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Engaging staff
- the why, the what and the
why not of behaviour change?
Why?
• Staff behaviours and the ability to change them is a
powerful tool in our armoury to reduce our impacts:
• 3rd of energy savings in UK carbon budgets can come from
individuals taking action (UK Energy research centre)
• Engaged employees try: harder, perform better, are happier
and are less likely to leave an organisation
• Organisational change programmes can be very
ineffective without staff engagement:
• Can cause unnecessary tensions
• Not making the most of successes
• Some of the best ideas come from the staff
• Benefits around organisational reputation
How?
Showing commitment is
important….
• Its important that your policy is signed off from the top
of the organisation
– It gives people a mandate to act on
– Important for leadership too
– Staff understand how their actions fit into wider
strategy
– Gives space for people to act and give ideas
• Through policies and certifications
Keep people in the loop…
• Really important to keep people up to date with
changes
– Agenda item on team meetings
– Green updates or inclusion on staff newsletter
– Give people a forum to discuss ideas
– Training where ever necessary
– Join up with other local organisations, or piggybag existing networks
Connect to Values
• People might get involved in an energy saving campaign for
different reasons. E.g. an enhanced company reputations,
financial savings, tips to use at home, opportunity to support a
charity through savings achieved, the social aspect of getting to
know other members of staff
• Be positive about the difference you can make, so that people
believe that change can be meaningful and effective
– Simply spelling out the facts of negative environmental
impacts and climate change, even if they seem compelling,
are not always effective
– Make the link between environmental issues at work, global
issues and people’s home and personal life
– If you put a campaign in place, please make sure you will be
able to monitor the impact of people’s actions in increasing
recycling and communicating this
Green teams
• Conduct a staff survey to understand who will be
interested in engaging with environmental initiatives
• Good to get representatives from across the
organisation
• Identify any funds that you can use for the green team
• Can be used as social occasions too – e.g. lunch
clubs, might want to also consider volunteering too
Campaigns
• Chose your focus area
• Consider any resource requirements e.g. posters, prizes to
incentivise staff participation
• Create an easily identifiable brand for your campaign e.g.
SwitchOff and create associated promotional materials
• Create a realistic goal e.g. reducing elec by 10%
• Communicate goal and baseline
• Provide simple actions and instructions for staff in order to
achieve goal
• Provide incentives for involvement e.g. prizes, professional
recognition
• Think holistically: For example if you do a campaign on cycling
to work, raise awareness on transport impacts and organise a
bike repair workshop
Celebrate success!
• Evaluate and measure where-ever possible
• Measuring and monitoring will ensure that you’re in a
strong position to communicate internally and
externally about successes
• Always refer back to your audience to understand
how to communicate on this success (Carbon, Money
etc.)
• Think of ways this can be communicated
Make it fun
• Connect with national and international
environmental days. E.g. Earth Hour, or Walk to
Work week
• Help people connect with volunteering
• Volunteering, gardening. Fits into wider staff wellbeing too
• Educational, create conversations
• Social aspect e.g. Lunch clubs?
Why not?
So, if engaging staff is the answer, why isn’t
everyone doing it?
Answer:
- it can be a lot like herding cats!
- People don’t always do what they say they are
going to do
Psychology of behavioural
change?
“Psychology is the study of human beliefs and
behaviours”
How can we apply it to the problem of people
taking action on climate change?
- Psychologically distant in time and space
- Involves uncertainty and multiple possible
outcomes
- Requires co-operation at local, national and
international levels
- Cannot be seen or touched or smelled
Some common assumptions for
making people change behaviours
• Provide people with the information you think they
need and their will change their behaviour
accordingly
• Make the problem sound scary enough and people
will take action (fear framing)
• Past behaviour is a strong indicator of future
behaviour
• Periods of transition provide opportunities to
introduce change
The attitude-behaviour gap
Aka why we sometimes say one thing and do
something completely different:
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Social norms
Perceived control over behaviour
Direct versus indirect experience
Interviewer bias
Individual barriers to
engagement & action
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Lack of knowledge
Uncertainty & scepticism
Distrust in information sources
Externalisation of responsibility & blame
Belief in technology to sort it out
Belief climate change is a distant threat
Low prioritisation amongst competing priorities
Reluctance to change lifestyles
Fatalism
Drop in the ocean feeling
Building blocks to
engagement & action
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Knowledge of issue
Understanding what action you can take
Understanding level of personal control
Attitude and inner beliefs in line with behaviour
Verbal commitment
Public commitment
Build level of the individual’s sense of
responsibility
Techniques to encourage
people to change behaviours
 Catalyst effect
Key behaviours that may lead to the adoption of other
behaviours with a similar underlying ideology (e.g.
micro-generation)
• Halo effect
Giving public praise and enthusiasm to an employee is
likely to encourage them to do more in future
• Virtuous Escalator
Get people to make any step, no matter how small
• Social norms
make it the norm
Any questions?
• [email protected]
• www.juliesbicycle.com
Further support
• www.juliesbicycle.com
• Practical Guides and Fact
sheets
• Case studies
• IG Tools videos
• Further webinars
• Phone & email support