green hrm assignment

Green HRM: Definition, Advantages, Green HRM Practices, Policies

GHRM is a new concept and is becoming popular all over the world. It has got different meanings to different people. There is no comprehensive definition of GHRM.

It refers to making efforts to improve energy efficiency or reduce the pollution produced by our home, business , and general living habits.

The main purpose of going green is to reduce the potential negative impact that energy consumption and pollution can have on the environment.

What is Green HRM?

Ramachandran defines Green HRM as the integration of environmental management into human resources management .

The term green HRM is mostly used to refer to the contribution of HRM policies and practices towards the broader corporate environmental agenda.

It refers to using every employee to support sustainable practices and increase employee awareness and commitments on the issue of sustainability.

Anjana Nath defines Green HR as environment-friendly HR initiatives leading to better efficiencies, less cost, and heightened employee engagement levels.

Typical green activities are performed to travel requirements through video recruiting or the use of online and video interviews.

It involves undertaking environment-friendly HR initiatives resulting in greater efficiencies, lower costs and better employee engagement and retention, which in turn, help organizations to reduce employee carbon footprints by the likes of electronic filing, car-sharing, job-sharing, teleconferencing, and virtual interviews, recycling, telecommuting, online training, energy-efficient office spaces, etc.

Green HR initiatives help companies find alternative ways to cut costs without losing their top talent. Focus on Green HRM as a strategic initiative promotes sustainable business practices.

Therefore, developing a new organizational culture through GHRM practices becomes a manager’s concern.

Developing a green culture can affect employee behavior and introduce certain values that build an internal culture.

Green behavior is assumed to be instrumental in the implementation of the green HRM culture and adopting formal environmental strategies.

According to Mandip, the practice of green HR should be translated into the HR processes, such as recruitment, training, compensation, etc.

From the definitions stated above, it can be concluded that Green HRM needs the participation of all the organization’s members to create and keep the organization green.

Benefits/Advantages of Green HRM

Green HRM involves undertaking environment-friendly HR initiatives resulting in greater efficiency, lower costs and better employee engagement and retention, which in turn, help organizations to reduce employee carbon footprints by electronic filing, car sharing, job sharing, teleconferencing, and virtual interviews, recycling, telecommuting, online recruitment and training, energy-efficient office spaces, etc.

The Green Human Resource Management plays an important role in the industry to promote the environment-related issues.

Organizations must formulate HR policies and practices, train people to increase awareness about the environment, and implement laws related to environmental protection.

The Green HRM may also help the employers, manufacturers in building brand image and reputation.

Organizations need to conduct an environmental audit , thus changing the organizational culture, thinking about waste management, pollution, and helping the society and its people, those are getting affected by pollution.

It will also make employees and society members aware of the utilization of natural resources more economically and encourage eco-friendly products.

Experts have identified the benefits of GHRM, which are mentioned below:

• Helping companies to bring down costs without losing their talent.
• Organizations have huge growth opportunities by being green and creating a new friendly environment, which helps in enormous operational savings by reducing their carbon footprint.
• It helps in achieving higher employee job satisfaction and commitment, which leads to higher productivity and sustainability.
• Create a culture of having concern for the wellbeing and health of fellow workers.
• Improvement in the retention rate of the employee.
• Improved public image. Any time a firm adds a green initiative to its workplace, it can use the event to generate positive public relations . Organizations can promote environmental contributions to the media through press releases to earn the attention of potential customers and possible new sales.
• Promote employee morale.
• Improvement in attracting better employees. Dolan’s (1997) study of USA MBA students found that most of the graduates would take a lower salary to work for environmentally responsible organizations.
• Reduction in the environmental impact of the company .
• Improved competitiveness and increased overall performance.
• Reduction of utility costs significantly. Even small businesses can significantly reduce their utility costs by using technologies that are energy-efficient and less wasteful.
• Rebates and Tax Benefits. Going green is easier with the assistance of governments, local municipalities, Water supply authority, and electric companies that offer tax incentives and rebates.
• Increased business opportunities. Some government agencies, commercial businesses, and nonprofit institutions mandate that only businesses that meet specific green standards can bid on their contracts. Some also mandate that their purchasing departments only buy green products or use products and services sold by companies that meet certain green standards.
• Reduction of environmental damage. Encouraging employees, through training and compensation , to find ways to reduce the use of environmentally damaging materials.

Today, most educated and affluent consumers look for companies that adopt environmental standards . Organizations pursuing environment-friendly human resource policies are also immensely benefitted.

This may help in arriving at greener products and green savings from waste elimination. The promotion of such values may also indirectly improve consumer satisfaction.

Disadvantages of GHRM

While environmentally friendly living is a positive ideal, there are several possible disadvantages of going green. Gregory Hamel has made a review of the disadvantages if an organization is going green.

Initial costs

Perhaps the greatest disadvantage of going green is that it often requires a high initial cost.

For example, installing a new roof or new insulation to keep heat from escaping our home would be considered a green home improvement, but it would cost a large sum of money to get the work done.

Inadequate savings

The aim of going green in many cases, such as building an energy-efficient home or purchasing a hybrid^vehicle is to reduce environmental impact while saving money in the long term.

Green buildings and vehicles tend to use less energy, so initial costs can often be recouped over time through energy savings.

The problem is that the savings generated by going green are often less than expected; they do not make up for the initial cost quickly enough to make them economically viable.

Increased capital outlays

Some green conversions require an initial cash outlay that decreases the firm’s bottom-line performance while the investment is paying for itself. This can decrease the earnings or annual profits of a firm.

