Employee Relationships in Greenpeace

             Signaling is therefore not only important from the perspective of a job candidate "selling" himself, but also from the perspective of Greenpeace, as an organization on its quest to attract the brightest and most productive employees. Greenpeace´s desire for a "truly diverse, multi-skilled and committed range of employees" (greenpeace.org) and the related liberal and modern job-atmosphere is signalled to potential employees by using not only traditional channels for posting vacancies, but social media like Facebook as well. Marketing of the corporate brand, a concept established in the academic field of Brand Management, appears to be highly relevant for Greenpeace overall: any marketing channel the company uses, such as its website, the above mentioned social media but also personal portrays of employees, is used to consistently convey the corporate image of being an altruistic, caring, young and innovative organization with flat hierarchies, making it a fun and rewarding place to work.
             Based on the above considerations, matching seems to play a vital role in Greenpeace´s personnel policy considerations. In addition to having to assess and select job candidates´ skills, assessing their intrinsic motivation and, relatedly, their willingness to adhere to Greenpeace´s mission and culture complicates the selection process. The existence of the above mentioned extensive and expensive screening policies indicates however, that Greenpeace perceives substantial benefits to be gained from selecting and hiring the right employees based on both, skill and intrinsic motivation.
             Matching, or sorting, at non-profit organizations is a topic which has received increasing attention in contemporary research, stressing its distinctiveness from personnel policy at profit-oriented organizations. Besley and Ghatak (2005) investigate the implications of dealing with what they call "motivated agents", employees who are intrinsically motivated and who in turn self-select into organizations with similar goals.