New York Real Estate Journal

Employee engagement: SustainAbility as corporate strategy

April 21, 2014 - Green Buildings
Peter Drucker is famous for saying, "What gets measured gets managed." Add Jerry McGuire to the conversation,"Show me the money" - and what gets rewarded gets replicated. When applied to a full spectrum of employees, whether on the front-lines or the CEO, evaluation and compensation for sustainability performance evolves into a strategy unto itself. Employee engagement can be evaluated and compensated for at three different levels: corporate, departmental, and individual. All employees want to know: * How's the company performing on it's SustainAbility strategies. * What's the impact of their individual efforts. * How do their departmental efforts make a difference. * Is management held accountable to their sustainability goals. Intel and Shell are amongst a handful of companies who can be viewed as case studies, as they have integrated sustainability performance into evaluation and compensation systems across the spectrum of their employees. Intel1: Since 2008, Intel has linked a portion of every employee's variable compensation - from front-line employees to the CEO - to the achievement of environmental sustainability metrics. Shell2: Shell's 87,000 employees worldwide are evaluated for individual and team efforts for accomplishing the company's green goals. Their performance in these initiatives is related to their annual bonus amount. 1. www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/corporate-responsibility/sustainability-initiatives-and-policies.html 2. www.csrhub.com/blog/2013/05/top-companies-tie-compensation-to-sustainability.html Nadine Cino, LEED AP, is a regular contributor to the greater purpose of generating SustainAble action, and is CEO and co-inventor of the Tyga-Box System, New York, N.Y.