What is ESG and how is it revelant to IT recruitment?
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) refers to three factors that measure sustainability and ethical impact of a company. In recruitment, ESG is increasingly relevant as job seekers prioritise companies with strong ESG practices, viewing them as responsible and forward-thinking employers.
As the candidate pool evolves, employers need to consider the most effective means of both attracting IT talent and employee rentention. Company brand, messaging, ethos and reputation are highly-valued by the jobseekers of today and should be utilised as a tool in Talent Acquisition.
With companies like Microsoft, HP and Salesforce leading the way in terms of Environmental, Social and Governance practices others, including Ergo, are following suit.
What motivates an employee – position, pay or purpose?
Realistically all three are considerations.
However, data suggests that the workforce of today (and to a much greater extent tomorrow) place a considerable amount of value on the latter and employers are often questioned on their sustainability and governance practices during the interview process which is very much a 2-way street in a candidate-driven market.
Current Market Sentiment
In the 2021 Consumer Intelligence Series survey on ESG by PWC Consumers and Employers were asked the following:
Q. Please indicate how much you agree or disagree with the following statements.
The results (see below) clearly reinforce the argument that such matters are of growing importance to internal and external stakeholders.
What’s driving this shift?
Millennials and Gen Z’s are inclined to value environmental issues to a greater extent than their predecessors.
In the case of Gen Z’s they are more educated than previous generations (57% in Third Level Education according to a report by Pew Research) and spent much of their formative years dealing with a distressed labour market (i.e. 2008 recession and Covid 2020) while experiencing a shift to the hard right in major Western powers (see USA under Trump and Britain under Johnson) all against a backdrop of the climate emergency which for decades had been denied.
These factors have created a new breed of socially aware and politically-motivated jobseekers who value issues like gender diversity, work-life balance and the circular economy to a much greater extent than their predecessors.
The above is also true for Millennials but to a lesser extent.
This cohort makes-up an ever-increasing proportion of the market (estimated to be 75% by 2029).
For any company planning to hire in this market issues such as Environmental, Sustainability and Governance will become of great importance for employee retention.
What can/should you be doing about this?
Research published by Ibec in their 2022 CEO Survey shows that 60% of companies in Ireland have increased their attention on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives in their organisation, compared with 12 months ago.
In the area of ESG, three quarters (76%) agreed that they are working to create a positive social impact by including ESG goals in their organisational strategy.
To an emerging workforce that values such ideals these companies are attractive and have an advantage over employers yet to adopt such measures.
What have Ergo done in terms of ESG?
Ergo have been on a journey to reduce our carbon footprint since 2011 and while progress has been made in a number of challenges remain.
We are committed to aligning with the UN's sustainability goals that are relevant to our business and are certified to the ISO 14001 Environmental Management standard - an internationally agreed standard that sets out the requirements for an environmental management system. It helps organizations improve their environmental performance through more efficient use of resources and reduction of waste
Internally, we are reducing our carbon footprint by procuring renewable electricity and implementing energy-efficient IT solutions for our customers.
Externally, we are creating an ecosystem of like-minded partners. We are part of a network of 50,000 suppliers established by EcoVadis, an organisation that assesses and measures the environmental impact of a company’s supply chain. Ergo is a Silver badge holder ranking in the 86th percentile.
By the end of 2022 we plan to be zero waste to landfill across all our offices and be officially aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
You can read more here about how Ergo are working towards being a leader in sustainability and environmental.
Such initiatives have been referenced in RFQ awards where EGS policy is becoming a scorable metric providing further evidence of the growing importance of such measures within the wider business community.
Following The Great Resignation (when workers reassessed their priorities in terms of work/life balance) if you are not investing resources into ESG you should be concerned that your competitors are…especially as the “war for talent” has never been so tough. Recruiting and employee retention of quality talent requires employers to be cognisant of ESG issues and to be proactive in creating programs that are transparent, actionable and communicate effectively about them.
For more information about what Ergo is doing in terms of Environment, Sustainability and Governance please visit our ESG page.
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