Could the future UK workplace become a more ethical place to be? According to a recent survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, graduates place a very high value on a company's corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies. The survey found that 71% of recent UK graduates would rather work for a business with strong ethical values, while an even bigger number, 76%, said they would actually consider leaving a firm because of its CSR policies – or lack of them.
Countless other surveys over the years have confirmed that, as well as appealing to clients and customers, ethical businesses find it easier to recruit and retain staff. A BT survey, for example, found that for more than one-third of young professionals, working for a caring and responsible employer was more important even than the salary they earned.
Professor Stephen Brammer, director of the Centre for Business, Organisations and Society, says these findings show that a keen interest in the ethics of potential employers is very much in the zeitgeist for young employees. "These different career expectations are likely to require significant change in practices," he says. "Particularly in knowledge-intensive settings where retention of high-value talent is competitively crucial."
Of course, with the recession in full swing, many companies are actively trying to shed staff, not recruit more, but it would be folly to suggest they try to achieve this by compromising their ethics.
At its heart, Prof Brammer explains, CSR is about justice. "Naturally, employees, particularly in an increasingly de-unionised workforce, are concerned for the degree of fairness and justice an employer extends to them. Among other reasons, firms with strong corporate responsibility records are attractive to employees because workers perceive that they are more likely to be fair in their direct interactions with their staff."
This becomes even more important during a recession when workers feel particularly vulnerable. Many firms struggling to balance the books may be tempted to trim their CSR schemes as a way of saving money. However, while cutting CSR may seem like an obvious way to help the bottom line, research and logic suggest otherwise.
A recent report by Business in the Community found that companies that actively managed and measured CSR issues outperformed peers financially by between 3.3% and 7.7% over a five-year period. It makes sense. A happy, motivated workforce is going to lead to improved productivity, while any sensible business mindful of its long-term prospects will be open to suggestions on how it can improve its ethical credentials, and employees shouldn't feel shy about putting them forward.
If your firm is worried about the cost of CSR schemes, point out to it that many are run by outside agencies and require businesses to cover no more than the admin costs. A Charities Aid Foundation scheme known as Give As You Earn, for example, allows employees to set up regular charity donations that come straight out of their salary before tax, increasing the amount the charity receives.
Another scheme run and funded externally is the government's Cycle to Work scheme, which allows employees to purchase a bike for cycling to work tax-free. The scheme is designed to help businesses create a fitter, healthier and (in gridlocked cities) more punctual workforce. It may even be able to free up some valuable car-parking spaces for something else – a small garden, perhaps?
To encourage greener commuting, employers (or employees) can set up a car-sharing club. Staff who work similar hours and live near one another can share lifts, rather than driving in separate cars. The website liftshare.com will do all the hard work, setting up a special online database to help you find colleagues to share lifts with.
Many ethical practices simply make good business sense. Reducing waste, for example, is a no-brainer for any firm and there are lots of simple things businesses can do: setting printers to print double-sided, encouraging staff to turn off lights in empty rooms, turning the heating down slightly – these will all save money and help reduce a company's carbon footprint.
Changes such as these may have once sat at the edges of corporate thinking, but for the many employees today an ethical workplace is a serious concern. Companies that ignore their ethical responsibilities do so at their peril.
cyclescheme.co.uk; liftshare.com
Case study: sky-high city garden
High on a windy roof in central London is a small, verdant oasis. In hand-woven wicker beds grow rows and rows of organic vegetables: potatoes, cabbages, swiss chard, alpine strawberries. At lunchtimes or early in the morning during the summer, staff from the design company Wolff Olins can be seen weeding, planting and harvesting. The herbs and vegetables are then used in the company's in-house staff restaurant downstairs.
"The company was created 40 years ago with a spirit of optimism and creativity," explains the company's managing director, Sairah Ashman. "It has always been about experimenting and putting things back. So when we looked at how we could improve our sustainability, a garden was a natural choice."
A large, sunny roof was also a factor. As was the fact that the company restaurant, which provides subsidised three-course meals to staff at lunchtimes, has always been at the heart of the company.
