Green Human Resource

Management
ABSTRACT

As an emerging concept, green human resource management (green HRM) means

“HRM activities, which enhance positive environmental outcomes”. Green HRM
is a new emerging concept in today's world. Growing concern for the global
environment and the development of international standards and protocols for
environmental management has created a need for business organizations to
adopt environmental strategies and programmers. The business is shifting its focus
from a conventional financial structure to a new capacity-based system which is
ready to explore green economic facets of business as the corporate world is going
global. In this emerging field, it has been generally observed that the extant
literature has to be extended further from the HRM functions perspective. The
objective of this review is to explore green HRM practices based on the existent
literature. The study followed the archival method of the literature review. The
contribution of this article lies in drawing together the extant literature in this
area; highlighting different significant works by other workers and at the end
attempts to suggest some green initiatives for HR.

Keywords:- Environment Management, Going Green, Green Economy, Green HRM,

Green Initiatives.
 INTRODUCTION

In this era of living, the levels of environmental awareness and efforts towards its
sustainability have reached new heights. In every international conference on the
environment, the nations are discussing the carbon credits, global warming and the
changes in the climate, resulting into earthquakes, frequent floods, rapid melting of
glaciers and vanishing of certain species and animals (Sheikh 2010)[1]. Specific treaties
to combat climate change like (Kyoto 1997, Bali 2007, Copenhagen 2009 and most
recent Paris Agreement 2016) have wetted the appetite in environmental sustainability
worldwide, thereby making it all the more necessary for business organizations to act in
an eco-friendly manner. There is an alarming need for companies to strike a balance
between the unavoidable industrial growth and the conservation of natural environment
for enabling it for our future generation (Daily & Haung, 2001)[2]. Given the prevailing
situation, organizations globally have started to adopt such philosophies that can really
prove fruitful towards this end. Amongst others, Green HRM is the most recent and
prominent one. Mampra, (2013), defines Green HRM as the use of HRM policies to
encourage the sustainable use of resources within business enterprises and promote the
cause of environmentalism which further boosts up employee morale and satisfaction.
Others describe Green HRM as the use of HRM policies, philosophies and practices to
promote sustainable use of business resources and thwart any untoward harming arising
from environmental concerns in organizations (Zoogah,2011)[3].

Opatha and Arulrajah (2014)[4] have explained GRHM as the policies, practices, and
systems that make employees of the organization green for the benefit of the
individuals, society, natural environment, and the businesses. In GHRM various human
resource practices, such as recruitment and selection, performance appraisal,
compensation and training, are designed in a manner to create a workforce that
understands and promotes green behavior in the organization (Mathapati,2013). Green
initiatives within HRM form part of wider programs of corporate social responsibility.
Green HR essentially consists of two major elements namely environment-friendly HR
practices and the preservation of knowledge capital (Mandip,2012)[5]. Further,
organizational strategies for environmental management and sustainable development
will succeed when they are well-aligned with its human resource practices (Ichniowski
et al., 1997)[6]. Collins and Clark,2003)[7]elaborates that within an organization, human
resource and their system are the basic foundation of any business, be it financial
business or sustainable business. They are the ones responsible for planning and
executing those eco-friendly policies to create a green atmosphere. Therefore, without
facilitating the human resource and implementing sustainable policies, going green
would be a hard nut to crack (Ahmad, 2015)[8]. Considering the above points, the
present study is a humble attempt to provide simplified insights on some common
green HRM practices and their implementation globally with the special reference
based to India on extant literature. With this brief introduction, this paper introduces
the objectives, methodology used for the study, the literature review and at the end
green initiatives required to be taken in an effort to embrace green HRM concept.
 OBJECTIVE

The main purpose of this study is:

To bring to the fore the concept of green HRM.

To highlight different significant works on green HRM by other workers, and
To suggest ways and means for green initiatives.

