Employees' Engagement with Environmental Programs in Organizations - Literature review Example

Employees engagement with environmental programs in organizations Contents Contents 2 Literature Review on employee’s engagement with environmental programs 3 Description of research methodology used in previous research study 8 Thematic Analysis 13 References 17 Literature Review on employee’s engagement with environmental programs Environment or green programs can be defined as a method through which environment is protected and proper measures are adopted so as to benefit the society as a whole. Green programs are conducted by majority of organizations in the present scenario so as to convey that they are concerned about the environment and all of their operations are eco-friendly in nature. According to Cartwright and Holmes (2006), the employee’s engagement in the green programs that are hosted by their organizations in turn increases the level of profitability of the business (Cartwright and Holmes, 2006). According to Karsan (2011), all the employees in the present scenario are being educated by the employers so as to make them environmentally concern and to enable them to engage in various activities that are related to green programs or environmental protection. There have been various research studies that has been conducted on such employee engagement programs and that in turn has helped to increase the overall productivity of the organization (Karsan, 2011).According to Brokaw (2009), as per the research study that has been conducted on various companies it has been highlighted that from the biggest retailer Walmart to that of an apparel company shows similarities in terms of employee engagement in green programs. The employees who are placed in the front line position are the ones who can undertake the practice of sustainable and environmental practice on behalf of the organization (Brokaw, 2009).The numerous benefits that such activities lead to has been well identified by a report in the year 2009 by NEEF or the National Education Environmental Foundations. According to Saks (2006), the report contains the benefits of the engaged organizations and also the various environmental activities that are undertaken by businesses. The program that was undertaken by such organizations as stated in the report had been able to save money, improve their relationships with customers and also was able to improve the level of efficiency of their operations (Saks, 2006).According to Deloitte (2008), the energy efficiency at Lockheed Martin had been improved in all of the sites of the company across the globe and was mainly because of the green programs that the company had hosted. The high level of engagement that the employees had shown in such “Green Teams” program that the company had implemented in the system had been able to facilitate software upgrades, reduce the level of waste in organization, and even had improved plumbing (Deloitte, 2008). The company had even shown a tremendous increase in the cost savings as the employees were highly engaged in the environmental programs and regulated the use of air-conditioning and lights in the organization that has reduced the level of emissions of carbon dioxide by an amount of 2,332 metric tons. According to research conducted by Brighter Planet (2010), the “Green Team” program of eBay was able to develop some of the most environmental friendly measures mainly because of the active participation of the employees in such green programs (Brighter Planet, 2010).The company was highly encouraged by its team to establish one of the largest solar installations in California commercially known as San Jose. This installation had helped the company to reduce huge levels of carbon emissions which approximately of about 1million pounds annually. According to McGraw-Hill Construction (2009), the employees of McDonalds had taken active participation in the green programs that were hosted by the company in coordination with the government. The program was known as “Team Minus 6%” and it was focused towards reducing the level of carbon dioxide emissions by the company and even encouraged the employees to take an active participation in the program (McGraw-Hill Construction, 2009). According to Ramus and Ulrich (2000), the main aim of the program was to reduce the level of emission by 2.2 pounds daily by each person and even their customers who registered themselves in such programs were also offered discounts. In the year 2007 the environmental protection campaign of the company was able to raise the number of participants to 380,000 from just 40,000 and the total amount of emissions of carbon dioxide was reduced by 3 million pounds (Ramus and Ulrich, 2000). According to World Economic Forum (2003), Citigroup is another such organization that has been able to establish higher standards of their employee engagement activities in such green programs that was hosted by the company. The employees of this company has entered into strong partnerships with many of its retail clients so as to reduce the amount of paper waste through encouraging as well as educating customers so that they discard the use of mailing with the use of paper and shift towards electronic statements (World Economic Forum, 2003). According to Economist Intelligence Unit (2010), Baxter in the year 2009 had actively participated in the ‘World Environment Week’ and this program was able to witness the engagement of the employees of the company as well as their level of volunteerism in the company. The employee’s engagement in the green programs conducted by Baxter were very high as there were projects that were going in 70 locations and was totally led by the employees of this organization and this even encompassed sales fleet up gradation to visiting schools and even use of hybrid vehicles (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2010). According to Wah (1999), there was even certain research study that was conducted by Goldman Sachs that stated the overall profit levels of a company are greatly increased by such environmental and sustainable programs that are hosted by a company but such high profit margins are also greatly contributed by the commitment of the employees towards such initiatives (Wah,1999). According to Abraham (2012), however there are certain debates that have risen in this context that had stated that there is no such link between the operational efficiency of an organization and that of employee’s engagement in such green programs (Abraham, 2012). The front life employees play a very significant role in understanding the inefficiencies present in the organization and implement certain ideas that would beneficial for the society as well as the environment. The environmental and sustainability programs help to educate the employees and improve the overall