Written by Jade Oliver-Morris & Hannah Bloomfield

Social responsibility, environmental sustainability and green recruitment. What does it all mean and what impact does it have on your employees and future talent? Our HR leaders Jade and Hannah, sat down to discuss key statistics, Smart’s strategy, and future tactics.

As a business working in the recruitment industry, the recruitment and onboarding of our staff is at the heart of everything that we do. So, it is only natural that as we move to a more sustainable model, the strategy surrounding recruitment and onboarding follows.

Environmental sustainability and social responsibility are the ‘Health and Safety’ of the moment. With recruitment and onboarding arguably being the most essential functions of HR, it’s easy to see why business are looking to marry the two together.

The modern world are increasingly aware of environmental impacts and with GenZ and Millennials now contributing to over 50% of the workforce, it’s important that businesses catch on to ‘Green Recruiting’

So, what is Green Recruiting?

On the face of it, green recruiting is part of an overarching recruitment and selection strategy whereby businesses outline their commitment to environmental protection and concern.

At a basic level, it’s paper-less recruiting with a minimal environmental impact. But we believe it can be so much more than that! It can be something that touches all aspects of the recruitment and onboarding process.

What do Smart do?

• A sustainable online recruitment process – With many roles across our business, we can conduct a fully virtual hiring process. From advertising to screening and final interviews, we can supply a remote hiring process without the need to travel. This keeps our carbon emissions to a minimum.
• A paper-less onboarding process – Our temporary and permanent recruitment onboarding processes are completely paperless. They are driven through our internal systems, with everything from online registrations, to new starter forms. From contracts to an interactive Employee Handbook, which are all sent electronically to the candidate. Our HR department take a paper-less approach to any correspondence sent to new starters and existing employees alike. Electronic signature technology helps us to refine this process internally.
• Onboarding merchandise from sustainable suppliers – Our merchandise is now sourced from a sustainable supplier. They off-set their carbon footprint by planting trees for every order we make. This merchandise is provided to new starters at the point of induction to show our sustainability commitment from day 1.
• ISO 14001 accreditation – We are committed to our environmental pledge. We are ISO certified to a required level of environmental management system.

How can we make our processes more sustainable in the current market?

With a whopping 65% of applicants wanting to work for an employer that has a social conscience. It’s important that we consider the following for development: –

• Sustainability Ambassadors – Employees appointed to support our overall corporate sustainability goals while working towards holding the Company environmentally responsible.
• Environment Awareness Day – Celebrate an annual ‘Environmental Awareness Day’ across our Company to highlight our sustainability goals and ongoing commitment to employees.
• Planting a tree for every member of staff and new hire – The initiative will be presented to new starters in their new starter induction so they can see their contribution to our sustainability goals almost instantly.
• Refining our model to reach 0 carbon emissions – Whilst our current processes satisfy a good proportion of our target to reduce carbon emissions during the hiring and onboarding process, we can always do more to improve our carbon footprint.

Our sustainability strategy isn’t something that is fixed, it is something that we will continue to adapt to ensure we are doing the best for our staff, both present and future. Green Recruitment isn’t going anywhere, it is these little steps that we can all take to ensure we are fighting for a better tomorrow for our planet and our people, and Smart Solutions are committed to that journey.