METHODOLOGY

In order to achieve the above stated objectives, a systematic review of literature was
conducted by using an archival method. This paper employs a methodology to review
the articles from different databases, websites and other available sources with “green
HRM” or “environmental HRM” as the topic. Hence the study for this paper becomes a
desk research rather than a survey or any other mode of researching taking the cues
from the extant literature. The present study adopted archival method of literature
review so that it enables the researcher to structure the research, find gaps, scopes for
further study and authentic knowledge base in this field of study (Renwick et al., 2008)
[9]
. In this study, archival research provided insight on existing GHRM practices by
congregating available research studies. Hence a systematic review of collected
literature was done in detail.
 LITERATURE REVIEW

The term „Green HRM‟ has been coined by (Wehrmeyer1996)[10], when he published
his book as an attempt to connect the two fields of Environmental management and
Human resource management. Hence, it is a recent concept in the field of Management.
Prasad (2013) defines Green HRM as the contribution of HR policies to protect and
preserve the natural resources. The prime aim of Green HRM is sustainable
development through Human resource management. It has extended the boundaries of
conventional HRM practices towards more sustainable and environmental strategies
(Sarode et. al.,2016). Today the topic Green HRM not only includes awareness toward
environmental affairs but also stands for the social as well as the economic well-being
of both the organization and the employees within a broader prospect (Ahmad, 2015).
It can be used to reduce costs, better efficiencies, to reduce carbon footprints, to make
green awareness among the employees and initiate green work-life balance
programmers (Nijhawan,2014)[11]. Ahmad (2015) stresses upon the need for developing
the correlation between the existing HR policies and practices with Green HRM
principles for sustainable development. He suggests that Green HRM can become a key
business strategy for an organization with active participation by HR Department.

In essence, Green HRM can be understood as a manifesto which helps in the creation
and development of Green employees. Opatha and Arulrajah (2014) have identified
four roles for the purpose of becoming a Green employee. They are preservationist,
conservationist, non-polluter and maker. Accordingly, the purpose of Green HRM is to
create, enhance and retain green insights within each employee of the organization so
that he or she can give the maximum contribution on each of these roles. Further, they
stated that the Green HR requirements include Green Competencies, Green Attitude,
Green Behaviors and Green Results. As per them, these are needed to achieve the
corporate environmental objectives. Renwick et. al. (2013)[12] states GHRM has been
augmented to enhance green behaviors, attitudes and capabilities of employees,
motivate workers to think green, and to provide opportunities for employees to build
knowledge and skills associated with environmental sustainability. Renwick et. al.
(2008) and (Muller-Carmen et. al.,2010)[13] have explained that GHRM involves an
integration of company’s environmental management objectives to the HR processes of
recruitment, selection, training and development, performance management and
evaluation, rewards and recognition etc. Renwick et. al. (2013) analyzed the separate
literature of Environmental management and HRM and constructed a list of Green
HRM activities. Opatha and Arulrajah (2014) states in order to make sure that the
organization gets right employee green inputs and right employee green performance of
the job, it is indispensable that HRM functions are adapted or modified to be green.
Several practices to embrace green HRM are discussed hereunder:
Green Recruitment and Selection

It refers to the process of hiring such people in an organization who are conscious of
their responsibilities towards environmental sustainability. They must be enthusiastic
about working for an eco-friendly company. For this, the company’s job description
should reflect the sustainability agenda and the company’s website and other research
tools available for candidate access clearly outline its greening endeavor (Man dip,
2012). According to (Wehrmeyer,1996)[14], recruitment practices can support effective
environmental management by making sure that new entrants are familiar with an
organization’s environmental culture and are capable of maintaining its environmental
values. A survey by the British Carbon Trust shows over 75% of 1,018 employees
considering working for a firm see it as important that these organisations have an
active policy to reduce carbon emissions (Clark,2006)[15].
Pavitra Mishra (2017) identified two parts of Green recruitment and selection:

Employing eco-friendly ways of hiring such as online tools, limited paper usage at the
time of recruitment and selection.
Measuring green attitudes at the time of selection, considering people who value
green practices and follow basic environment-friendly activities such as recycling, less
printing, and conservation of energy.