efficiency of the company and hence its profit margins majorly through less usage of energy, waste and water. According to Bakker and Schaufeli (2008), in the year 2008 a major challenge was put forward by Stonyfield to all its employees who were focused on improving on the total energy level at the facilities of the company. The company was able to increase the level of motivation of the employees in such programs by associating the savings that would result through such programs with that of bonuses or incentives that would be given to all the employees (Bakker and Schaufeli, 2008).The goal of such green programs was achieved by the company as it was able to reduce the overall energy use by 22%. According to Bakker and Leiter (2010), other such research that was conducted at Intel showed that the employees engage in environmental programs through saving energy at their offices by increasing the temperature of the office and assembly joints by 1 degree. The overall reduction in energy consumption was of 6 megawatt-hours and saved a total cost of $400,000 for the company (Bakker and Leiter, 2010).The employees of the company also has developed a computer system so as to constant control on the internal logistics of the company in order to identify the areas of carbon footprints and its associated costs so as to adopt the best available options. According to Canadian Business for Social Responsibility and Network for Business Sustainability (2010), employee engagement activities in such programs are based on wide array elements; however, the most important amongst such elements is that of management commitment, rewards and incentives, empowerment and feedback and review. Such engagement by the employees can only be achieved when the employees are given something extra by the company (Canadian Business for Social Responsibility and Network for Business Sustainability, 2010). Incentives and rewards acts as a tool that motivates the employees to engage into such activities and to achieve the best of results. According to Collier and Rafael (2007), rewards and incentives act as a form of principle motivator for the employees to participate actively in the green programs that are hosted by the company. The weakness of such rewards and incentives is that it increases the level of competition in such programs where the main motive behind hosting such green programs gets lost (Collier and Rafael, 2007). According to Barsade (2002), employees tend to be more focused towards incentives then actually executing the major initiative through such programs. On the other hand if such incentives are not given to the employees they tend to become ignorant towards such activities in the organization (Barsade, 2002).The major limitation of such element is that it can only motivate the employee to participate in such programs but it does not guarantee that such an initiative would be successful for the company. According to Graen (2008), the major strength of management commitment is that it aligns the entire team towards the green initiative of the company. It sets the strategy and the path for the employees so as to engage into such environmental programs that are hosted by the company. The weakness being that the employees need to just follow the commitment of the management as they are not given much of the space to share their ideas and opinion (Graen, 2008).The limitation of this element is that if there is any change in the management of an organization then the commitment also takes a shift or it can even happen that the management may not follow the commitment towards such green programs and the entire program would reach to a halt. According to Heintzman and Marson (2005), the major strength of empowerment being that it gives the chance to the employees to share their ideas and opinions towards such green initiatives and even to lead such green programs the way they intend to so that it can be beneficial for the company as well as the environment. The weakness being that this kind of empowerment amongst the employees may lead to conflict in terms of agreeing on a common strategic plan to achieve green objectives and in turn would result into workplace conflict which would ultimately affect such green programs. The limitation of this element is that is that it focuses on giving authority to the employee base to take decisions but does not initiate the success of such programs can be achieved through giving the power to the employees (Heintzman and Marson, 2005).According to Dernovsek (2008), feedback and review has the major strength of analyzing the inefficiencies of the strategies that is undertaken towards such green programs and then to work on them more effectively so as to reach the goal behind such initiative (Dernovsek, 2008).The weakness behind often such feedback from the employees may not lead the organization towards the right direction and there can be even be conflicting feedback which may even affect the strategies of the company towards such green initiatives. The limitation of this element is that it is not a very effective tool that can be generalized as the feedback may vary according to situations and a more uniformed approach for such environmental programs cannot be designed by a company on the basis of such an element. Description of research methodology used in previous research study Research methodology can be defined as a mechanism that is applied by a researcher in his or her study on a particular area of problem. The research methodology differs as per the need of the research study and also as per the convenience of the researcher. This topic is on the employee engagement in various environmental programs that has been undertaken by their respective organizations. Such a research topic requires extensive search of information throughout the organizations so as to analyze the level of employee engagement that is noticed in such organizations and the impact of such engagement on the efficiency level of an organization (Tracy, 2012).The research study that was used in this particular topic was focused towards various organizations such as Walmart, Intel, Citigroup, etc. The reports of these companies was the major source of information that was used by the researcher so as to derive more appropriate results and align the employee engagement activities with that of green initiatives that was undertaken by the company. In such a scenario where the effects to be analyzed by the researcher is most critical both forms of research methodology plays a very critical role. In the literature study of the previous part most of the researches that was conducted by the researcher was based both forms of quantitative as well qualitative measures. The quantitative measures mainly comprises of surveys that indicates the level to which employees of different organizations are