Uneven competition

In the business world, going green can be an attractive goal to gain goodwill and consumer support, but unless green improvements are economically viable, it can put a business at a competitive disadvantage.

For instance, if one company decides to adhere to strict, self-imposed pollution standards which require the installation of new technology and workers, while another sets loose standards, the second company will be at an advantage since they will have lower production costs.

Marginal impact

While going green is focused on reducing harm to the environment, the impact that any specific individual can have on the environment by going green is often negligible.

The theory is that if everyone were to go green, it would have a significant and noticeable impact, but not everyone can be convinced to go green, and many believe that doing so has no real impact outside of the economics . This makes going green a personal choice for many.

Employee apathy and reluctance

Many employees feel that it is not their responsibility to protect the environment while they are at work.

But the newly educated workforce is emphasizing on environmental management consciousness when they choose their employers,

How to Implement Green HRM

Jabbour and Santos (2008) consider HRM may contribute to environmental management in companies if they:

• recruit and select people committed to the environment;
• train and evaluate employees’ performance based on environmental criteria;
• implement ways of rewarding individual and collective environmental performance is remunerated and non-remunerated ways;
• stimulate continuous education in environmental management;
• treat environmental aspects as values of corporate culture; and
• promote interaction between teams to deal with environmental problems and strive for continuous improvement of environmental management activities.

From a study of three companies, Kitazawa and Sarkis reveal a continuous reduction of pollution is significantly related to the empowerment and participation of employees who are trained in activities of environmental management and incentive programs, such as profit-sharing , that will increase employee participation in companies.

Moreover, team-based approaches, skill improvements, open communications, and management supports for continuous improvement in operating activities for pollution reduction are also found important.

Based on research involving employees from two different companies, Perron, Cote, and Duffy (2006) emphasize on measuring employee performance after being trained on environmental issues to check employee performance improvement on environment management.

Other researchers have also asserted the importance of environmental training and communication, organizational learning , and the performance of environmental management programs.

Dutta explains GHRM is directly responsible for creating a green workforce that understands, appreciates, and practices green policies.

An organization can maintain its green objectives throughout the HRM process of recruiting , hiring, and training, compensating, developing, and advancing the firm’s human capital.

The implementation of rigorous recruitment and selection of employees, performance-based appraisal system, training programs aimed at green management initiatives have basic importance to fostering environmental innovations.

Gaining a reputation as a green employer is an effective way to attract new talent. Phillips finds 8% of UK firms reward green behaviors with various types of awards and/or financial incentives.

Green responsibilities can be used by environmentally responsible employers to attract talent that fits and contributes to achieving the organization’s environmental goals.

Baron and Gomez-Mejia find the effectiveness of executive pay practices related to greater pollution prevention success in US firms operating in high- polluting industries.

Govindarajulu and Daily find recognition programs are another popular component of corporate environmental initiatives.

Strategic Aspect of Green HRM

HR plays a vital role in making the environmental responsibility of the organization as a part of the corporate mission statement.

The responsibility of the HR managers is to create awareness about the Green HRM, the Green movement, and the utilization of natural resources, helping the corporate to maintain the proper environment and retain natural resources for future generations among young and working people.

A green job is employment that directly works with strategies, information, materials, and technologies that contribute to minimizing environmental impact and requires specialized knowledge, skills, training, or experience in these areas.

According to Zoogah, D. (2010), five major platforms where sustainability principles can be applied in the transforming an organization to the wholly sustainable enterprise is as follows;

• “The Green products/services Portfolio” including waste and pollution management, resource replacement, sustainable design, and adaptive reuse.
• The Green Workforce” including Human Resource strategies, culture, recruiting and retention, training, career path development, and diversity .
• “The Green Workplace,” including global locations, physical plants, ergonomics, virtual workplaces, green buildings, environmental discharge, waste and energy, use, and source.
• “The Green Function/Process Model,” including sustainability applied to traditional functions, enterprise-wide green process modeling to incorporate green practices and sustainable-management.
• Green Management and Governance Principles,” including board and management accountability, sustainability test, compliance, incentives, ethics , reporting, and assurance.

Green HR polices emphasis on group and individual capabilities to convey green behavior. The goal or objective of such policies is to create a corporate environmental culture.

The focus of Green HRM concentrates on employee’s environmental behavior in the working place, which in turn, employees can practice such kind of behavior in their private life.

Green HR Policies

There is no doubt that organizations are the main cause of environmental problems. They should, therefore, play a large role in addressing environmental management issues. Bebbington (2001) has identified a wide range of GHRM practices.

Green HR Policies are;

Sourcing and acquisition of human resources

As higher-level executives have more responsibility for green initiatives, green targets should be included in the managerial job description. As the requirement of employees, environmental consciousness can be included in the competency model of the organization.

Green recruitment and selection

Company websites can be used to invite applicants to apply for vacant positions. Resumes can be submitted online to reduce wastage of printed materials.

Companies can also use web portals for onboarding documentation like offer letter, credentials, and testimonials regarding qualifications and experiences and acceptance letter of selected applicants.

Environment-friendly firms receive better qualified and motivated job applicants. Some applicants are preferred to sacrifice salary potential to work for environmentally responsible organizations.

Some Job descriptions of an announced position and other information about the company can post on its website, which helps in the orientation of the new employees.

Again several environmental aspects can be mentioned in the job description. Green issues should be specified in the job description.

Such type of job description includes environmental reporting roles, health and safety tasks, harmful elements/probable radiations for staff, and then match worker’s attributes according to the environmental competencies.