Green Training and Development

Green training and development aim to improve employee‟s awareness and knowledge
on environmental issues, build the positive attitude, take a proactive approach toward
environmental concerns and develop competencies to conserve energy and reduce
waste (Zoogah,2011). Employee training and development programs should include
social and environmental issues at all levels, from technical health and safety
considerations on the shop floor to strategic sustainability issues at the executive
management and broad sustainability issues at the executive management and Board
level. Green orientation programs for the newly hired employees should be an integral
part of the training and development process (Man dip, 2012). In Germany, all
employees at Siemens receive some environmental training, with a focus on those
involved with the treatment of hazardous waste/dangerous substances and interested
specialists. Such training is an element of the in-house training program taking at least
one day during working hours and has produced 5,000 suggestions a year from plant
employee on environmental protection (North & Daig,1996)[16].All this will result in
reducing wastage, proper utilization of resources and conservation of energy.
Green Performance Management and Appraisal

Performance management is considered as one of the key human resource practices for
promoting environment behavior and sustainable development, thus advocating green
performance management Gholami et al.,(2016). Opatha & Arulrajah (2014) advocates
the evaluation of employees‟ job performance according to green-related criteria and
inclusion of a separate component for progress on greening in the performance
feedback interview. Green performance appraisal may be significant because when a
behavior is measured to judge an individual, its perceived value rises and efforts to
comply with the same are increased. Thus, including green behaviors in the
performance appraisal system will facilitate their adoption among employees (Pavitra
Mishra, 2017). Environmental incidents, use of environmental responsibilities and the
communication of environmental policies and concerns are some of the issues
addressed under green performance management. Organisations like Tata Group of
Companies have installed corporate-wide environmental performance standards to
measure environmental performance standards, and developing green information
systems and audits to get beneficial data on managerial environmental performance
(Man dip, 2012).

Green compensation and reward system

In the context of Green HRM, rewards and compensation can be assumed as a potential
tool for supporting environmental activities in organizations (Ahmad,2015). In
accordance with a strategic approach to reward and management, nowadays
organizations are developing reward systems to encourage eco-friendly initiatives
embarked upon by their employees. The statement is supported by a survey conducted
in the UK by CIPD/KPMG that estimated that 8% of UK firms were rewarding green
behaviors with various types of awards and/or financial incentives (Phillips, 2007)[17],
and these practices can be effective in motivating employees to generate eco-initiatives
(Ramus,2002)[18]. Man dip (2012) states that attainment of specific sustainable
initiatives should be incorporated into the compensation system by offering employees
a benefits package that rewards employees for changing behaviors. A variable pay
element can be added to the compensation system by linking the pay to eco-
performance. Opatha and Arulrajah (2014) advocate for giving financial as well as non-
financial rewards to employees for their good green performance.
Green employee involvement

Green employee involvement is defined as “Creating an environment in which people

has an impact on decisions and actions that affect their jobs” (Quagraine, 2015).
Employee involvement is a continuous process of taking suggestions from employees
on various environmental strategies. It also involves collecting feedback from the
employees to improve the existing practices. This acts as a motivation tool to make
employees more responsible and improves their cooperation in the greening of the
organization. Phillips (2007) explained, “The use of employee participation in green
HR has been noted to help prevent pollution from workplaces”. An important way in
which employee involvement and participation can be encouraged within the
organization is to seek entrepreneurs within the company who are socially or
ecologically oriented known as eco-entrepreneurs. They have the ability to organize
existing financial, human and natural resources in a way that adds value to the
company products or services where it didn’t exist previously (Man dip, 2012).
Employee involvement in organization greening has been reported as improving the
key outcomes of environmental management such as efficient use of resources,
reducing waste and reducing pollution from workplaces (Florida & Davidson 2001);
(May & Flannery,1995); (Denton,1999). A study of employee involvement in 110
Spanish ISO 14001 registered factories found employee involvement in environmental
management to be positively correlated with manager-rated environmental outcome
measures (Brio et. al.,2007)[19].
 GREEN INITIATIVES

