Tips For Getting Staff Onboard with a Composting Program
Do you want to start or improve a composting program at your company, but aren’t sure how to get staff on board with the changes that come with it? When initiating any change in the workplace, employee buy-in can help make the transition successful.
The more employees you have on board with a change, the better chance you have at making a real difference. Here are some helpful tips for getting your staff onboard with a composting program.
Explain the Benefits
The best way to encourage participation in a composting program is through education. To help get your employees to learn and consistently follow a new procedure, you can inform them on what kind of impact the program will make. When your staff knows the true benefits of composting, they’ll feel more motivated to make it a routine — rather than doing something because someone at their company told them to.
You can communicate the benefits of composting to employees through a meeting, a presentation, or emails. A bi-weekly email newsletter highlighting the impact of composting on the environment can remind employees why they should keep doing it.
Some key benefits to cover when communicating with employees are the environmental impacts of composting, how it helps companies reach sustainability goals, and how a composting program can foster a strong community within the workplace.
Environment
When you compost your food waste instead of throwing it away, you prevent it from being packed into a landfill. When food waste is relegated to a landfill, it releases methane gas as it decomposes. Methane gas is a strong contributor to the greenhouse gasses that are causing our global temperature to rise. In fact, an estimated 58% of methane emissions from municipal solid waste landfills are caused by food waste in landfills.
Sustainability
As concerns about climate change are at an all-time high, many organizations are taking a pledge to change their daily operations to keep the environment in mind. Encouraging employees to compost food waste is a valuable and effective way for companies to reach their sustainability goals and give employees a way to help the planet.
With a robust composting program, employees, customers, and stakeholders alike will see that your business is serious about its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts. Not only can a composting program help the environment, but it can also help garner trust and goodwill in customers toward your brand. An increase in customer trust could usher in more business —- leading to higher job security and employee morale.
Community
After being picked up and composted, the nutrient-rich compost may be sold to farms, plant nurseries, and garden centers.
At Moonshot Compost, we give customers the opportunity to have their compost returned to them twice a year. Companies can either donate the compost or use it themselves – for example, using the compost to jumpstart a gardening program can be an easy way to nurture employee engagement. If a company doesn’t want its compost returned, we can donate the compost to a partnered community garden.
Learn more about Moonshot’s composting service
Have Open Discussions
Employees may want to question new ideas or processes. To make your employees feel heard, allow staff to ask questions throughout the transition and be willing to answer any questions or address any concerns they may have. This discussion should ideally take place before the composting program is implemented to adequately prepare staff for the upcoming change.
Full communication through every step can help garner trust with your staff. Once your company has a composting program up and running, there should still be regular discussions to answer new questions and ask employees for feedback.
Provide Clear Instructions
To nurture a successful composting program, business leaders should let employees know what exactly their role is in the program and make it as simple as possible for them to participate. Some effective methods for educating employees on how to compost properly are to hold training sessions, create informative signs, and build a committee.
Conduct Training
Business leaders can organize training courses for staff to ensure they understand how composting works and what they need to do to ensure they discard food waste effectively.
At Moonshot Compost, we train your staff as part of the onboarding process to educate them on what food waste is and isn’t compostable.
Create Signs
Posting signs around the office will help remind employees to compost whenever possible. In addition to reminding employees to compost, placing a sign listing what kind of waste is compostable will prevent contamination.
Bins and drums that Moonshot provides to commercial customers come with laminated signs in English and Spanish showing which foods can be composted.
Create a Committee
A great way to encourage participation is by first getting a few people onboard and having them lead the way for others. If any employees are passionate about sustainability, they might be interested in joining a committee focused on it. These employees can both support the transition to composting and provide ideas for further improvements to the program.
Share Progress with Staff
One of the best ways to encourage employees to adhere to the program is to display the results of their efforts.
Moonshot offers customers a personalized Diversion Dashboard that tracks the impact of a company’s composting efforts.
Customers can showcase their composting efforts on monitors across the workplace, on digital bulletin boards, in newsletters, and even in messaging apps.
Sharing this information with staff will remind them that composting makes a difference and keep them motivated.
Start Composting at Your Company
s your business in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, or Waco? Learn how you can start composting with Moonshot Compost to reduce your ecological footprint, demonstrate your sustainability, and boost employee morale.
