ABSTRACT
In today’s world of changing business circumstances, organizations need people who are motivated, responsive to change and fully trained. Nothing much ever happens unless people are motivated and responsive, and helping people to understand the benefits of a particular course of action is very important. People will only give of their best if they fully understand the decisions that affect them, how and why these decisions arose, and how their contributions can make a difference. Training and communication failures can lead to costly errors and breaches of environmental regulations. Failure can be measured not only in terms of hours lost or fines, but also by the loss of cooperation between staff and managers, and stakeholder perceptions. A sound understanding of responsibilities is crucially important for all staff with a role to play in the implementation of an environmental initiative. Training and communication are key to this. They allow skills to be transferred to staff. They induce motivation, change attitudes and allow people to acquire a deeper understanding of the issues. In summary, training and communication can help to:
• equip all employees with the skills to perform their jobs more effectively; • provide and maintain knowledge to enable staff to understand why their actions
matter; • increase employee commitment and motivation, and promote identification within
the organization; and • avoid failures and facilitate change.