An organization can set “Green awareness” as a preferential criterion to select employees. Firms recruit employees who are green aware.

Orientation

The employee induction program should be planned in such a. way-as to enable the induction of new employees into a culture of green consciousness.

Employers should highlight the concern for green issues of employees like their health, safety, and green working conditions in the orientation program.

Learning and development

Learning, training, and development policies can include programs, workshops, and sessions to facilitate employees for improving and acquiring knowledge in environment management, green skills, and attitudes .

For future talented green managers, job rotation in the green assignment should become an important part of their career development plan.

Training contents should be settled to increase employee competencies and knowledge in green management.

Extensive use of online and web-based training modules and interactive media can be used as a training tool for environmental management training.

Environment-related aspects of safety, energy efficiency, waste management, and recycling can become the central points of green training.

Training managers should depend more on the online course material and case studies rather than on printed handouts, thus further reducing the use of paper.

Green performance management

The goal of the Performance management (PM) system in green management is to measure ecological performance standards through different departments of the organization and achieve useful information on the green performance of managers.

Green performance indicators should be included in the PM system.

Green PM system can be successfully initiated through developing performance indicators for each risk area in environmental awareness and instruction.

It is important to communicate green schemes to all levels of staff. Managers/ employees can set green targets and responsibilities.

Green compensation and reward management

The compensation package should be adapted to reward green skills acquisition and achievement by employees.

Monetary, non-monetary, and recognition based environmental reward systems and monthly managerial bonuses can be provided based on performance outcomes in environmental balance.

Carbon emission standard and regeneration sources of energy are the key consideration for executive payment as an appreciation of green efforts. Employees meeting green goals can be rewarded.

Green HRM Practices

Researchers suggest a few Green HRM practices, which are mentioned below:

• Encouraging employees, through training and compensation, is to find ways to reduce the use of environmentally damaging chemicals in their products.
• Assisting employees in identifying ways to recycle products that can be used for playgrounds for children who don’t have access to healthy places to play.
• Designing a company’s HRM system is to reflect equity, development, and well­being, thus contributing to the long-term health and sustainability of both internal (employees) and external communities.
• Emphasizing long-term employment security is to avoid disruption for employees, their families, and their communities.
• Use of job portals of companies for recruitment and custom of telephone, internet, and video interviews, which can lessen the travel requirements of the candidate and affecting the reduction in paperwork.
• Green rewards to employees can be provided by companies in the arrangement of the nature-friendly workplace and lifestyle benefits through providing carbon credit equalizers, free bicycles, and pollution-free vehicles for transportation to the workplace to engage employees in green agenda.
• Talented, skilled, and experienced employees are environmentally conscious now, and they always look for self-actualization to be committed to their work. Green HR can create this commitment by following green values and practices.
• Green actions can occur with minimum use of paper and printed materials in recruitment, training and development, and performance appraisal .
• A company can create a green business environment by reducing the use of printed materials, increased ‘recycling, using eco-friendly grocery and lunch bags, and prohibiting the use of bottled water, plastic in the workplace.
• Luminous light bulbs and other energy-saving green devices can be used in the workplace.
• Companies can inspire their employees to change their travel and transportation ways through reducing official car trips, using public transport for business travel, carpooling, providing interest-free loans to purchase hybrid cars, and cycling or walking to work.
• Conduct business meetings and conferences through the internet, telephone, and video conferencing wherever possible to reduce business travel.
• Provide flexible work opportunities to employees in telework or work from home by using emails and company portals through intranet and internet.
• Wellness programs for employees, their family members, and general people can be arranged to focus on physical fitness, proper nutrition, and a healthy lifestyle. As an important green objective, environmental management can be included in the mission statement of the company as a part of their social responsibility. Organizations can arrange cleanliness and waste management initiative in the workplaces and surrounding society to cause awareness about green issues.
• Encourage the employee to turn off lights, computers, and printers after work hours and on weekends for further energy reductions.
• Inspire employees to place computers and printers in energy-saving settings when they will be away for a while.
• Turn off office lights while attending meetings and at night and over the weekend. Turn lights off in restrooms, conference rooms, libraries, and so forth when the room is not in use.
• Work with IT to switch to laptops over desktop computers because Laptops consume up to 90% less power.
• Arrange an air conditioning system with discretion.
• Purchase large or refillable containers of creamer, sugar, salt, pepper, and butter instead of individual containers.
• XII. Arrange green-themed games to promote environmentally friendly behavior and staff togetherness.
• Provide green promotion, which includes loan discounts on fuel-efficient cars and energy-saving home improvements, discounts at local green merchants.

It is evident from the discussion so far made that GHRM promises potential benefits for both organizations and those employed by them.

For the organization, there is some evidence that better environmental performance is also associated with improved financial performance outcomes; the so-called ‘Green pays’ argument.

The GHRM practices identified in this section may have a role to play in improving not only the environmental performance but also the financial performance of the organization.

Equally, the GHRM practices analyses here are likely to improve employee wellbeing in the workplace, not least through improving the working environment and satisfying the needs of an increasingly environmentally aware workforce.

In sum, we believe that GHRM has the potential to contribute positively to both employee wellbeing and improved organizational performance.

Green HR helps in achieving greater efficiency and lower costs within a process, reducing and eliminating ecological wastage and refurbishing HR products, tools, and procedures.

Being environmentally conscious, organizations are starting to integrate green attempts into their regular work environment with society.

Green HR attempts to create better employee involvement in a working environment, which helps the organization to work in an environmentally sustainable fashion.