involved in various activities and the extent to which employees feel such green programs are effective for the organization for long run (Thomas, 2003).The various researches that has been conducted on this topic has been in context of the employee’s taking various initiatives so as to reduce the levels of energy consumption in their organization and even to spread more awareness amongst the society so that the objective of the green programs can be accomplished. However the major research technique that has been used by various researchers or rather research organizations is based on qualitative techniques that is derived from various information that is available across the websites, journals and reports of these organizations (Tiddlier, 2009).The researchers are not only focused with the quantitative research technique as more appropriate outcomes cannot be obtained from such research but all of the research study is based on qualitative research technique that is conducted through available sources of information and then analyzing the information that has been collected or by means of interviewing some of the employees in the organizations so as to determine that whether their organizations conducts any forms of environmental programs and if they do so then whether the employees are motivated by such an initiative that is taken by their company and even to identify the degree to which the employees engage themselves into such activities so that the goals of such programs can be easily accomplished. The research study as identified through the review of literature is based on primary as well as secondary research (Silverman, 2010).The major strength of primary research is that it results into more of accurate results as it is based on the present facts and opinions of some people who play an active role in the entire research study. There are various methods through which primary research study can be conducted it can be either through surveys in the form of questionnaires or it can be also in the form of structured or unstructured interview that is conducted by a researcher on some of the respondents (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2003).The primary research can be further extended in the form of focus group study that is often proved to a beneficial way of conducting research as the real opinions of the respondents can be identified and analyzed without any kind of involvement by the researcher. However in this particular research study the kind of tools that is used by the researcher is in the form of surveys and interviews as the study was based on understanding the involvement of the employees in such green programs of an organization (Salkind, 2010).The literature review mainly suggests that the majority of the researches that has been conducted on this particular topic are based on various business cases about different organizations that have such kinds of green programs and the methods that they employ so as to engage their employees in such programs. These business cases reveal some of the facts of organizations such as Baxter, Intel, Citigroup, McDonalds, Stonyfield etc. and the initiatives that these companies have taken not only towards the environment but also educating their employees on such green programs so that their employees understand the importance of undertaking such programs which is directly linked with huge amounts of cost that is saved by a company in this context (Punch, 2006). The research tool that has been used in the previous research study is various forms of data collection methods so as to acquire some of the primary information. The data collection techniques of the previous research majorly comprised of surveys that had been conducted in different organization and some structured interviews of the employees being engaged in such green programs and management that facilitates such green programs. The major objectives were to analyze the pros and cons of the employee’s engagement in such green programs. However some of the data collection techniques such as questionnaire survey have failed as it has not been able to derive the appropriate results as to what extent employees truly engage in such programs and the impact of such green programs hosted by a company on the environment. The business cases though have contributed towards many research studies that has been conducted on this particular topic but there are certain limitations that exist on analyzing such business cases (Patton, 2002).With the changing scenario of the global environment there can be even be a situation in which the management of a particular organization adopts a different form of environmental program that it may not reveal and this would limit the research study on that particular area (Yin, 2004).On the contrary in such cases conducting primary research has often proved to be very advantageous and in this case it would help to reveal some of the latest facts and initiatives that have been taken by an organization to safeguard the environment and decrease the level of damage that is caused by such business operations on the environment (Newman, 2001).Some of the facts and figures that has been revealed in the particular case in context of the level of energy consumptions that has decreased with the new programs that has been undertaken by companies is on the basis of interviews that has been conducted with various employees so as to analyze the different methods that has been incorporated by such companies so as to accomplish the goals of the green programs and also to motivate the employees so that they are able to actively participate in such programs (Maylor and Blackmon, 2005).For instance the research study on McDonalds for this particular aspect was conducted through an interview so as to analyze the various means that is been adopted by the organization in order to stay aligned with the growing environmental concern issues and how they involve their customers into such programs so that they can succeed more towards the objective of such environmental programs (Kumar, 2005). This research study mainly comprises of various forms of qualitative tools and techniques that is used so as to analyze the impact of such employee engagement in various green programs on the organization (Kroll, 2001).There are various methods that have been used in previous research study on this particular topic but the major sources through which information was gathered was through company websites and reports, articles, interviews with the employees and also with the management of different companies and even the research was conducted through anecdotal data. However the research studies that has been conducted earlier in this topic do not reveal the exact figure in terms of the number of organizations that has been involved in such programs and the degree to