EM1: Employee Management – Above Green

(points determined by materiality)

Intent

The intent of this indicator is to assess the coverage and scope of the entity's engagement with its employees through training and satisfaction surveys.

ESG training reflects the entity’s commitment to building its employees’ capacity to manage complex ESG issues. A more skilled and aware workforce enhances the entity's human capital and may help to improve employee satisfaction. Employee training and development contribute to improved business performance.

Employee satisfaction surveys help organizations understand critical issues within the business, engage with their staff and increase employee satisfaction, which may contribute to improving retention rates and overall productivity. Using widely applied employee satisfaction surveys should be translated into easily interpretable metrics that can help analyze and compare the outcomes, despite the many variations between firms.

Requirements

Select Yes or No: If selecting “Yes”, select all applicable checkbox(es).

Does the entity engage with its employees through training or satisfaction monitoring?

Yes
- Does the entity provide training and development for employees?
  - Yes
    - Average amount spent per FTE on training and development: ____________
    - Percentage of employees who received professional training in the reporting year
      
      ________%
    - Percentage of employees who received ESG-related training in the reporting year
      
      ________%
    - The ESG-related training focuses on the following elements (multiple answers possible)
      - Environmental issues
      - Social issues
      - Governance issues
  - No
- Has the entity undertaken employee satisfaction surveys within the last 3 years?
  - Yes
    - The survey is undertaken (multiple answers possible):
      - Internally
        
        Percentage of employees covered: ________%
        
        Survey response rate: ________%
      - By an independent third party
        
        Percentage of employees covered: ________%
        
        Survey response rate: ________%
    - Does the survey include quantitative metrics?
      - Yes (metrics include)
        
        Net Promoter Score
        
        Overall satisfaction score
        
        Other: ____________
      - No
  - No
- EXCEPTIONS - Does the entity’s data reported above cover all, and only, the facilities (as reported in RC3) and activities (RC4) for the entire reporting year (EC4)? (for reporting purposes only)
  - Yes
  - No
    - Please indicate which facilities, activities and/or time periods are additional or excluded from the data reported above
      
      ________________________
No
- Provide additional context for the answer provided (not validated, for reporting purposes only)
  ________________________

Changes: Moved from MA7 to Performance Component to be included in the new aspect “Employees”. New metrics have been added: “Average amount spent per FTE”, “% of employees who received training”, “% of employees who received ESG training”.

Prefill: This indicator is similar to the one included in the 2019 Assessment and some sections have been prefilled from the 2019 Assessment. Review the response and/or evidence carefully.

Checkbox(es): Multiple answers are possible. Select all applicable answers.

Reporting level: Answers should be applicable at the entity, operator and/or manager level.

Percentage of employees who received training: the percentage of employees that have received any training, out of the total number of employees, in the reporting year.

The calculation should be: Number of employees receiving training / Total number of employees x 100

Percentage of employees who received ESG-related training: the percentage of employees that have received ESG-training, out of the total number of employees, in the reporting year.

The calculation should be: Number of employees receiving ESG-specific training / Total number of employees x 100
Examples of ESG-related training include, but are not limited to, training on environmental awareness, health and safety, handling of hazardous materials, data confidentiality or code of conduct.

Percentage of employees covered: the percentage of employees covered based on Full Time Equivalents (FTE) or headcount. If the number of employees changed during the reporting year, the percentage should be calculated based on the average number. This is a scored metric.

Survey response rate:The percentage of employees that received and completed the survey, compared to the total number of employees that received the survey. For example, if the survey was sent to 100 employees and 40 responded, the response rate would be 40%.

Other: If the entity has conducted a survey that included different metrics from the ones currently listed, they can add these. The ‘other’ metric should be distinct and different from the ones already listed.

Exceptions

Select Yes or No: GRESB is seeking to standardize the scope and boundaries of reporting to allow for more accurate benchmarking and to progressively move towards scoring of performance. If the scope of the data reported for this indicator does not exactly match the reporting scope (facilities, ancillary activities and time period) as reported in “Entity and Reporting Characteristics” (EC3, RC3, RC4), then answer ‘No’ to this question and describe these exceptions in the “Exceptions” text box.

