There is an old saying that fish rots from the head and too often the senior team is where this rot apparently starts. Actually fish and people have something in common and it does in a way relate to rot. We share a planet and while fish live in harmony with their surrounds we, people, seem to have managed to find a myriad of ways to rot our surrounds, place constraints and remove individual innovation form our everyday lives. We need to think and behave and differently; we need to stop making the assumption that someone else will take the lead, that senior people somewhere will find a solution to world problems and save us from ourselves.
I’ve written before about being my own Alchemical Magician and that what I mean by that is that every now and then I have to rethink what I’m doing, why and doing it and find better things to do. That concept applies to us all not just leaders. The National green Standard is a brilliant and innovative tool to help as all stop the rot. This Standard leads the way in showing how organisations of any size can maximise the potential of every employee to become champions of the environment: making organisations into teachers and facilitators! The National Green Standard enables organisation to reinvent the way they work and engage with staff and the communities in which they operate and it rewards them for doing so.
Behaviours will only change if there is an incentive to do so and rewarding good behaviour is a great way to incentivise long term change. Adopting new ways of working is not only difficult to start it is difficult to sustain so we at the National Green Standard have created for you a series of workshop to help you get started and keep going. The National Green Standard is scored from 1,000 points across the three key principles of People, Planet, Profit because we know that money management in any organisation is critical to sustainability and people are your organisation. So what if you could save money over the next ten years by just adopting a few small changes – the Kaizen approach to continuous improvement. What if you went one step further and informed your employees about changes they could make at home to save a little money each year. Indeed now we are on a roll what about the community that surrounds you? A recent BBC new article stated that the average person in the UK travels 16,000 miles every year, the majority of which is going to and from the workplace. Now imagine if we opted for more home working and cutting that carbon footprint by ten or twenty percent: the impact globally would be huge! Pollution would be reduced and we would have a better work life balance – doesn’t seem like there are any downsides there especially when another study shows that motivated staff are 16% more productive and an overwhelming 91% of respondents to a TINYpulse survey say they’re more productive when working remotely .
A recent HSBC (2017) survey suggested the following:
‘…Almost one on five (18%) employees cite poor work life balance as a reason for leaving their last job – a problem many companies could address with flexible working.
Q: To what extent, if at all, does each benefit/ perk motivate you at work?
- 88% flexible working
- 79% remote working
- 76% financial bonus
- 71% study leave
- 60% learning courses
- 58% away days
- 52% volunteer days
- 42% mat/ pat leave above statutory pay
- 39% subsidised gym memberships
- 39% wellbeing allowance
- 37% healthcare insurance
- 28% Xmas parties’
National Green Standard accreditation will recognise your good practices while challenging you to consider other small changes to impact people, planet and profit. We need to be bold and take giant steps, join a growing revolution by starting your national green Standard journey now for the first step towards long term sustainable business and help stop the rot. So what are you waiting for: contact us on mary@nationalgreenstanadard.co.uk