Get the skills for sustainability 

Skills needed to respond to sustainability challenges include the following:

• Knowledge

• Empowerment

• Communication 

• Having influence and relationship building

• Recognising problems and solving them

• Resilience

• Change management

• Leadership

OckiPro is developing a range of resource to help train employees in the above areas, and more. To start with, there is a series of ’Get the skills...’ articles for members (The full set will be available when OckiPro is launched mid-2023. See Communication for a link to a freely-accessible example):

1. Knowledge: Employees should have a clear understanding of what sustainability means to the organisation, along with the actions it is taking, the reasons for them, and the challenges and opportunities. These will vary depending on the type of organisation. A good place to start knowledge building is through definitions of sustainability, its components, and raising awareness of how your organisation impacts the different  environmental, societal and economic aspects and what it is doing to mitigate the negatives and accentuate the positives. 
2. Empowerment: As employees learn more, it is important that they feel able to use that knowledge to make changes and contribute to delivering the strategy and targets. One of the biggest challenges for employees is having the time to think about sustainability, when there is pressure to get on with business as usual as a priority.
3. Communication: One of the most important things we can all do is to talk about sustainability. Communication is a fundamental part of social change. It demonstrates to others that we care about the issues. Sustainability can be complex and feel remote from daily life. Talking to others can also help convey how they relate to the individual at work and at home. This article on communication provides the basics to stimulate more productive conversations. 
4. Influence and relationship building: The scale of the issues means that no one person can solve them or deliver the company’s sustainability strategy on their own. We need to encourage others to act, particularly individuals working in other teams and departments that do not report directly to us. We are all most profoundly influenced by the people that we are closest to and respect the most. At work this means building strong relationships with individuals from across the organisation.
5. Recognising problems and solving them: The scale of the issues that humanity faces is unprecedented and, while we have many of the approaches we need to solve them, we need to develop others and work out how to apply the existing solutions in different settings. As a result, whatever the individual’s role, they will need to become adept at recognising, dissecting and resolving problems.
6. Resilience: Resilience is the ability to thrive in the face of change. Shifting towards more sustainable ways of doing business inevitably requires a lot of changes. Resilient businesses and individuals recognise that change is natural and that the path to get there is not straight. There will be resistance along the way and initiatives that fail to deliver the objectives that were set at the start. These temporary setbacks are opportunities to learn what does and does not work.
7. Change management: Although change may be an inevitable part of doing business more sustainably, it does not make the shift any easier. It is also fundamental to acknowledge that organisations do not change; but the people within them do. Change management helps people across an organisation to understand the need for change, creates the personal motivation to do so, builds the knowledge and skills individuals and teams require to thrive in the new environment and then reinforces the benefits.
8. Leadership: Strong leadership is needed to advance sustainability within an organisation. Leadership encompasses many of the skills above. It is knowing how to delegate tasks and empowering others to take action. It is also about making difficult decisions, communicating clearly, managing change and maintaining team resilience.