Staff Motivation for Green Behaviour and Environmental Initiatives

Abstract

The main purpose of the study is to assess the use of motivational tools to green behaviour of employees and environmental initiatives in Ukrainian organizations. The results of the survey confirmed the working hypotheses: the practice of motivating staff to green behaviour and environmental initiatives in Ukraine has not become widespread. The research showed that a half of the organizations encourage environmental initiatives. At the same time, owners and managers of organizations prefer intangible rewards of encouraging employees to green behaviour and ecological initiatives. Although intangible rewards are more common in encouraging employees to participate in environmental activities than tangible ones, the practice of using them is still mediocre. The paper focuses on the necessity of paying more attention to both tangible and intangible incentives of encouraging employees to environmental activities by owners and managers. The study provides the important recommendations for encouraging employees to engage in green activities and environmental initiatives: increasing wages, paying bonuses, providing social benefits as tangible rewards; the publication of staff contributions to sustainable development, public recognition and awards for environmental efforts, green activities, encouraging the receipt of certificates and awards as intangible rewards; promotion of employees who have competencies in green management, involving employees in goal setting and the development of indicators of the environmental activities results, green corporate culture and green leadership as efficient corporate factors.