2008: Are Employers Seeking Sustainability Literate Graduates? (Sayce, Kingston)
- Start date: 2008-05-31
- End date: 2009-10-02
- Amount: £2,480
- Status: complete
This study, conducted by Kingston University and led by Professor Sarah Sayce, explored how far sustainability criteria have been adopted as part of the graduate recruitment process of multidisciplinary built environment (BE) organisations in the private sector who recruit BE graduates, particularly those in surveying.
Building on a previous pilot study carried out in 2005, an online questionnaire was distributed to a number of large, multidisciplinary organisations within the built environment offering structured Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) training programmes.
The questions, redesigned in light of the economic situation, sought to explore the following key questions:
- To what extent is sustainability important to built environment organisations and has this been constrained in light of the recent economic downturn?
- Has the rise of sustainability up the business agenda led to the requirement of different knowledge base and skills and to what extent is sustainability forming part of the graduate recruitment criteria?
- Are employers satisfied with the level of sustainability-related knowledge and skills in graduates or is there a gap between demand and the content of university curricula?
Is sustainability on the agenda?
Sustainability is evidently at the forefront of built environment organisations, having a profound effect in terms of policy, organisational practices, business operations and, ultimately, competitiveness and success. Commitments to sustainability were extremely prevalent with 90% of organisations having an environmental policy in place and 86% a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policy. Behaviourally, respondents indicated that sustainability had motivated change in organisational behaviours and practices. However, these responses do not necessarily indicated hard action. Just over 70% of organisations indicated that the sustainable development agenda influenced their corporate accommodation strategy. Ninety-five percent of respondents agreed that their organisation encouraged greater awareness from employees with regards to sustainability. A further 91% agreed that sustainability had motivated a change in office practices with initiatives such as waste reduction and energy saving.
The major drivers to implementing sustainability into organisational practices and business services were seen to be Better Informed Clients and Legislation.
One of the most significant concerns during the current economic downturn was the potential inhibition placed on sustainability as organisations seek to drive efficiency and cost-savings. Pleasingly, results show that, by and large, the focus on sustainability has not been constrained in light of the recession and, in some cases, momentum had actually been fuelled.
The effect on skills?
Whilst it is clear that sustainability is of high and increasing importance to built environment organisations, the research sought to explore whether this had filtered down into the skills set required by prospective employers. Perhaps the most important finding of the study is that almost two thirds of employers felt that the sustainability agenda had bought about no change in skills requirements of their organisation.
Despite this, it was recognised that knowledge and skills in the area of sustainability are lacking, with 63% of employers identifying the need for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) on the subject. This was supported by interview comment which reiterated that CPD and in-house training play a pivotal role in graduates understanding sustainable development. The influence of action from professional bodies, in this case the RICS, was apparent with almost 85% perceiving a greater need to incorporate sustainability into CPD since the RICS introduced competency M009.
Sustainability in graduate recruitment
The central aim of this study was to establish whether sustainability commitments within the wider organisation are affecting graduate recruitment policies and processes. Responses presented a very varied and patchy picture. Just under half the respondents indicated that they already require graduates to have knowledge and appreciation of sustainability, with a further 22% indicting that this was likely to occur in the next round of recruitment.
Interestingly however, 17% indicated that they had no intention of requiring graduates to have knowledge of sustainability.
The ‘filtering down’ effect is clear as organisations with a CSR policy in place are more likely to require knowledge now or within the next round of recruitment (71%) than those without (0%).
In line with perception throughout the built environment, environmental understanding took prevalence in the recruitment process, with almost all respondents exploring these aspects of graduate knowledge. Seventy-seven percent and 70% respectively explored understanding of economic and social concerns. In addition to this, employers were most likely to require a general understanding and appreciation of sustainable development (78%) as opposed to an industry-specific knowledge (22%). Interviewees supported this, commenting ‘the expectation is that graduates have an appreciation of the concept of sustainability.’ Within this, it was organisations with a smaller graduate intake (1-5 annually) that were more likely to require industry-specific knowledge. Very few organisations had developed specific methods to assess knowledge of sustainability (such as tests, case study exercises) with all relying on the interview process to explore the issue.
Despite indications that employers require graduates to be sustainability literate, more important is the weight given to such knowledge and skills in the recruitment process. Findings indicate that sustainability literacy remains a ‘nice to have’ rather than a ‘must have’. Interview responses clarified this with responses including ‘skills within the traditional property spectrum remain top priority’ and ‘transferrable skills such as team working, communication and analytical skills are important in recruitment choices'. Evidence confirms the findings of many other studies that ‘soft’ interpersonal skills remain top of the priority list for graduate employers.
Cross tabulation indicates that, despite little differentiation, sustainability is of lower priority to those recruiting graduates to Valuation and Commercial Property roles. Interview comments support that the importance of sustainability literacy is highly dependent on work lines and business needs.
Sustainability knowledge was seen as important regardless of the subject background of graduates with 60% of organisations expecting similar knowledge from non-cognate graduates as those with an industry-related degree.
Regardless of current position, the final question discovered that all organisations expect graduate knowledge and related skills to increase in the future.
Conclusions
Sustainability is undeniably high on the agenda of built environment organisations with many organisations responding positively to legislative drivers and client demand through the development of policy and organisational best practice.
However, whilst the impact on the wider organisation has been strong, the migration into skills needs and recruitment has been patchy and somewhat muted. Despite recognition of the need for sustainability literate graduates, the weight given to it when it comes to decisions is limited at best. Dissecting the meaning of ‘sustainability literacy’ within the built environment recruitment context suggests that employers continue to place more emphasis on the interrelated ‘soft’ skills as opposed to an underlying technical knowledge of sustainability. For now, the majority of employers are content with graduates demonstrating a general knowledge of sustainability, and when read in conjunction with results regarding CPD, this would suggest that organisations use in-house training to mould graduates into organisational values and practices on sustainability. Whilst there is a need for graduates to be equipped with a general understanding of sustainable development, it is even more essential that they can utilise and apply this through a range of ‘soft’ skills.
The strongest message to emerge from the research is that, looking forward, there is no doubt that expectations and requirements will continue to increase in the future, with sustainability literacy becoming a ‘must have’ for not just built environment graduates, but all graduates of the future.
From the study, it was recommended that feedback and communication loops between industry and higher education are strengthened and capitalised upon and, where necessary, new ones developed, in order to ensure that curricula and as such, the skills graduates are equipped with, are aligned with employer demand.
Organisation/Institutions:- Kingston University