Exploring the best internal communication practices for optimal employee engagement in corporate sustainability : Hi Fly case study

• Autor(a) principal: Sobreiro, Susana Maria Tavares
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/37421
• topic: Sustainability; Corporate sustainability; Internal communication; Employees; Engagement; Sustentabilidade; Sustentabilidade corporativa; Comunicação interna; Colaboradores; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Ciências da Comunicação

Sustainability is a key concern of our times. In order to ensure that future generations will be able to live in a healthy planet and robust society, today’s world must be able to increase economic growth, while dealing with the most pressing environmental and social issues. When companies decide to be part of the solution, integrating externalities into their corporate strategy, it is indispensable that employees are aligned with this mission. The more employees are engaged in the company’s sustainability strategy, the more they support it, whether through changing their own behaviours, communicating this commitment to external stakeholders, or actively contributing to greening corporate processes. Internal communication enters the picture by promoting this engagement, being a strategic tool for companies to use when they decide to pursue corporate sustainability. This Internship Report conducted a case study-mixed methods in order to analyse a sustainable company, Hi Fly airline, and explore the best internal communication practices to increase employee engagement in corporate sustainability. Results showed that the airline applies a variety of internal communication practices to communicate about corporate sustainability, ranging from electronic channels, such as the intranet and email, to sustainability training and participatory activities, like beach clean-ups. It was possible to understand, however, that employees prefer the email for this communication. Although Hi Fly employees are engaged in the company’s sustainability work, a significant portion wants more communication on the subject and do not feel that they have an open channel to share their suggestions and contribute to making the airline more sustainable, highlighting what should be improved at Hi Fly. This research adds clues to the scarce literature on the topic, taking advantage of Hi Fly’s best practices and its employees’ suggestions to provide some lessons learned on how to communicate with employees about corporate sustainability. Applying these practices can benefit both the employees and the companies that have sustainability at the heart of their activities.