The employers and specialists can establish the usefulness of linking employee involvement and participation in environmental management programs to improved organizational environmental performance , like with a specific focus on encouraging green practices and help green management change and develop.

Unions and employees can help employers to adopt Green HRM policies and practices that help safeguard and enhance worker health and wellbeing.

As organizations are the main cause of environmental problems, they should, therefore, play a large role in addressing environmental management issues.

So organizational managers should launch eco-initiates to address environmental management.

You now have an idea about green HRM. Read through our detailed resources for learning human resource management .

• Recruitment Process: 4 Steps of Recruiting Best Talents
• 12 Features of Human Resource Management
• 10 Professional Tips To Write Eye-Catching Resumes
• HRM Models: 13 Types of Human Resource Management Models
• Incentives: Types of Short-Term & Long-Term Incentives
• 12 Common Rating Errors in Performance Appraisals
• 26 Essential Qualities of a Good Interviewer
• Succession Planning: Definition, Objectives, Steps
• Human Resource Accounting(HRA): Benefits, Methods, Models
• 8 Components of Human Resource Management
• Job Description: Definition, Importance, Job Description Writing Guide
• Job Design: Definition, Approaches, Techniques, Strategies
• Training Methods in HRM: On-The-Job & Off-The-Job Techniques
• 11 Reasons Why Human Resource Management is Important For Businesses
• Recruitment: Meaning, Factors, Objectives, Challenges

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Green HRM: Meaning, Advantages, Policies, and Practices

In the present scenario, Green HRM is an emerging topic. Green HRM was developed from the Green movement around the world.

The concept of Green HRM has become popular worldwide. Its meaning differs from person to person. It attempts to boost energy savings or reduce the pollution created by industries and general living habits. The primary aim of greening is to minimize the possible adverse effects of energy consumption and pollution on the environment.

Implementing green technology as a corporate plan will promote business success in the ever-evolving world. The inevitable fact is that organizations will play a critical role in the fight against global warming. HRM will fulfill the company’s dedication to green practices with the help of management and its employees. Green HRM's function may become the operator of sustainability goals, which will aid in achieving your company goals.

What is Green HRM?

Green HRM extends its role in the promotion and achievement of sustainable objectives within a company. The word green HRM applies mainly to the contribution of policies and activities in the field of HRM. It is commonly known as green human resource management or GHRM.

It involves all workers in adopting sustainable practices and improving awareness about eco-friendly lifestyles. They include the promotion of energy conservation.

Why is Green HRM Important?

Within thousands of businesses today, sustainability plans are growing steadily due to the threats and uncertainties that climate change has caused our world. The support of senior management is crucial in the implementation of its sustainability management by an organization.

Benefits of Green HRM

Companies need to carry out an environmental audit that can focus on recycling and help society and its people. It will help the workers and members of organizations to understand the use of natural resources and promote eco-friendly goods. Some benefits of Green HRM are as follows-

It can support organizations to minimize expenses without losing talent.

It decreases a company's total costs as it becomes more effective concerning the use of electricity, water, and manufactured goods.

It helps to achieve greater employee job satisfaction and dedication, which leads to increased productivity.

Develop a culture of concern for the holistic wellbeing of fellow employees .

Small companies can also reduce their electricity costs by using technologies that are energy-efficient and less costly.

It can be used to create good public relations if an organization adds a green initiative to its workplace.

Policies Of Green HRM

Recruitment and selection method.

Companies can go online to hire candidates with online applications and resumes to reduce massive paper waste.

HR should ensure that the next steps of the selection process determine the applicants’ willingness to embrace eco-friendly choices after the first screening of CVs. During an interview, some questions should focus on environmental issues or a group dynamic that combines a corporate strategy with sustainability concerns. In the end, each candidate can also be given a green score and added to the total spreadsheet of scores that will eventually rank the top applicants.

Onboarding Process

Induction programs should be structured in such a way to promote the incorporation of these new workers with the culture of green consciousness of the organization. Besides, these programs should also illustrate the company's environmental issues and the green actions that are being developed within the company.

Read more: Employee Onboarding and Its Steps That You Need To Know

Learning and Development

Learning and development is a method that focuses on improving the abilities, skills, and attitudes of employees. Leaders should offer training materials to develop employee knowledge and skills in environmental sustainability. Learning and development can encourage the employees to find ways to help their organizations become more successful.

For environmental management training, companies can use digital media and web-based training modules. Energy conservation, waste management, and recycling factors relevant to the environment can become green training core points.

Performance Management and Appraisal

Performance management is a motivational approach to enhance employees' technical skills that help in achieving company goals. Thus, performance appraisal can include sustainability objectives measured with specific metrics to set up a greener company.

Green targets, tasks, and responsibilities such as creating green awareness and encouraging them to participate in the company's green activities can also be considered when it comes to managers’ performance appraisal .

Compensation and Reward Management

Green compensation and reward management aim to acknowledge workers’ commitment to developing a more sustainable organization. Three types of rewards are as follows-

Monetary rewards can be in the form of salary increments, cash rewards, and bonuses.

Non-Monetary rewards like leaves for special occasions, gifts, etc.

Recognition-based rewards highlight the employee’s contribution towards the company, appraisal from the top management, etc.

Crucial Green HRM Practices That You Need To Know

Employment security.

Life is unpredictable, and a job is a reliable thing that most people are concerned about nowadays. In reality, having an employer that helps the worker to be there for themselves and their families is the number one reason why employees come to work. Employment security allows employees to go home to care for themselves and their families after work.

Companies can benefit from employment security because it helps them retain their employees. For example, when workers get laid off, usually it is the company that pays the price. Organizations are the ones who have engaged in the recruitment, training, and growth of these workers.

