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CCH® HR MANAGEMENT - 05/19/09

Research finds global businesses continue to practice eco-friendly behavior even in economically challenging times

Employees in India have the most frequent positive responses (85 percent) to questions of whether their organization has green/environmentally friendly business practices. The question was part of a Kenexa Research Institute (KRI) study examining how workers feel about their organization's green and sustainable business practices. In comparison, only 6 of 10 organizations in the U.S. whose workers responded to the question were in agreement. The findings demonstrate that, even in a time of fairly substantial economic challenges for most organizations, many are still practicing green or eco-friendly efforts.

Further analysis of the data shows that organizations in the U.S. lag significantly behind organizations in the U.K., Germany, France, Canada, India and Spain in terms of formally outlining their environmental position, providing a clear description of the organization's environmental objectives, having genuine efforts for protecting the environment, and encouraging their employees' creativity to find ways to protect the environment.

In a somewhat different pattern, however, employees in U.S. organizations reported feeling more pride in working for their organization when the organization was employing green business practices (57 percent) than did employees in the other countries in this study (49 percent average), except for those workers in India (80 percent). Further, employees in the U.S. (54 percent) and in India (71 percent) reported more favorable responses toward their organization's efforts to prioritize their environmental practices in how they operate.

"Although there appear to be opportunities for U.S. organizations to improve their environmental focus relative to organizations in other countries, employees who work in organizations that do focus on environmental initiatives and actions report stronger pride in the organization," said Dr. Anne Herman, KRI. "This shows that organizations, even while facing challenges through the state of the economy, can reap the rewards of being environmentally conscious," said Dr. Anne Herman, Kenexa Research Institute.

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