The Next Big Thing: Green Human Resource Management (GHRM)

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"Going Green" has been the talk amongst corporates over the years, since the early 20s there has been an increasing awareness within working communities on the significance of going green and adopting various Environment Management (EM) techniques. As the corporate world is going global, industries are going through a shift from a conventional financial structure to a modern capacity based economy which is ready to explore green economic facets of business. Today, Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) has become a key business strategy amongst organizations where Human Resource Departments play an active part in going green at the office.

What is Green Human Resource Management (GHRM)?

Green HRM emphasizes its role in the promotion and achievement of sustainable objectives within a company. It encourages all employees in adopting sustainable practices and improving awareness about eco-friendly lifestyles. GHRM integrates environmental considerations into human resource management practices. It involves implementing environmentally sustainable practices in human resource management, like reducing energy consumption, waste reduction, promoting environmentally friendly behavior among employees, and promoting the use of eco-friendly products and services.

According to Lee (2009) the approach was considered to be quite effective and profitable since early 2000. He defined green management to be the strategy which is adapted by an organization in order to organize the environmental management strategies for protecting and measuring environmental aspects.

Daily and Huang (2001) recommended that organizations essentially need to balance the industrial growth and ensuring that the environment where one lives is well preserved and promoted.

Video Source: YouTube, Green HRM for business organisations by Veronika Murga

Why is Green HRM Important?

Environmental consciousness is the buzz word today that is actively invading every dimension of our lives and workplace. Over years of evolution, our personal and professional lifestyle has been affecting the environment so badly that we cannot risk letting the effects go unchecked. We either change our living habits and make the world a better place or face the consequences of not doing so, and undoubtedly the corporate world plays a major role in the discussion about environmental issues and therefore adapts be an important part of the solution to the environmental hazard.

GHRM focuses on creating a sustainable work environment, reducing the carbon footprint of the organization, and promoting green initiatives that align with the organization's environmental policies. It aims to reduce the environmental impact of the organization while ensuring employee well-being, health, and safety.

 

Some of the key practices that are part of GHRM include:

Recruitment and selection

Hiring employees who share the organization's environmental values and vision, and ensuring they receive training on sustainable practices.

The move to more web-based recruitment activity has permitted recruiters to provide much more information, such as detail on their Environmental management (EM) activities, compared to traditional mediums such as newspaper advertising or brochures. The recruitment websites of major European employers find considerable detail on the environmental activity of the organization (Ehnert 2009).

Training and development

Providing training and development opportunities that focus on sustainability and environmental practices.

Training is widely seen in the literature as a key GHRM intervention, not least in order to heighten staff awareness of the environmental impact of their organization’s activities (Bansal and Roth 2000); to equip staff with core skills, such as how to collect relevant waste data (May and Flannery 1995).

Management Development and Leadership:

As Business Schools are potentially seen as architects of a new ‘evolutionary course’ towards sustainability and environmental knowledge (Starkey and Crane 2003), they may play a key role in educating and developing environmental leaders in the future. EM is also increasingly being included in MBA programs curricula in countries such as China, and is seen to be the type of business education that empowers managers to start projects in EM (Fryxell and Lo 2003).

Performance Management (PM) and Appraisal (PA):

Using Performance Management (PM) in EM presents many challenges, not least here being how to measure environmental performance standards across different organizational departments/units, and gaining useable data on the environmental performance of these units and staff. Some firms have addressed this issue by installing corporate wide environmental performance standards, and green information systems/audits to gain useful data on environmental performance (Marcus and Fremeth 2009).

Employee engagement:

Encouraging employee involvement in green initiatives and providing incentives for eco-friendly behavior.

Wider employee participation in environmental management, rather than restricting involvement to managers and specialists, is often seen as crucial to successful outcomes (Remmen and Lorentzen 2000; Hanna et al. 2000; Bunge et al. 1996). Although market, business, and regulatory demands remain as the key drivers of EM, employees themselves are often reported as a source of pressure for organizations to address environmental issues (Berry and Rondinelli 1998).

Involving employees in EM has been reported as improving the key outcomes of environmental management systems, including: efficient resource usage (Florida and Davidson 2001); reducing waste (May and Flannery 1995); and reducing pollution from workplaces (Denton 1999; Kitazawa and Sarkis 2000).

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Supportive Cultures:

A strong theme in the EM literature is that effective outcomes are achieved not just by making changes to production processes, products or raw material but by changing the corporate culture such that organizations have deeply embedded values that support long term sustainability (Stone 2000; Kitazawa and Sarkis 2000).

An organizational culture that supports EM is one that encourages employees to make suggestions for and the freedom to engage in, activities that improve the environment. In particular, employees must be well informed about environmental issues that affect their workplace (Madsen and Ulhoi 2001), and wider

Employee participation in EM is found to underpin such supportive cultures. Fernandez et al. (2003) argue that EI forms a core element of an advanced environmental approach because its supports a work culture ‘based on ecological values. Antecedents of such cultures derive from managers showing commitment to environmental issues, and the eco-centric values of employees and their involvement in Environmental Management (EM) activities are all viewed as ‘indispensable’ for EM to be successful (Fernandez et al. 2003).

 

Conclusion

Well practiced GHRM will support in better productivity with economical advantages(lower the expenses). It will reduce bio waste and nurture the use of recycled goods, equipment and techniques. The idea is to increase employee engagement at work; that enables the organization to function in an eco friendly environment.

By adopting GHRM practices, organizations can reduce their environmental impact, attract environmentally conscious employees and customers, and improve their reputation as a socially responsible and sustainable organization.

               

References

Renwick, D. | Redman, T. | Maguire, S. (2012)

Green human resource management: A review and Research agenda, International journal of management reviews. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2370.2011.00328.x.

Shoeb Ahmad | Tahir Nisar (Reviewing Editor) (2015), Green Human Resource Management: Policies and practices, Cogent Business & Management.
https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2015.1030817

Rekha R (2021), Green HRM: Meaning, Advantages, Policies, and Practices.

www.vantagecircle.com/green-hrm