The motto for our Employee Engagement program is borrowed from our CTO - "unleash the talent, point the way". That's because one of the challenges that we face here at EMC is ensuring that all that amazing passion is focused toward activities that have the most positive impact. We want to direct the energy while making sure we don't squelch it. I speak to many peers that are grappling with similar dynamics in their own companies.
We see plenty of activity that is practical, relevant, in some cases truly inspired. But there are some ideas that, while well-intentioned, are impractical or even counter-productive. But even the latter are opportunities for education and alignment.
Our program is definitely learn-as-you-go, a combination of borrowing ideas from other companies, adapting ideas from other contexts, inventing ideas from occasional flashes of brilliance (or naivety, at times), and throwing out ideas that aren't working. Here is some of what we're doing.
Green Champions
This past fall we launched the EMC Green Champions. The idea is for employees to self-identify and collaborate with other local champions to drive workplace and job-specific initiatives. It's headquartered within EMC One, our global corporate social network, to make use of the power of social media not only to connect with employees, but for them to connect with one another.
At corporate, we're defining strategies, priorities, and goals and driving corporate-wide initiatives. The Green Champions community is a place where we can inform people of what we're doing and why, and where we can gather ideas from all corners of the company. Whenever I receive an email with a suggestion for a corporate policy or process, I try to respond as quickly as possible and also ask the requester to post the suggestion in EMC One. There it may spark a deeper discussion that fleshes the idea out a bit, and perhaps inspire new ones. And, of course, it's saved for posterity.
But the main point of the Green Champions is to build a global community of motivated employees who will help drive the principles of sustainability into our culture by their individual behavior and by bringing into their jobs and their offices. In other words, we're hoping they will be thinking about how they can have an impact, and not just what corporate can do. And by sharing with one another, the best ideas will, we hope, "go viral" while being adapted to the unique local culture in each office.
Tweaking the Program
There are some challenges. As mentioned at the beginning, the biggest is keeping these initiatives from going off in less-than-desirable directions. We've asked champions to post information about their initiatives, mostly so that they can be shared with others, but also so that we can provide a little nudge one way or the other if needed. We've also posted a list of contacts in our Facilities organization, and asked that any initiatives involving the built infrastructure and talking to landlords engage our Facilities team first.
And while some folks have formed local teams, taken the bull by the horns and set goals, others want to help but are in need of a more prescriptive approach. To that end, we're building a "toolkit", with a team of Green Champions from several countries to ensure that it is practical and relevant to at least most geographies. I'll let you know how that goes.
Information organization is another challenge. There are experts far brighter than I that have been grappling with this for years - how to organize information in a way that is appropriate to the context of the person searching? We've had suggestions for a very granular taxonomy, but my experience is that the deeper the tree, the harder it is to properly classify anything. What we're planning is to use our Intranet site as an index, or "go" square, from which to navigate to EMC One, and also to EMC.COM where we are trying to share of our sustainability plans as much as possible with the rest of our stakeholders. Our current thinking is to organize the index along scope, depending on whether the user wants an answer to "How can I have a personal impact?", "...an impact on the office?","...on the job?, "...on the company?", or find other ways to contribute. Or whether he/she wants to learn more about what the company is doing, or the industry, or more about environmental and social issues in general.
Another challenge not unique to EMC is idea management. There's no shortage of good ideas out there; but they'll stop coming if we don't listen to and respond to them. Our manufacturing organization has a process and tool for collecting ideas for "greening" manufacturing, reviewing the ideas, and providing feedback. But globally, we have 37,000 employees and if we set up the same thing for the whole company, I wouldn't have the staff to keep up. For now, we're collecting ideas from EMC One discussions, and have committed to a monthly update of the "suggestion board". But I'd like to do something better.
Going Public
Some companies use competition to great affect, publishing office results to get employees to band together and show their stuff. That may be a good approach here, but I'm concerned that it won't play well in all cultures, and that we don't want to be publically berating those who don't look as strong in the lineup. What I'd really like to do is provide a means to feedback to employees how they as individuals and how their offices as a group are doing, and show the progress that all offices are making together. I suspect people's desire to be part of something bigger will be as strong as, or stronger than, their desire to beat out their colleagues. We have some work to do to figure out what tools and processes we need to make this happen; again, I'll let you know how we make out.
Tracking Progress
Last year, we started a survey that we hope to conduct biannually. It's got four simple statements and asks for level of agreement with each:
○ I am aware of what EMC is doing to protect the environment
○ I’m aware of how EMC is helping our customers to reduce their environmental impact
○ I feel good about EMC as an environmental steward
○ I look for ways to reduce EMC’s environmental impact when doing my job
We generate a random sampling of employees to survey. Granted, the respondents are probably self-selecting and may overstate the level of awareness. But the trends will be interesting to watch.
Green Teams
Long as this is, I can't sign off without giving a shout-out to the functional and geographic Green Teams around EMC that were created long before we started this program. Our team in Cork, Ireland has driven monitor and PC shut-down initiatives, is eliminating disposable cups, and conducted some significant educational events. In Bangalore, they banded together to reduce energy consumption in their lab and have had great results. Team -6% in Japan has been adjusting temperatures and dress code to reduce carbon emissions. And our Global Manufacturing Organization has made big dents in electricity consumption, paper usage, and waste generation. Now, Green Champions are banding together to start new teams around the world, and I couldn't be more delighted.
There are some other initiatives on the drawing board, but this hits the high points. I'd love to hear what others are up to and learn from your experiences!
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