Examples are:

Temporal - A toll road includes data on energy consumption from its street lighting within its boundary but due to a data glitch, it lost this data for a two month period during the reporting year.
Physical - A power plant includes a switchyard facility within its reporting boundary but does not have data on water discharge for this facility.
Operational - An airport includes the operation of mobile equipment within its reporting boundary but not for aircraft since these are operated by airlines.

Validation

Other: State the other employee satisfaction metric used. The answer should only refer to the department or governance body of which the senior decision maker is part of. Report only one other answer.

Scoring

Materiality-based Scoring: This indicator applies materiality-based scoring. The materiality weighting for this indicator is determined by the materiality level of the ‘Employee engagement’ issue in the GRESB Materiality Assessment (RC7).

Where this issue is of ‘High’ relevance, this indicator will be weighted highly and where this issue is of ‘Medium’ relevance, it will be weighted moderately. If materiality for this issue is set at ‘No’ or ‘Low’ relevance for the entity, this indicator will not be scored. As a result, the weight of this indicator may differ for each participant based on its materiality profile. The weighting of the material (scored) indicators in the Performance Component is automatically redistributed to ensure that the Component retains its overall weighting of 50% of the Asset Assessment. For more details refer to the section on Materiality Based Scoring in this Reference Guide or download the GRESB Materiality & Scoring Tool.

Scoring of Metrics: This indicator comprises two equally weighted parts, each scored like one-section indicators (i.e. Section 1: 'Elements' response). Each part is scored based on the selected options and suboptions.

For the first part of the indicator, Employee training, fractional scores are awarded for whether the training covers Environmental, Social and/or Governance issues. All three must be covered to achieve the full score for this part.

The second part of the indicator, Employee satisfaction monitoring, has two elements that are scored - employee satisfaction survey (fractionally ⅔ of this part) and using quantitative metrics within the survey (⅓). It is not necessary to select all options to achieve the maximum score. For the employee satisfaction survey, full fractional score is obtained if the survey is undertaken by an independent third party versus internally. In regard to quantitative metrics (in the survey) full fractional score is obtained for using Net Promoter Score, with lesser score for other metrics.

Reporting of exceptions is not scored in 2020.

Terminology

Employee Satisfaction Survey: Survey measuring overall and work-specific employee satisfaction at the individual and organizational levels. The survey should directly address employee concerns and include the opportunity to provide recommendations for improvement.

Employee (s): Either the entity’s employees or the organization’s employees whose primary responsibilities include the operation or support of the entity.

Environmental issues: The impact on living and non-living natural systems, including land, air, water and ecosystems. This includes, but is not limited to, biodiversity, transport and product and service-related impacts, as well as environmental compliance and expenditures. Full reference to listed environmental issues can be found in Appendix 2.

ESG-specific training: Training related to environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.

Governance issues: Governance structure and composition of the organization. This includes how the highest governance body is established and structured in support of the organization’s purpose, and how this purpose relates to economic, environmental and social dimensions. Full reference to listed governance issues can be found in the Appendix 2.

Net Promoter Score: The Net Promoter Score® (NPS) is a customer loyalty metric developed by Bain & Company, Fred Reichheld, and Satmetrix.

Overall satisfaction score: An overarching metric in a satisfaction survey, with no prescribed scale, that measures how happy an employee or customer is with the entity and/or services provided.

Quantitative metric: Any measure or parameter that can be represented numerically.

Social issues: Concerns the impacts the organization has on the social systems within which it operates. Full reference to listed social issues can be found in Appendix 2.

Survey response rate: The proportion of submitted surveys as a percentage of the total number of people or organizations that received a request to complete a survey.

Training: A formal and structured training program addressing ESG-related issues and opportunities for action.

References

Bain & Company, Introducing: The Net Promoter System®

Alignment with External Frameworks

DJSI 2019 - 5.3.1 Training & Development Inputs

DJSI 2019 - 5.4.4 Trend of Employee Engagement

GRI Standard 102-43: Approach to stakeholder engagement

GRI Standard 404-1: Average hours of training per year per employee

Relevant UN Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 8 - Decent Work and Economic Growth

8.6 By 2020, substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training

SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production

12.8 By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature

SDG 13 - Climate Action

13.3 Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning