In a recent article, I wrote about research showing that employees today actively want their employer to be sustainable. Research from the University of Bonn reveals that the average younger worker would willingly take a lower salary to work for a sustainable or socially oriented company.

The study shows that companies would have an easier time recruiting younger professionals if they were also pursuing social or sustainable goals. This is especially so when the workers have prosocial and altruistic personalities.

Social desires

Around 1,500 participants were asked to evaluate a number of fictitious job offers, with the characteristics of each job varied, including the permanence of the contract, the salary, the nature of the work, and whether the company was sustainable or not.

The results show that the participants were willing to give up to around €220 per month to work for a company with social or sustainable objectives. These companies were particularly attractive to people with a strong altruistic orientation and who were less competitive.

“From a business perspective, this is an important insight: If I offer certain working conditions, certain individuals are more likely to want to work for me,” the authors conclude. “If a sustainably oriented company wants to attract competitive applicants, it has to offer a higher salary than sustainably oriented companies to which competition orientation is less important. If a company wants more diversity in its teams, it might want to become involved in sustainability and social issues.”