005, while 64 per cent thought the bank was environmentally responsible, also up 7 per cent on the previous year. Voluntary attrition rates at the bank were around 15 per cent, compared with what Incomes Data Services puts at 29 per cent for financial call centres as a whole.
“We are doing another survey in September and we expect to see an increase in these figures, reflecting the big environmental drive over the past year,” Hanson says. “But we also get lots of qualitative feedback from staff, and the proof of the pudding lies in the fact that many of our carbon-saving initiatives come from employees.”
The suggestion by Sopiah Miah, management co-ordinator for the marketing department, that staff could bring rubbish in from home and recycle it at work led to her being invited to join the Environment and Travel Group.
“It is really easy and effortless to do things such as recycling, and I think we should all do what we can to encourage others,” Miah says. “We are like a big family at first direct, and it could be quite powerful if we all grouped together to raise people’s awareness and involvement in environmental issues. In the same way that behaving well to each other at work feeds through into the way we behave on the phone with customers, if we can change our culture on environmental issues that too should feed through to customers. Also, if we show we are a conscientious company in terms of helping the world to become a better place, then we will be more liked by our customers.”
Another employee, business test analyst Karen Stephens, is also a member of the Environment and Travel Group. “I am passionate about green issues but I found out only very recently that this group existed,” she says. “I think more people would get involved if they realised there was a forum to do so.”
Raising awareness of how employees can engage with environmental initiatives is high on the list of Hanson’s priorities. “We don’t go in for the idea of ‘greenwashing’ and raving on our website about all the things we do,” she says. “Rather, we want to genuinely embed a green approach in the way we do business.”
Striking a balance between attracting people’s attention but doing things that are consistent with the company’s culture and values will be at the heart of Hanson’s team’s new focus on “compelling communications”. She explains: “The appetite is there and people genuinely want to do good things, but we have to make more of the opportunities on offer and make it easy for employees to engage with green initiatives.”
The internal communications department reports to marketing, not HR, but the three teams sit near to each other and, says Hanson, “we work closely together on projects of common interest towards the same goals. Reporting lines don’t really matter.”
What does matter is the way line managers behave. “The two critical drivers of engagement are the environment you work in and how your line manager interacts with you,” she says. “In the context of embedding environmental behaviour it comes down to things such as role modelling – for example, dressing up for World Environment Day or struggling in to work by public transport – and creating time for people. If a member of the team asks their manager if they can embark on a particular green initiative, the immediate response has to be positive, otherwise it will have a big negative impact on people’s perceptions of the organisational values.”
Making time for environmental issues is critical, continues Hanson. “It isn’t a marginal activity,” she says, adding that another focus for her team over the coming months will be developing mechanisms for rewarding socially and environmentally responsible behaviour. “We want to create a thank-you culture that celebrates, for example, people who car shared for an entire year, and we want to hold an annual awards dinner that recognises exemplary values-based behaviour.”
Research shows a direct correlation between an environmentally friendly organisation, a strong employer brand and healthy commercial success, and Hanson believes HR plays a pivotal role in this equation. “While marketing tends to focus on building commercially sustainable organisations, the HR perspective is to create sustainable workplaces, communities and societies by helping to replace the energy that we draw from society. In so doing we can create happy staff and look after tomorrow’s customers today,” she says.
‘Greening’ the business
The Environment and Travel Group was formed two years ago in response to growing interest by both staff and customers in first direct’s environmental policies and record. “HSBC had just set up a charity partnership with Earthwatch, which raised people’s awareness about the environment,” says Chris Goode, first direct’s CSR manager.
The group currently has about 15 members from different areas, roles and levels of responsibility around the business, and its remit is to come up with ideas for “greening” the business and ways of implementing them; to stimulate awareness, interest and ideas from their teams; and to encourage greener working practices.
Among the initiatives generated are the recycling stations around the building, most of the green travel measures, the night watchman computer shut-down program and clearing and maintaining the Birchbank conservation area.
The group was recently renamed The CSR Forum, and will embrace a wider range of charitable and community activities and involve a wider group of volunteers. “We have done this in recognition that the environment and CSR are inextricably linked,” Goode says.
A factsheet, The environment and people management, offering practical help on how HR can go green and a list of helpful resources, can be accessed at the CIPD’s website • www.cipd.co.uk/factsheets