Workforce falls behind rising demand for green talent

While Australian organisations have pledged their commitments to the net-zero plan, the workforce needed to support this ambition has a lot of catching up to do, according to recruitment and workforce solutions specialists Hays.

Citing LinkedIn research, Hays said that the number of jobs requiring green skills has increased annually by 8% since 2015. However, the amount of green talent has grown by just 6% during the same period.

Chris Kent, executive director of sustainability at Hays, said that while the figures show that green talent is slowly rising, there's still a "long way" to go.

"While the volume of green talent is steadily rising, we're a long way from the number required to deliver a more sustainable future," Kent said.

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A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently found that global heating must be kept at 1.5 degrees by 2030 to avoid the "irreversible impacts of climate change." And Kent said organisations are feeling the pressure to speed up their efforts in sustainability.

"Organisations are under pressure from various stakeholders to accelerate their decarbonisation efforts, including consumers, colleagues, policymakers, and action groups," Kent said.

To help organisations in their decarbonisation efforts, Hays has come up with three steps that employers can implement for a "greener way of operating."

1. Craft a greener culture. Organisations must reshape their workforce's behaviours, according to Hays, where sustainability is embedded in the company's purpose, mission, and objectives.
   
   This would also require a leadership team that advocates for sustainability, advised Hays, and incentivises sustainable results and communicates to employees to disrupt habits.
    
2. Build a skilled workforce. Recruit new and upskill or reskill existing staff into green jobs, said Hays, adding that employers could also support green talent development by considering the transferable skills of people moving out of traditional energy.
   
   "A successful green transition also requires the evolution of all existing jobs. Just as digital transformation required people to gain new digital skills to perform their role successfully, the green transition demands we all learn to do our job in a green-first way," Hays said in a media release.
    
3. Develop strategic sustainable operations. Hays suggested reviewing and realigning operating models by using data to track end-to-end supply chain, utilising emerging climate technologies, and redesigning consumption patterns.

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The steps were further elaborated on Hays's report, "The green transition has started. Is your workforce strategy ready?" According to Kent, while these strategies can help an organisation's green transition, they are not an "exhaustive list nor should they be an annual tick-box exercise."

"Organisations must go beyond compliance and use all resources, expertise, and talent at their disposal to accelerate decarbonisation efforts. After all, there is no planet B," Kent said.