which such programs has been effective even in the present scenario (Hennink, Hutter and Bailey, 2010).The qualitative research tools and techniques that has been used in all of the earlier research studies helps in analyzing the advantage of such programs and the level of employee engagement on the environment as well as towards the organization. Thematic Analysis Thematic analysis is one of the most common research tools in the qualitative research methodology. The technique mainly comprises of pinpointing data, recording as well as examining various issues within the data. Thematic analysis is always associated with a particular research question and is used to determine the pattern that exists between various forms of data sets which leads to description about a significant phenomenon. These themes in the techniques become the specific categories on the basis of which the analysis part of the research study is conducted. This kind of analysis is usually carried in six main parts on the basis of which the process of coding is conducted (Guest, MacQueen and Namey, 2011).This phase of coding in six steps is used to determine meaningful patterns that would contribute towards future research study. These phases comprises of data familiarization, initial codes generation, searching across the codes for themes, reviewing those themes, naming and defining those themes, and then finally producing the final report based on this thematic analysis. This method mainly focuses on rich description and organizing of the data set. Thematic analysis is not just about counting the number of words in a particular phrase but it is associated with identifying the explicit and implicit ideas that lie within such data. The main aspect in the thematic analysis is to develop codes through viewing raw data which leads to formation of themes and then is the major factor of encoding the raw data which takes place much before the interpretation of the data. There are various ways through which interpretation of such codes is conducted that is through identification of co-occurrence in the themes, comparison between the frequencies of the themes, and graphically representing various relationships between such themes (Wan, Daryaee and Bakken, 2013).The researchers considers thematic analysis to be one of the most effective tools in the research study as it helps to understand the intricacies of the meanings that exist in the data set of the study. The judgment of the researcher plays a very important role so as to analyze as which one of the factors in the data set that can be considered to be a theme for the study. The six phases of the analysis is stated in the diagram below- (Darby, 2000, p.90) The phase one of the thematic analyses is to become familiar with the data set and this can be achieved through researcher maintaining a set of codes before the entire transcript of interviews is analyzed by the researcher. These start codes of the study needs to be maintained separately along with its representations so that the common pattern between such data can be efficiently analyzed by the researcher. The next phase is of generating initial codes that is obtained by maintaining a list that contains certain items or rather data that has occurred repeatedly in the data set. The coding part of this phase is related to organizing and extracting some of the meaningful parts within the data that has direct link with the research question. This phase is focused more of reduction of data and complication (King and Horrocks, 2010).The next phase of the analyses is of searching for the themes and comprises of examining the various codes that combines together so as to form over-reaching themes in the data set. In this phase the researcher tries to formulate relationship between the themes and codes and also between the various levels of different themes in the data set. The next phase is of reviewing themes so that the researcher can correctly identify those themes that supports the theory or rather refutes it. The last phase before developing the final report is of defining as well as naming the themes that comprise of naming the themes on basis of which the current themes consist of and even comprises of definition of themes in few sentences. The management research study that is based on qualitative research technique should be focused towards adopting the best suitable tool that is aligned with the research question of the study. Thematic analysis is the best tool as it allows a lot of flexibility for the researchers who are familiar with different research methodologies to use the same platform for the analysis of the data. This technique is also suitable for large volumes of data sets for any research study and also for this particular topic as it comprises of data collection from a large number of companies. It also helps to expand the range of research study that is much beyond that of individual experiences, the themes that are being interpreted by researcher has well supported data, it even facilitates various categories that emerge across the data and is applicable for those research questions like that in this particular study that is much beyond the experience of an individual (Hayes, 2013).The major limitation of this technique is the issue of reliability as many researchers are involved and it gives rise to many forms of interpretations. The discovery of the themes as well as verification of those themes is a total mesh. The other limitation being the flexibility of this technique makes it difficult for the researcher to focus on a particular data, it may even involve the use of miss nuanced data, there is difficulty in maintaining data continuity and if the theoretical framework is eliminated by the analysis part of the research then the interpretative power would be limited. There are certain research studies that has been conducted using thematic analysis and has given the best possible outcomes such as that of – a research study on children’s understanding on obesity, a study on Latino and Mediterranean cultures, a research report to analyze the experience of unemployment in Ireland, etc (Houser and Oman, 2010).These research studies have implemented the concept of thematic analysis and have been able to identify the best possible solution being aligned with their respective research questions. References Abraham, S. 2012. Development of Employee Engagement Programme on the basis of Employee Satisfaction Survey. Journal of Economic Development, Management, IT, Finance and Marketing. Vol. 4(1), pp. 27-37. Bakker, A. B. and Leiter, M. P. 2010. Work engagement: a handbook of essential theory and research. New York: Psychology Press. Bakker, A., and Schaufeli, W. 2008. Positive organizational behavior: Engaged employees in flourishing organizations. 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