Selective Hiring

Selective hiring helps a company to bring more value-adding workers to the company. You can't just hire anybody if you want individuals who are fit for the position. Organizations do their best to recruit outstanding individuals because they bring more success to the company. Therefore, hiring the right people is a secret to maintaining a strategic advantage.

We can use several different recruiting methods to find the best candidates in today's global world. To see how well they are performing, more and more businesses actively keep track of their recruiting data sources. IQ tests, personality reviews, structured interviews, task tests, and performance reviews are widely used selection methods.

Teamwork is essential in achieving goals. When it comes to success, high-performance teams are critical for any organization. Teams bring benefits because they are formed up of individuals who think differently but work towards a common objective. Then these ideas are analyzed, resulting in the selection of the best ones.

The best teams which are mentally healthy can think differently. It ensures that team members will develop ideas that are different while getting comfortable bringing them up. Like another team or a department, a team usually is a small unit of the organization. Such larger organizations need to work together as well. Teamwork helps to create a productive and successful organization.

Open Communication

Open communication is about strategies, finance, and events that promote a culture in which individuals believe they are recognized. It genuinely involves workers in the organization. It prevents negative conversations between the employees.

If you want your employees to share their ideas, they need to have a clear understanding of what's happening in the company. Being aware of the company is something that workers feel is an integral part of the company. Open communication creates an opportunity to contribute to and influence decisions that impact their work lives.

Training and Learning

Organizations are investing significantly in training for their workers. After hiring the best candidates, you need to make sure that they stay in the organization.

Learning has now become a way of being creative, growing faster, and maintaining a strategic advantage. Employers are focusing on skill-specific types of training. Nowadays, on-demand courses have increased enormously all over the world. All thanks to the internet as everybody is connected and can learn anything, from anywhere and anytime.

For modern generations, such as the Millennials and Generation Z, learning has also become extremely important. In a Gallup study, younger workers' rate of learning and personal development is as much more critical as older generations. The next generation of employees is continuously looking for growth opportunities and succeeding in their careers.

As a process, Green HRM helps in achieving greater productivity with minimal expenditure. It helps eliminate ecological waste and makes the best use of refurbished HR goods, equipment and techniques. It aims to increase workers' engagement in a work environment that allows the company to function in an environmentally friendly manner.

This article is written by Rashmi Rekha Deka . She works as a Content Marketer at Vantage Circle . She likes to keep herself informed about the HR happenings and write about topics surrounding organizational growth. For any related queries, contact [email protected]

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9 GHRM Best Practices to Achieve Success in Environmental Initiatives

Wildfires have been blazing elsewhere in Italy , as well as in France , Greece , Australia , California – can anyone remember when there wasn’t a relentless, uncontrollable wildfire somewhere?

2021 was also the year it rained on a Greenland ice cap for the first time and Canada’s last arctic shelf collapsed.

Meanwhile, July 29, 2021 was declared Earth Overshoot Day , meaning the world’s population had already consumed more that year than the planet could regenerate.

(For the record, the US and Canada hit their overshoot day on March 14 , while the UK managed to last until May 19. Pat yourselves on the back, folks.)

What does this have to do with HR management? Isn’t green branding more of a marketing problem? Or operations? Or any other department but HR?

Actually, no.

The fact is: No company can go green without employee buy-in. Don’t get me wrong – leadership has to be all-in, too, but if your people aren’t on board with your green initiatives and policies, they’re going to fail and fail hard.

Which is where HR comes in.

In this Process Street post, I’m going to lay out 9 fairly simple best practices that you and your team should be doing if you want to ensure that your pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs) succeed.

• The business of going green
• Best practices to boost your GHRM yield

Reaping the rewards of GHRM

Let’s get to work!

What does GHRM even mean?

Green human resource management puts onus on HR professionals to support a company’s sustainability goals. HR’s role here is largely internal – focused on employee behaviors rather than company image – and also behind-the-scenes.

But that’s nothing new. No one notices HR until something goes wrong, am I right?

Don’t fret if this is the first you’re hearing about it, though. GHRM is a relatively new term for a relatively new idea: corporations are just as responsible as private individuals for protecting and preserving the environment.

In an era where competition is already pretty fierce, more and more people are using social and environmental responsibility as the deciding factor in the products they buy, the services they use, and the companies they work for.

76% of Millennials would be willing to accept a lower salary to work for a green company, while 61% are willing to pay higher prices for eco-friendly products.

In a previous post, I outlined the 7 indicators of Green human resource management and how going Green improves your employees’ experience at work. In this post, I’m going to concentrate on how it improves your company’s experience in the market.

(Learn more about employee well-being and GHRM in “The Impact of GHRM on Employee Retention and Well-Being.” )

Best practices to boost your GHRM

Needless to say, environmentally speaking, things are pretty ducking bad.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is important for environmental sustainability, but it’s essential if you don’t want your company to have a climate crisis, too. Aside from the altruistic benefits of implementing Green HR management to improve your organization’s corporate sustainability , there are indisputable business advantages.

Going Green is a great marketing strategy. Customers prefer Green companies. Job seekers prefer Green companies. And stakeholders prefer a company with high revenue. With an increase in customer loyalty and conversion coupled with a more talented and skilled workforce, your organization will gain more influence, a better reputation, and a lot more public interest. When it comes right down to it, not adding the G to your HRM doesn’t make a lot of sense.

With that in mind, I’ve compiled a list of the 9 essential best practices to give your HR department a foundation to grow your eco-friendly actions.

