Real estate property website Rightmove offers a number of benefits to help employees make greener choices both in the workplace and at home.
The organisation, which has around 800 UK employees, upgraded its bikes-for-work scheme last year by doubling the allowance to £3,000. This was in response to employee feedback, which it received through its biannual ‘Have your Say’ survey that it conducts to gauge how staff feel about working for the organisation.
It also provides hybrid company cars and a hybrid-working approach that cuts down on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from commuting. Through its partnership with OnHand, employees are encouraged to make CO2 savings through behaviourial changes at work and home, such as taking digital notes instead of paper, car-pooling to work and commuting via rail or bike. Since the start of the year, employees have completed more than 500 actions and made 2.69 metric tonnes of CO2 reductions via the OnHand platform.
Rightmove has also launched a Go Greener employee group under its sustainability strategy, to ensure staff can share ideas and hear from sustainability experts. It is currently looking at introducing an electric vehicle scheme.
The organisation believes it is important to offer green benefits to employees and that it is the right thing to do, explains Jennie Barker, chief people officer at Rightmove.
“We have a very passionate green community at Rightmove, and we’re regularly reviewing our benefits to ensure they help people make more sustainable choices," she says. "We also think it’s really important we give people access to expert talks to help them understand why and how they can make green changes, both at work and at home. For us, it’s about doing the right thing. Get that right and we’re confident our employees will recognise us as a responsible business and that will, in turn, impact attraction, engagement and retention.”
According to the organisation, green benefits do help to attract, motivate and retain employees, and they see the actions it is taking as part of its ethos as a responsible business. It is also starting to see feedback on green benefits directly from its workforce, such as the request for the bikes-for-work allowance to be increased.
“All the studies point to climate anxiety as a growing issue, as well as people seeing businesses as one of the solutions. Our employees are smart and we want to be at the forefront of that change. For businesses that aren’t already doing or thinking about this, there’s likely an attraction, motivation and retention gap and that is only going to grow,” Barker concludes.
