An Inconvenient Initiative - How to Motivate Staff on Saving Energy

Staff have plenty to do without another scheme to add to the workload. Energy efficiency is just another fad, it’ll all be forgotten in a couple of months – or will it? Morgan Lovell’s Adrian Norman examines ways of inspiring office staff to become enthusiastic about saving energy.

For many staff having to be energy efficient is just another inconvenient company initiative. But how can you motivate your staff and prove to them that it isn’t all just a fad? The following eight points will guide you towards having staff who are not only enthusiastic about saving energy, but actively seek new ways of making those important energy savings.

1. Have Fun

If it’s plausible, hold a series of ‘awareness workshops’ that give your staff a couple of hours away from their desks, while at the same time encouraging them to learn about energy saving. You could invite some guest speakers, or to make it a bit more fun, show some films on energy saving and climate change. Staff at Morgan Lovell spent a Friday afternoon watching Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth - we got to learn about climate change, started to think about how we could make a difference, and food was laid on. You could even throw in the popcorn.

2. Set the Best Example

The Carbon Trust has produced a downloadable factsheet to guide you around doing an ‘energy walk-round’. Doing a walk-round of your office is a great way of identifying where energy is being wasted, and as they are the users of your building it works even better if you can get your staff involved. And being pro-active yourself will motivate your staff, meaning they are more likely to inform you if they identify a source of wasted energy.

3. Give Them Ownership

It’s important to make your staff feel like the changes being made are brought about by them, that they benefit as well as the business, and of course the environment. As the people who use the office, they are in prime position for identifying energy wastage, and thinking up new ways of saving energy, so encourage them to do this. You have to give your staff something to be enthusiastic about, so why not let them choose where some of the saved revenue goes – a donation to charity perhaps?

4. Give Them Control

In an ideal office environment, staff can have complete control over their environment, such as having local climate control panels. If you haven’t got such a system installed, there are other ways to encourage staff to take responsibility for their own energy usage. Providing ‘task lighting’, such as individual desk lamps (with energy efficient bulbs of course), means staff have control over their individual lighting levels, and so the need for overhead lighting is reduced. And your staff are more likely to take responsibility for their own individual equipment too. There are many studies that back this up.

5. Build a Relationship

It’s hard to understand the connection between turning off a light and saving the planet. People need something that demonstrates how saving energy relates to their everyday activities. For example, rather than saying that lighting an office overnight is a waste of energy, tell your staff that the energy used to light an office could heat water for 1,000 cups of tea. Or hire an electricity-generating bicycle that your staff can try out to see just how much of their energy is needed to power a light bulb. Help your staff to understand the consequences of their actions, and they will be inspired to change the way they do things.

6. That Special Someone

Every office, or department, should have one employee who is recognised as being the person who drives forward the energy saving process. This ‘energy champion’ should take the responsibility for ensuring that everyone is doing their bit to save energy, even going as far as making sure that the cleaners turn all the lights off at the end of the day. Maybe there’s already someone on your staff who seems ideal for the role?

7. Monitor Usage

It makes sense to keep track of how much energy is being used by your office(s), and if possible by the floors within. This should be the responsibility of your energy champion, who could produce graphs that can be distributed or put on notice boards or your Intranet, and will visually demonstrate how your energy consumption is (hopefully) dropping. And you can use this monitoring as an incentive for people to do more to save energy – hold competitions and award prizes to the floor/office which reduces its energy usage the most on a quarterly basis, or treat your whole office if you make a significant energy usage reduction month-on-month.

8. Out of Sight...

It sounds simple, but people need to be reminded occasionally to keep saving energy. A poster campaign can be one of the most effective methods for doing just that. You could put up generic posts about why saving energy is important, as well as stickers and posters on and around equipment and light switches reminding people to be energy efficient. You can design your own, or The Carbon Trust has produced a series of inspiring posters which you can download and print off for free. If you do just a few of the above, then your company will be well on its way to having an energy-saving culture. And remember that you should make it appear to be your staff’s choice to save energy, not something that is forced upon them. It’s about finding what works best for your staff, finding something for them to get enthusiastic about.

Key Points

• Hold awareness workshops

• Lead by example

• Make staff feel that they effect the change

• Let staff control their own usage

• Help staff to understand the consequences

• Appoint your ‘energy champions’

• Use saving energy as an incentive

• Keep reminding staff to save energy

• Develop an energy-saving culture

This article first appeared in FM World, 7th September 2007

To find out more about sustainable office design, see http://www.morganlovell.com