According to Changing Markets Foundation’s survey, “Synthetics Anonymous,” 62% of sustainability claims by fast fashion companies (such as H&M, Louis Vuitton, and Zara) were unsupported by a third party while 59% fell short of the new CMA guidelines . In the case of H&M, their “Conscious Collection” actually contained a higher level of synthetic materials (72%) than their main collection (61%).

This, dear friends, is greenwashing and it’s bad for business (and the environment). As far as consumers are concerned, it indicates that your company is willing to deceive its customers in order to make a quick buck. No one likes to be lied to.

Taking on Green initiatives is not an easy road so you have to do it with deliberate intention. To be sustainable long-term, pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs) need to be worked into the very core of your organization to build a truly Green company from the inside out.

(Learn more about becoming a sustainable business in “How You Can Create a Sustainable Business For Long-Term Success.” )

2. Nurture your employees’ engagement

I said this in the introduction and I’ll say it again: Every environmental initiative you try to put in place will fail unless your employees support it.

The simplest way to get their support is to give them your support. Get them involved in the early stages of the decision-making process.

Get their ideas and feedback on proposed initiatives, practices already in place, and what direction future initiatives should take. What suggestions do they have for making their own spaces more eco-friendly?

Find out what charities and organizations your employees are already involved with and organize donations, sponsorships, or even company-wide volunteer days.

When employees have a sense of ownership over a project or process, they’re automatically more invested in its success.

3. Develop policies to support environmental sustainability

Re-evaluate your current policies around recruitment, hiring, and development . Are you actively seeking out eco-friendly job seekers? How sustainable are your recruitment methods?

Digital applications and interviews may not seem like they’ll make a big difference, but they do have an impact on offsetting paper use, transportation emissions, and signaling to prospective employees that you’re committed to sustainability from the get-go.

Tap into the tacit knowledge of industry union representatives, too. There’s a huge overlap between PEBs and health and safety regulations, so your local union rep will be an invaluable resource when it comes to ensuring future policies are environmentally aware.

4. Think green about your internal spaces

This is a no-brainer. Sure, you want your supply chain, manufacturing, and other external operations to be sustainable, but you need to make it a daily habit at work, too.

Use energy-efficient lightbulbs and equipment. Create a paperless office . Reduce the amount of water and other resources consumed in the office. Look into what you can do to create a Green office design for your building. A study done by the World Green Building Council discovered that Green offices improve cognitive ability, performance, loyalty, and workplace satisfaction while reducing absenteeism and hostility among coworkers.

(Learn how to use an environmental management system to support your sustainability goals in “What is Environmental Management? How You Can Implement it Today.” )

5. Establish transparency and accountability for your sustainability goals

Transparency is important when it comes to greenwashing, but also in terms of your organization’s progress on its sustainability goals. Establish an effective communication platform so that employees, clients, and other stakeholders are kept informed and up-to-date on what you’re doing to reach those goals and how well it’s going.

Creating a company-wide newsletter (digital, of course) alerting your employees to volunteer opportunities, new eco-friendly policies, and recent developments will reaffirm their commitment to PEBs and reassure them that their efforts are making a positive difference.

74% of employees report higher job satisfaction when they feel they’re able to make a positive social and/or environmental impact at work.

6. Incentivize pro-environmental behaviors

Self-interest is a great motivator for those employees who feel more ambivalent about environmental issues. According to Cone Communications’ Employee Engagement Study , 87% would engage in PEBs to attain professional growth, while 85% would do it for financial incentives.

Bonuses, gift cards, and public recognition are powerful motivators to get more involved in your organization’s Green initiatives.

In addition, the easier something is, the more likely people are to do it. Motivation alone isn’t always enough to get everyone using eco-friendly actions. Cost, lack of information, or lack of facilities can all act as barriers for sustainable action, even for the most environmentally conscious person. For example, littering is more likely when trashcans aren’t available, public transport is impractical if service is too unreliable, and organic produce is often unavailable, or too costly for everyone to have access.

Establish a cycle-to-work campaign by loaning bicycles to employees, or offer “carbon credit cards” for achieving Green milestones. You could even provide PTO for time employees spend volunteering.

As with any aspect of people management, employee acknowledgment is vital to reinforcing behaviors.

7. Innovate organically

Recycling paper and plastic bottles are obvious options, but be willing to think outside the box. Both Google and Intel have onsite gardens where employees can grow organic vegetables that will later be used in the campus cafeterias and restaurants.

This again will rely on communication and transparency with your employees, particularly if you’ve been successful in recruiting eco-savvy talent. Find out what experiences and projects they bring to the table and learn from them.

What if is the single most powerful phrase in existence. Use it.

(Learn how to stay compliant while you innovate in “How To Lead Innovation When Implementing Compliance: 7 Ways.” )

8. Measure the success of your environmental actions

Establish goals. These should be challenging, achievable, and, most importantly, measurable. Naturally, there will be public, company-wide sustainability goals, but there should also be individual, internal goals for teams, employees, and managers to achieve.

Incorporate these into your regular performance review – or even conduct separate sustainability reviews – and use those reviews to determine what’s working and what’s not. As a side bonus, you’ll also discover who’s working and who’s not.

Essentially, though, people like concrete, tangible results. They like to know they’re making progress, that their actions have purpose, and that their skills and abilities are valued. Including PEBs in performance reviews is another way you can make those behaviors a habitual part of the day-to-day running of your organization.

(Learn more about creating sustainability reports in “GRI Standards for Sustainability Reporting: What They Are and Why They Matter.” )

9. Graft Green practices into your company culture

This is not so much a best practice as a culmination of the previous eight best practices. While the COO and other money-minded folk are hard coding sustainability into the business plan, your team needs to do the same with the company culture.