Human resource play very important role in managing employee from entry to exit.
Now the corporates are focusing on greening the business, so the Human resource
department has the additional responsibility of go green along with HR policies. The
future of Green HRM appears promising for all the stakeholders of HRM, be it the
employer, employee, practitioner, or academician. We propose that Green HRM has
substantial scope for research in the management field but lacks behind in practice
within academic scenario; hence, there is a need to bridge the gap between professional
Green HRM practices and studies in research and teaching environmental management.
The present study also proposes future researchers to fill the gap in the existing
literature by conducting empirical studies such as Green HRM practices in the
manufacturing or service organizations (particularly the organizations that are polluting
environment), Comparing Green HRM practices between developed and developing
countries, Green perceptions, awareness, attitudes of employer and employees, barriers
in the green HRM implementation etc. There are a number of reasons for companies to
adopt Green HRM practices within the organization that will not only benefit the
organization but also give advantages to the employees. To be ecological, economical
and practical at the same time is possible through by adopting Green Practices. Here
are some environmentally-friendly initiatives/solutions that are expected to make
organizations stay green:

Green Printing
Green Manufacturing
Job sharing (sharing a full-time job between two employees)
Teleconferencing, Video conferencing and virtual interviews
Recycling
Telecommuting
Online Training
Energy efficient office spaces
Green Payroll
Car Pooling
Public Transport
Company Transport
Flexi-Work
e-filing
Free bicycles for workers to come to work instead of driving.
Buying computers from companies which are using recycled components in one form
or another.
Buying stuff from local vendors (again reducing the CO2 contribution of anything
transported too far).
Some companies go to the extreme to use the total amount of printed pages by an
employee during his/her performance review.
There is even recycled (certified) office furniture
So, let’s think of Green HR as every possible employee activity/ interface/touchpoint
(whether metaphorical or physical) that helps promote the organization’s sustainability
practices and relevant commitments.
 CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS

The above review of literature shreds of evidence, to a great extent, inherent capacity of
HRM functions in making employees and organizational operations green. From job
design function to employee relations. The key challenge in front of HR professionals
is to understand the scope and depth of green HRM in transforming their organizations
as green entities. This effort ultimately leads to the better environmental performance
of the organization. To create, practice and maintain environmental related innovative
behaviors of employees coupled with the right attitude of greening, green HRM
practices are critical. Existing HRM, EM, and green HRM literature suggest that
employee behaviors are critical to the success and achievement of a company's green
management and sustainability agenda. D. Jenny (2015)[24]. Employees are willing to
work in an organization only when they feel it adds to their value profile (Decant and
Altman, 1994). The study conducted by Hewitt Associates in 2009 elaborated that:
“86% of employees at organizations with high engagement agreed that they worked for
an organization that was socially and environmentally responsible” Same 2009 Study
also found out that: “Green HR practices contribute to positive organizational
reputation, higher or sustained employee engagement and eliminating waste/reducing
their impact on the environment”. Recent studies have also supported the same
conclusions. Hence, we assert that by understanding the scope and depth of green
HRM practices organizations will have a capability of performing in a more
environmentally friendly manner than ever before. Finally, the Chartered Institute of
Personnel and Development (CIPD) thinks that “a green employer may improve
employer branding, company image and is a useful way to attract potential
employees who have environmental orientation” CIPD(2007)[25].

Based on the foregoing review, one can conclude that the green HRM practices are
more powerful tools in making organizations and their operations green. The green
performance, green behaviors, green attitude, and green competencies of human
resources can be shaped and reshaped through adaptation of green HRM practices. The
green human resource management has the responsibility to create green awareness
among the new talent and the existing

employee working for the organization, encourage their employees for helping the
organization to reduce the causes of environmental degradation through green
movement, green programs, and practices, retain the resources for future generation.
Green HRM can develop inspiration, willingness, and commitment to employees to
contribute their ideas and efforts for the awareness and implementation of the Green
HRM practices in their organization. The green HRM efforts result in increased
efficiencies, sustainable use of resources, less wastage, improved Job-Related Attitude,
Improved Work/Private life, lower costs, Improved employee performance, and
retention which help the organization to reduce employee carbon footprints by the
mean of Green HRM. Hence, it is suggested that organizations be required to give
more priority to make each function of HRM green.
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