Consider these two scenarios.
Annette is the Impact Finance Lead at Philips. With a background in international commercial financing, she moved into the impact finance space to connect capital to underserved communities. She’s also spearheading a quiet transformation by initiating an internal program to help Philips employees lead for impact.
From across the globe and in a completely different sector, Fernando is Global Head of Talent at Boehringer Ingelheim. He’s spreading a culture of impact inside his company by mobilizing employees to tackle health access challenges via employee resource groups.
These are two examples of how employees can initiate and lead significant social impact from within their companies. However, research shows that this is the exception, rather than the rule. GlobeScan, a global insights and advisory firm, and Ashoka, a worldwide network of social innovators, joined forces to poll over 8,600 employees across 31 countries about their views on corporate sustainability.
A growing intention–action gap
Employees are noticing a discrepancy between their organization’s sustainability pledges and actual impact. Up to 74 percent of employees agree that what their employer says about social and environmental responsibility is inconsistent with their company’s actual behaviors. We refer to this inconsistency as the intention–action gap.
Furthermore, 88 percent of employees say that their individual motivation and loyalty grows stronger as their company increases its performance on social and environmental responsibility. Companies risk a demotivated workforce and weak retention and attraction if they do not close the gap and better ‘walk the talk’.
Companies risk a demotivated workforce and weak retention and attraction if they do not close the gap and better ‘walk the talk’.
Studies to date, such as GlobeScan and Salesforce’s ‘Sustainable Value Creation’ report, have focused on the role of data, technology and capital to better embed sustainability into business operations. While these remain critical drivers, Ashoka and GlobeScan’s research points to a lesser recognized driver: organizational culture.
Employees are ready to drive positive impact at work. An overwhelming eight out of 10 employees surveyed believe they’re contributing to social and environmental solutions at work. Companies cannot overlook the importance of investing in the accompanying skills, culture and mindsets to mobilize workforces toward a sustainable future.
People, not reporting, will drive true impact. But many employees feel limited by a lack of support at work. Their actions aren’t translating into meaningful company-wide shifts.
From a compliance culture to impact culture
Culture has a huge influence on employees’ ability to contribute to positive impact at work. In our survey, employees highlighted the importance of autonomy, encouraging creativity and innovation, and creating high levels of communication and transparency.
One employee from Kenya cited an enabler as “a company culture that encourages and empowers employees to take initiative to create positive change”.
Another top enabler is strong collaboration and teamwork, both across internal departments and with external stakeholders.
Major barriers include a lack of time or even a perception that sustainability is viewed as someone else’s responsibility and falls beyond one’s scope of work. Another common barrier is feeling disempowered to initiate ideas due to excessive hierarchy, lack of management support and insufficient decision-making power.
Employees are an untapped asset to accelerate sustainability, but they need an enabling environment to contribute.
When asked about barriers to contributing to positive impact at work, one employee from the Netherlands explained: “I have no options for that in a company with 22,500 employees. I am at the bottom of the hierarchy.” An employee from Saudi Arabia responded: “The working hours and tasks are too stressful to balance social responsibility.”
Employees are an untapped asset to accelerate sustainability, but they need an enabling environment to contribute. Culture matters, but where to begin? Based on decades of partnering and consulting with companies, GlobeScan and Ashoka suggest three areas to begin.
1. The (social) innovation gap
Build cultures that encourage creativity and out-of-the box thinking. Employees develop a sense of ownership and deep commitment when they have the freedom to contribute their ideas.
Educate employees on systems thinking, social entrepreneurship and regenerative frameworks. Set up dedicated social innovation spaces where employees can incubate new ideas for positive impact and get support from executive sponsors and colleagues.
2. The collaboration gap
Inside a company, sustainability needs to be seen as everybody’s business. It’s a multifunction, multi-department endeavor where no one team ‘owns’ sustainability. This includes ensuring sustainability shows up in both team and individual KPIs – even for functions like finance, HR and IT.
Externally, build partnerships with unlikely stakeholders such as social entrepreneurs to encourage employees to think differently about access and inclusion across value chains.
3. The skills and mindset gap
Sustainability needs a home in learning and development. This includes mainstreaming competencies such as creativity, empathy and teamwork. Embedding sustainability into business also requires employees to develop new mindsets and new ways of seeing the world.
Take employees out of ‘business as usual’ and help them engage deeply with the societal issues affecting core business, such as the experiences of communities accessing healthcare at the last mile or farmers facing climate change. This will likely create discomfort and questioning, but it will translate into better ideas for serving society.
Accelerating solutions needs a whole-organization approach, including investing in workplace culture.
Change feels slow and unhopeful, but there’s an untapped opportunity in the optimism and loyalty of global workforces. Companies can amplify their impact by engaging more employees in meaningful work.
Accelerating solutions needs a whole-organization approach, including investing in workplace culture.
This collaboration is part of GlobeScan’s Radar global public opinion survey conducted since 1997. The survey implemented responses captured in July and August 2024 from 8,613 people working for large companies (defined as employing over 1,000 people) across 31 countries. Access the full report here.
