Creating a Carbon-Efficient Workforce: A Guide for Companies

Here we go then, the crux of the issue and the main reason I would like to engage with anyone committed and interested in taking steps to reduce their Carbon Emissions.

If you’ve followed this blog series, then you’ll know that I am basically the global expert when it comes to technology impacting your sustainability strategy. What may come as a surprise is that I make my living in Recruitment. Connecting people and building teams is what gets me out of bed in the morning and what puts food on the table.

So, hard as it might be to believe, I know more about this than I do about the intricacies of Carbon Reducing Technologies. This final installation of the world-changing blog series will be focused on what to look out for when building a carbon-efficient workforce.

Step 1 – Identify the problem

The biggest mistake that people make when they hire is not having a reason to make a hire, more often doing so because “someone has moved on” or “business is good, so we want to grow.” This has long been the norm when understanding job specs in my realm, but it also has the potential to negatively impact your success rate of filling vacancies, not to mention identifying whether you need the individual.

So the first step is to really think about the problem you are trying to solve, in developing companies it may be a specific skill set that you don’t have in the business that will help you look at a problem differently, it may be an operational hire that will free up the time of others to focus on something more specialist, it may be that your work rounders team is getting beat every week and you need a ringer to start knocking them out of Fenway.

Either way, there are plenty of reasons to make a hire; not one of them should be generic. This impacts your internal efficiency and Carbon reduction activities. What can be picked up by other team members? Is there a member of the team being underutilised or who is capable of stepping up into a new role? What can be automated?

Step 2 – Set the working expectations

Before you go to market for your shiny new hire, it’s important to set the parameters for how you want your team to operate.

So yes, we’re going to talk about working from home.

My personal view on working from home is that I don’t really care, as long as people are getting the work done. My caveat to that is that I am woefully unproductive if I’m at home for more than 2 days, so I strive to be in the office as much as I can. Part of the reason for this is that we aim to create an environment that feels productive and engaging, that people want to come into. There are individuals for whom this isn’t as effective or logistically feasible, and we provide flexibility on this.

The reason I am talking about this is that commuting costs/office space required affect both the financial and carbon footprint that an individual can have on the business.

Having a blanket approach can be a uniting concept in attracting the type of individual that you feel builds on your current experience; however, it becomes increasingly difficult to do something new with the same thinking, and I’ve seen company policy get in the way of innovative hiring more times than I care to admit.

Supporting a wider range of personality, opinion and ways of working (if harnessed correctly) puts you in a much better position to look at problems creatively. The caveat being that anyone, remote or sat next to you, needs a clear plan about what they are doing and what the expectations are of them (revert to step 1).

Step 3 – Identify the talent pool/getting the hire right

This is the big one, with emerging technologies inevitably come people who can do things that haven’t been done. You’re not looking for “been there done that,” you’re looking for “going there, will work that out.”

But how do you identify these individuals? In the deafening noise that is the current job market, how do you make your opportunity stand out while ensuring that the role is attracting the right kind of person?

CVs on the job board will give you the same people who will have a dozen other interviews, and potentially some people who view their next step purely as “what can you offer me?”

And the reality is, this is an effective model if you have better salaries, better benefits, fully remote working opportunities, loads of vouchers, a great pension and a free puppy that’ll bring you your slippers and the morning paper every morning upon starting.

For emerging technology companies, however, the importance of finding a way to sell your story, your journey and your expectations of an individual is your weapon in the fight against wasted time. However, to reach these networks, a compelling “story so far” and a “what’s to come” is the most crucial part in building a carbon-efficient workforce.

So, there you have it. If you’ve been paying attention to my blog series, you should now be fully clued up on what’s going on in the clean energy space, have a deep understanding of what technologies are out there, and you know how to build teams in this field.

So, what’s the point of me? You can do it all yourself now!

Just kidding, I love taking companies in emerging tech fields on a journey, or critically challenging existing processes to improve candidate experience, and I am lucky enough to work for a company that puts solutions, experience and relationships at the forefront.

So, if you’re working in this field, hiring in this field, or just want to know a bit more about it. Reach out to me or any of the team at iO Associates, and we’d love to be part of your journey in the decarbonisation and building a brighter future.

If not for me, do it for the children….for they are our future.