Go green! Five eco-friendly onboarding strategies for your new recruit journey

Developing an eco-conscious environment wherever we go is essential today. As a result, many large organizations are adopting ways to incorporate sustainability at their workplaces.

A few noteworthy examples are: when renowned corporations such as Starbucks issued statements stating the elimination of plastic straws worldwide to reduce the environmental impact.  

Creating a sustainable and environmentally conscious workplace comes with more than just one benefit. It enables us to save money and contribute to ensuring a better future for our workers. 

Going green within an organization begins at the ground level. You must start the process right from day one to instill environmentally friendly habits into your workforce.  

So the new hire process or employee onboarding is a terrific way to empower employees to participate in this way of working. 

During onboarding, HR can set ground rules for the new joiners and motivate them to get on board with the existing green initiatives and adapt to future ones with enthusiasm and a sense of responsibility.

With this thought in mind, we share five different ways to go green with your onboarding process and take the sustainability journey to another level.

1) Save trees, save paper

Are you aware of how much paper we consume in the office each day? The study reports an average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper each year. Out of which, 45% of the printed paper ends up in the trash. Too much, isn’t it?

We all know onboarding paperwork is huge, with endless training manuals, employee handbooks, and whatnot. It is a paper-heavy process, but with the help of effective onboarding software, we can ditch the paper and go paperless with the entire procedure. Reduce the carbon footprint of your office by switching to environmentally conscious ways at the office.

2) Go creative with your new hires’ gifts

Gifting welcoming kits to the new candidates is a terrific idea to make them feel welcomed and loved, but the problem is the majority of the items end up in landfill and contribute to environmental waste.

We have to be creative with our company gifting policy to cut down on toxic waste by:

  • Gift the new hires eco-friendly git sets such as paper bottles with the company’s printed logo or eco-friendly cutlery sets if they are foodies, etc.
  • If you are running on a flexible budget, you can provide them with hardware that they will anyways use for office work, such as tablets and phones. 

3) Communicate your sustainability policies

Creating a sustainability policy is a great way to show commitment to your planet. If you have a sustainability policy in your organization, make sure every employee knows that it exists. Start spreading awareness from the onboarding stage, so they know what type of organization they are entering.

Make it clear to your workforce that they must take the necessary steps to help the company reach its sustainability goals. If not, they will be held accountable for their actions. When you have such a policy in place, you must take it seriously to ensure it is effectively implemented in the organization.         

It has never been more crucial to create an eco-friendly and sustainable business than it is now. Give elaborate answers to questions like does your organization recycle? Does your organization have an energy-saving scheme and more?

4) Encourage the use of sustainable transportation

Support your team members and employees to switch to sustainable transportation such as bicycles, public transport, and more. Mention the benefits your organization provides if the employees agree to commute to work walking or carpooling with co-employees.

Share the shortest public transport route in your orientation that your new hires can take to reach the office.

5) Ask for feedback

New hires bring new energy into the organization. As they experience your sustainability policy up close, they can better judge the process and identify areas that need improvements. Conduct a mini-survey to gather their unsolicited opinions on the policy and to get their fresh ideas on board.

We need sustainability investment

Working for an environmentally conscious organization motivates the younger generation as they are already aware of the repercussions of not going that way. Sustainability investment is urgently needed everywhere we go, not only at home.

Starting with onboarding is a great way to inculcate this idea in the workplace. It will help you save money, time, and resources. So start today as every little bit counts!