Making sustainability possible and probable: a self-training intervention for employees

Purpose This study evaluates the effectiveness of a self-training intervention aimed at proactively implementing sustainability at work. Drawing on Job Demands-Resources Theory and Nudge Theory, we propose that employees who engage in job crafting, network crafting, and self-nudging are more likely to adopt and sustain sustainable practices. The intervention specifically targets proactive employee behavior across the three overarching domains of sustainability: People, planet, and prosperity. Design/methodology/approach A total of 75 employees participated in a 5-day online self-training intervention, with another 75 employees serving as the control group. The intervention encouraged participants to balance job demands and resources and to install personal prompts in their work environment to support sustainable work behavior. Findings General linear modeling results showed increases in seeking resources and self-nudging, and a stabilizing effect for optimizing demands. The intervention also positively influenced sustainability intentions and sustainability behavior in the people domain (proactive vitality management), the planet domain (citizenship behavior towards the environment), and indirectly in the prosperity domain (citizenship behavior towards the organization). Process analyses using bootstrapping indicated that changes in self-nudging mediated the effect of the intervention on the sustainability outcomes within the present multi-component intervention design. Notably, participants who actively followed the training protocol benefited more from the intervention. Originality/value This study presents a novel self-training intervention for employees that effectively promotes sustainability engagement across multiple sustainability domains. By integrating crafting and nudging principles, it offers a holistic, practical, bottom-up tool for embedding and maintaining sustainability behavior into daily work.