Transforming Risks into Opportunities: Enabling Employees to Drive Change

In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, external change drivers—whether global trends, technological advancements, or social crises—pose a pivotal question for organizations: Are these changes threats to defend against or opportunities to leverage? Often perceived as a (regulatory) burden or risk, these changes can also be transformed into a significant source of innovation by meaningfully engaging employees. Legislation coming from the UN’s Environmental, Social and (Corporate) Governance (ESG) goals is an example where corporations often just see a dilemma instead of a change to drive impactful change. 

The Glass Half Empty...

When senior management recognize ESG regulations as a challenge or (better) a strategic change driver, two typical scenarios unfold:

1. The Official Program: This structured initiative comes with budgets, hierarchies, KPIs, and reporting mechanisms. While necessary, it often becomes just another change initiative among many.
2. Mass Communications: High-level strategic overviews and targets related to ESG regulations like CSRD in Europe or SEC in the USA are delivered through short videos and learning modules to inform all employees at once.

Both approaches, though essential, miss the opportunity to deeply engage employees and tap into the collective wisdom of the workforce. For most employees, these goals (even when they are the basis for regulatory measures)  feel distant and irrelevant to their roles. Even those who care about certain aspects like sustainability are often unaware of the company’s initiatives or how they can contribute and thus don’t engage at all.

...Or Half Full?

To truly harness the potential of these initiatives, organizations need to expand their learning programs to be interactive, goal-directed, and social. Such programs encourage employees to discover their personal connection to the company’s goals, fostering higher engagement, a greater sense of belonging, additional sources of innovation, and increased organizational resilience.

Using Social Learning to Increase Engagement

Traditional learning bites in a mandatory program (e.g. sustainability)  are like light appetizers — sufficient for some, but many employees crave more substantial involvement. A social learning program makes it possible for these employees to learn more and become actively involved to turn a threat into an opportunity for the organization. 

Social learning is all about shared interests, fostering valuable exchanges and collective action.  A program makes it possible to identify and connect employees who have a high intrinsic motivation for ESGs that resonate with them personally, and brings them together in small peer groups who learn and experiment together over time, which ensures best results within the company’s broader ESG program.  Backed by top management and the whole organization, they are encouraged to build relationships with other employees who share their interests and take specific actions to advance their goals.

With full organizational support they will deliberately share their ideas, resources and progress and become role models for others. This support will ensure that there is a safe environment for them to pursue their learning goals and develop their ideas further for best results for the company.

By going beyond passive learning to social learning, the company taps into the intrinsic motivation of employees and empowers them to become active contributors to the company’s broader ESG goals and initiatives.

Tapping Into a New Source of Innovation

Once employees find personal relevance in the (sustainability or other) program, a small but significant percentage will want to contribute more. The next step involves channelling these contributions into the organization’s innovation and intrapreneurship programs. This is the final step that enables the organization to turn the former “burden and threats” into financially positive results. 

Components of the Advanced Program:

1. Soliciting and Nurturing Ideas: Employees contribute to existing projects or propose new innovations. Promising ideas are reviewed and developed further with institutional support.
2. Transition to Corporate Innovation Program: Selected ideas enter the company’s innovation or intrapreneurship programs, following predefined criteria for entry and exit.

Organizational Resilience

Greater connection and contribution enable the company to proactively respond to external change drivers with openness and creativity, rather than merely reacting. This enhances organizational resilience, a critical asset in today’s VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) and BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, Incomprehensible) environments.

The Arithmetic of Untapped Potential

Consider a company with 10,000 employees. If 10% engage deeply with a certain goal like sustainability in this example, that’s 1,000 empowered employees. If 10% of these (1% overall) have actionable ideas, that’s 100 contributors. Even if only 5% of these ideas are developed, that’s five new projects in the corporate ESG portfolio with a potential financial impact.

Key Benefits of this Approach

By implementing a comprehensive and inclusive approach to sustainability, organizations can realize multiple significant benefits:

• Higher Employee Engagement:

Employees who feel personally connected to certain ESG initiatives are more likely to be motivated and engaged in their work. They see their contributions as meaningful and aligned with both their personal values and the company’s strategic goals.

• Greater Sense of Belonging:

When employees are actively involved in such programs, they develop a stronger sense of belonging within the organization. This inclusive approach fosters a collaborative environment where everyone feels their input is valued.

• Additional Sources of Innovation:

Engaged employees bring diverse perspectives and ideas, leading to innovative solutions that might not have been discovered through traditional top-down approaches. By tapping into the collective creativity of the workforce, organizations can drive significant advancements in sustainability and other strategic areas.

• Increased Organizational Resilience:

A workforce that is connected and actively contributing to efforts towards certain ESG goals is better prepared to respond to external changes with agility and creativity. This proactive approach helps the organization adapt to new challenges, whether they are related to environmental, social, governance, technology, or other external drivers.

• Enhanced Corporate Reputation:

Demonstrating a genuine commitment to ESG goals even outside of regulatory changes and employee involvement will enhance the company’s reputation among stakeholders, including customers, investors, future employees (war for talent) and the broader community. This will lead to increased loyalty, better market positioning, and potential competitive advantages.

• Improved Operational Efficiency:

By integrating sustainability or any other of the above mentioned change drivers into everyday practices and encouraging employees to identify and implement efficiencies, organizations will reduce waste, lower costs, work on diversity opportunities, technological advances, improve overall operational effectiveness, and so much more.

• Long-term Strategic Alignment:

Ensuring that these initiatives are aligned with the company’s long-term strategic goals helps create a coherent and focused approach to growth and development. This alignment ensures that all efforts are driving towards common objectives, maximizing the impact of such programs.

Extending the Benefits Beyond ESG     

The benefits derived from a comprehensive (e.g. sustainability) program are not limited to these goals—they are highly transferable to other external change drivers such as technological advancements, financial disruptions, market and social changes, regulatory requirements or geopolitical shifts. By adopting an inclusive, engaging approach to any major change initiative, organizations can foster a culture of adaptability and continuous improvement. For example, when addressing the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), companies can use similar engagement and social learning techniques to upskill employees, encourage innovative applications of AI, and seamlessly integrate new technologies into the business model. This holistic approach ensures that the organization remains agile, innovative, and resilient in the face of any external change, turning potential threats into opportunities for growth and development.

Authors: Dennis Böcker and John Stepper