Green building certification: impact on employee engagement.

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of Green Building Certification on employee satisfaction, with particular focus on the link between sustainability practices and organisational engagement. The first research questions are to determine how informed the employees are regarding green building practices and secondly, how the perceived benefits affect the level of participation. The data for this study was gathered from one hundred employees of organizations with green building certifications by use of structured questionnaires, and analyzed by Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and regression analysis by use of SPSS and AMOS. The study shows that awareness of green building initiatives is relatively high among employees, although this awareness is not necessarily associated with greater levels of engagement. A negative correlation was established between the perceived benefits of green buildings and employee engagement, meaning that if employees are unaware of the benefits of such practices, they may be less engaged. Therefore, to ensure that green building certifications are valued and supported, organisations have to clearly explain how organisations and their workers stand to gains, for instance, through enhanced health and productivity. Based on the findings of the study, it is recommended that greater focus should be placed on the engagement of employees in sustainability programmes and improvement of communication channels as ways of achieving higher effectiveness in sustainability. Subsequent studies should also take into account such factors as organizational culture and personal values to enhance knowledge of this relationship. Finally, this research underscores the need for organizations to integrate green building practices with the engagement frameworks to enhance the workforce engagement and organizational results.