Sustainability needs to be an integral part of everything that happens in your organization, so much so that people differentiate between pro-environmental behaviors and “the way we do things here.”

Each of the previous eight practices will help achieve that mindset in your organization. While some aspects of company culture do “just happen” on their own, it does take intentionality and effort to cultivate those aspects and focus them in the desired directions.

This means that leadership needs to model the desired behaviors, too. If you’re offering an incentive for employees who purchase hybrid or low-emission vehicles, but your CEO pulls up in a gas-guzzling SUV every day, there’s going to be a disconnect between your eco-ambitions and employee commitment.

Change is hard and most people don’t like it. No matter what you do or how you frame it, you’re going to come up against resistance, and there will be teething problems. You’re very likely to find yourself in a two-steps-forward/one-step-back scenario. Many a manager has pulled the plug on a new initiative too soon due to initial resistance, but if you’re able to knuckle down, the seeds of your efforts will certainly sprout.

While it is crucial that your Green initiatives are grown from the bottom-up, you also need top-down support, too. During these early stages, it’s important that leadership and senior managers actively support your Green management policies. Seeing anything through to fruition is a process, and, like most processes, everyone has their part to play.

Leadership needs to set clear expectations and be able to communicate them effectively throughout your organization. Managers and supervisors need to prioritize coaching and training so employees have the skills to meet those expectations. Employees need to be able to understand what’s expected of them, have the resources to fulfill those expectations, and, of course, feel like their contributions are valued.

Start small, be realistic about what you hope to achieve with your Green initiatives, and keep those communication channels open. The more you involve employees in the beginning phases, the easier making progress will be. By doing this, employees won’t feel like the new initiatives are being done to them but by them.

While those are two very small words, they carry a lot of weight when it comes to morale, commitment, and loyalty.

How do you get your employees involved with Green initiatives at your organization? Let us know in the comments!

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Leks Drakos

Leks Drakos, Ph.D. is a rogue academic with a PhD from the University of Kent (Paris and Canterbury). Research interests include HR, DEIA, contemporary culture, post-apocalyptica, and monster studies. Twitter: @leksikality [he/him]

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The effect of green HRM on employee green behaviors in higher education: the mediating mechanism of green work engagement

International Journal of Organizational Analysis

ISSN : 1934-8835

Article publication date: 7 September 2020

Issue publication date: 18 January 2022

Building on the social exchange theory (SET), this study aims to propose a model of the effects of green human resource management on employee in-role, extra-role and green innovative work behavior (GIWB). This study proposes, building on both the job demands-resources model and SET, that the aforementioned links can be explained through the mediating role of green work engagement (GWE).

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from employees ( n . 208) working in Palestinian higher education organizations using a self-administered questionnaire. The partial least squares-structural equation modeling was the primary statistical technique adopted to examine the study’s hypotheses.

The results suggest that green human resources management (GHRM) was a significant predictor of employee in-role green behavior, extra-role green behavior and GIWB. Furthermore, GWE demonstrated to be a significant intervening mechanism to explain the above-mentioned relationships.

Practical implications

The results provide useful insights for higher education policymakers on how GHRM may positively contribute to employee green outcomes.

Originality/value

This paper is novel for several reasons. First, it contributes to the general literature of GHRM. Second, it contributes to the limited body of knowledge on GHRM in the context of higher education. Third, the distinct contribution of this study is the introduction of GIWB as an outcome of GHRM, and GWE as a mediating variable in the relationship between GHRM and employee green behaviors.

• Green human resources management
• Green work engagement
• Extra-role green behavior
• Higher education
• Green innovative work behavior
• In-role green behavior

Aboramadan, M. (2022), "The effect of green HRM on employee green behaviors in higher education: the mediating mechanism of green work engagement", International Journal of Organizational Analysis , Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 7-23. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-05-2020-2190

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Mohammed Aboramadan.

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Introduction

As organizations currently shifting their strategies and priorities toward more green-oriented agendas, human resources management (HRM) professionals need to rethink the mission and extend the reach of their practices through the integration of green management practices to improve the way they conduct the fundamental HRM practices ( Ángel del Brío et al. , 2008 ). Pham et al. (2019) proposed that HRM can quantify and influence sustainability-related behaviors, attitudes, awareness and motivation of employees. Therefore, organizations may also use HRM to generate and develop environmentally-friendly policies in an effective manner ( Renwick et al. , 2013 ).

In the past few years, a growing number of higher education organizations around the world have tried to make environmental management and green practices an essential part of their provided services. As a teaching and research organizations, higher education organizations are expected to play a significant role in adopting approaches and alternates to tackle existing environmental issues ( Benayas et al. , 2002 ; Disterheft et al. , 2012 ; León-Fernández and Domínguez-Vilches, 2015 ). Besides, they need to set a precedent in revitalizing and recognizing the evolving needs and challenges of environmental management concerns ( Finlay and Massey, 2012 ). As such, to encourage an environmentally friendly workplace climate, higher education institutions should embrace the philosophy of “Go Green” ( Gilal et al. , 2019 ). Members of higher education institutions, including teaching, research and administrative staff, would need to adopt green and environmentally friendly practices in their day to day activities at the workplace ( Benayas et al. , 2002 ).

