Do you ‘walk the talk’ or ‘talk the walk’?

Several regulations and conventions have been created aimed at controlling and monitoring the accuracy and transparency of corporate statements. This has been requested by commercial stakeholders. Understanding the importance of the principles behind major conventions, as well as their weaknesses (e.g. implementation), seems to be fundamental to answering the questions:

• Do companies transparently report what they are doing?
• Or are companies just focused on doing what they promised to do in the last report?

Communicating internally in the organisation and externally with partners and stakeholders is important to…

Do what you say – Walking the Talk

In an attempt to respond to these questions, many people are concerned with whether (sustainable) organisations are keeping their word, and are in fact turning good intentions and appealing promises into real practices. This is commonly known as ‘walking the talk’ and reflects the integrity of an organisation. It contributes to building its image as a reliable organisation in the public’s eyes. Consistency is the key factor for reliability in that organisation. However, regardless of the quality of existing regulations, and the value of ‘walking the talk’, the real gap seems to be that this approach does not incorporate the concept of transparency for that organisation.

Say what you will do – Talking the Walk

The critical issue in such ‘sustainably aware’ times, is not only doing what is written in the reports but also understanding what is reported. This approach is called ‘talking the walk’. From this perspective, questions such as: How much of what has been done is actually disclosed? And to whom? provide the focus of the analysis.

‘Talking the walk’ best practice communication is an important and effective way to accurately convey an organisation’s actions internally and externally to partners and stakeholders. Talking the walk means communicating to a range of different audiences in ways they will understand the intent, and content, while allowing for diverse cultural and political views that may affect how an audience interprets a message. Still, businesses need to be careful not to overstate what they will deliver on, nor ‘greenwash’ what they are doing. Walking the talk raises important questions about how effective the corporate social responsibility and green HR processes are, and the commitment of the organisation to maintain and continuously improve on them.

Reflection

This about the businesses you been involved with and whether they had any green HR strategies.

Consider how successful they were in reaching their goals.

Did you ever detect any any ‘greenwashing’?