Only a year old, the garden has already been a huge success and contributed to many of the restaurant's meals. "It has touched everyone in the company in some way," says Ashman. "And it acts as a visible symbol of our sustainable vision." While the company has also changed to energy-saving lightbulbs, removed personal bins, to encourage recycling, and switched to double-sided printing, it is not surprisingly the garden that has caught the imagination of staff.
Before planting began, the company brought in an expert and held a basket-weaving day to make the vegetable beds. "Everyone got involved," says design director Bethany Koby. "We also had a planting party at the beginning and everyone got to plant something with their name on it, such as Rana's raspberries."
A gardening club made up of staff members is responsible for the day-to-day running of the garden, while other staff members are encouraged to chip in.
Building manager Stuart Robertson says the garden makes going to work more enjoyable. "Rather than just going from a house to an office, it gives you some interaction with nature during your day. People enjoy the fact that they're getting their hands dirty."
The project has also brought together people from different parts of the company who may otherwise not have met. "There's a real fun element to it," says Robertson. "And we're learning things all the time. We're doing crop rotation, which probably hasn't happened in King's Cross in 100 years."
Regular input is given by Global Generation, a nearby community organisation which involves young people in environmental projects. It had already built a number of other roof gardens in the area and so provided Wolff Olins with valuable experience, as well as connecting the project to the wider community.
"Global Generation have been invaluable in getting the garden up and running," says Koby. "They talked us through our options and helped us decide what to put up there." As well as vegetable beds, the garden has a large water butt for collecting rainwater. This reduces runoff, saves the company water, and is better for the plants than normal tap water.
There's a wormery for recycling garden waste and food scraps from the kitchen into compost. When there is too much food waste, it gets sent off with a composting firm to be turned into mulch, which is then returned and put on the garden, completing a healthy, sustainable food cycle.
This project was started just as the recession was kicking in, but there was never any chance the company was going to let financial pressures curtail it. "It hasn't cost very much to do, and the returns in terms of staff benefits have been huge," says Ashman.
Office ethics
Get colleagues to wear more (or fewer) clothes
In Japan they call it CoolBiz. Rather than cranking up the air conditioning on hot days, they ditch their suits and come to work in short sleeves. In the UK, the energy used to heat offices is more of a concern than air conditioning. Rather than turning the office into a furnace over the winter, ask staff to wear warmer clothes and turn the heating down a degree or two – though not too far or you may provoke a mutiny.
Replace power-hungry computers
Computers and related technologies account for between 3% and 4% of the world's carbon emissions – that's more than the much-maligned aviation industry. The biggest culprit is your firm's data centre – the average British data centre uses more energy than the entire residential population of Leicester. So what's in yours? Do you even know? Get your data centre manager to use the most energy-efficient hardware and cooling systems possible or, if you outsource your data centre, switch to one powered by renewable sources of energy.
Take the train
With road freight accounting for around 8% of the UK's carbon emissions, any responsible business should consider finding a more environmentally friendly alternative. According to Network Rail and the rail freight operator EWS, an average freight train can remove 50 HGVs from the road, reducing emissions between five and 10 times.
Share a group hug
The ethical message has a tendency sometimes to come across as a bit worthy, and unfortunately this can put many people off, particularly at work. Getting your colleagues involved in a national initiative, such as National Bike to Work Week, or the 10:10 campaign supported by the Guardian, is a more light-hearted and inclusive way to approach things and can get people doing things they may never otherwise have done.
Voluteer during work time
Ask your company to consider setting up an employer-supported volunteering scheme and connect with the local community. This can involve anything from staff helping local schoolchildren with their reading, to digging a garden for a local hospice.
Volunteer activities can take place at lunchtimes or weekends if time is too tight during office hours. In return for encouraging staff to get out of the office, companies benefit from employees who feel happier in their jobs, a visible commitment to their CSR, a fairly cheap staff benefit and a positive presence in the community. Employees can also pick up new skills from volunteering, which they bring back into the workplace – such as leadership or organisational skills. The benefits are clear enough for a reported 70% of FTSE 100 companies to run such schemes.