In general, employees’ behaviors that promote environmental management practices at the workplace refer to green behaviors ( Dumont et al. , 2017 ). Employee green behaviors are viewed as keys to the effective implementation of green practices in the workplace. Moreover, studies have demonstrated that involving employees in green practices is crucial for the environmental management initiatives ( Jabbour et al. , 2008 ; Mazzi et al. , 2016 ), as this would contribute to the better environmental performance and completive advantage ( Kim et al. , 2019 ). To motivate green employees’ behaviors, green human resources management (GHRM) practices are considered as a critical HRM strategy to raise employees’ environmental awareness at the workplace. GHRM processes aimed at promoting environmental management incorporates several functions such as green recruitment, green training, green rewarding and green performance appraisal ( Dumont et al. , 2017 ; Jabbour et al. , 2008 ; Renwick et al. , 2013 ; Tang et al. , 2018 ).

Research on GHRM has flourished in the past years with studies carried out in diverse industries such as tourism and hospitality ( Luu, 2017 ), information and technology ( Ojo and Raman, 2019 ) and automobile industry ( Chaudhary, 2019 ). Nevertheless, research on GHRM in higher education is limited ( Fawehinmi et al. , 2020 ; Gilal et al. , 2019 ). This was confirmed by a recent literature review by Pham et al. (2019) , who called for the need to conduct more research in diverse service sectors. Among the limited studies, the study of Fawehinmi et al. (2020) found that GHRM increases employees’ green behaviors of academics through mediating role of environmental knowledge, whereas Gilal et al. (2019) found that including green behaviors of employees in the management doctrine of higher education organizations is vital to enhancing organizational financial and environmental performance and to gaining employee commitment.

Therefore, to advance the literature of green HRM in general and in higher education in particular, this study aimed to propose a model of the effects of GHRM practices on employees’ green behaviors, namely, in-role, extra-role and green innovative behavior. Green work engagement (GWE) was hypothesized to play a mediating role among the aforementioned links. This research makes the following contributions: first, it contributes to the general literature of GHRM, as the relationship between GHRM and employees’ green work-related outcomes are in infancy stage ( Pham et al. , 2019 ; Saeed et al. , 2019 ; Yong et al. , 2019 ). Second, it contributes to the limited body of HRM research ( Aboramadan et al. , 2020 b) and green HRM research ( Fawehinmi et al. , 2020 ) in higher education organizations. Third, this research is novel as it investigates a model that introduces new variables to the literature of GHRM, namely, green innovative behavior and GWE. Fourth, it improves our understanding of the mechanisms that underline the relationship between GHRM and employees’ green workplace behavior ( Ren et al. , 2018 ).

Literature review

Green human resources management and green outcomes.

GHRM practices have been defined and conceptualized by several scholars ( Dumont et al. , 2017 ; Tang et al. , 2018 ; Pham et al. , 2019 ) as practices that include green recruiting and hiring employees with green awareness and knowledge; green training to develop employees’ green skills, competencies and knowledge; green performance appraisal with established green standards for assessing performance; and green rewards to provide incentives based on the successful implementation of the green objectives set by the organization.

GHRM exerts a positive effect on employees’ in-role green behaviors.

GHRM exerts a positive effect on employees’ in-extra green behaviors.

Innovative work behavior is viewed as employee behavior that is composed of idea creation, promotion and realization ( Scott and Bruce, 1994 ). In general, innovative work behavior has been perceived as an essential component to sustaining an organization’s competitive advantage ( Bos-Nehles and Veenendaal, 2019 ; West and Farr, 1989 ). Furthermore, it has been argued that HRM practices are of primary importance in realizing innovation outcomes in the organization ( Bos-Nehles and Veenendaal, 2019 ; Seeck and Diehl, 2017 ; Zhou et al. , 2013 ). By applying the concept of environmental management to innovative work behavior, green innovative work behavior (GIWB) can be conceptualized as employees’ behaviors devoted toward green ideas generation, promotion and realization.

GHRM exerts a positive effect on employees’ GIWB.

Green human resources management and green work engagement

Work engagement is defined as “a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication and absorption” ( Schaufeli et al. , 2002 , p. 74). Engagement can be seen as up to which level employees are connected to their works cognitively, emotionally and physically. Building on this, GWE can be defined as the energy an employee puts in his green work-related tasks, the willingness to exert efforts at the green level and the absorption level in green work.

In general, factors such as job characteristics ( Christian et al. , 2011 ), leadership ( Aboramadan et al. , 2020 ) and HRM practices ( Karatepe and Olugbade, 2016 ) were found to be common antecedents to work engagement. The mainstream literature of HRM examined the top-down impact of HR practices and systems on work engagement. For instance, Albrecht et al. (2015) proposed a model that is composed of organizational, job, motivational and individual factors that can trigger higher levels of work engagement. Other studies ( Aboramadan et al. , 2020 b; Karatepe, 2012 ; Schaufeli et al. , 2006 ) demonstrated the positive relationship between job resources and work engagement.

GHRM exerts a positive effect on employees’ GWE.

Green work engagement and green outcomes

As per the SET, it appears that employees with greater levels of engagement are more inclined to have a secured and elevated quality relationship with their organizations. This, in turn, creates favorable job-related outcomes ( Saks, 2006 ). Correspondingly, such manifestations will not only inspire workers to fulfill their jobs but also allow them to participate in voluntary activities that go beyond their work tasks ( Kahn, 1990 ). For instance, previous research ( Aboramadan et al. , 2020 ; Agarwal et al. , 2012 ; Alfes et al. , 2013 ; Haynie et al. , 2016 ; Rich et al. , 2010 ; Rodwell et al. , 2017 ) suggest that work engagement was found to be a significant predictor of work performance and extra-role behaviors, such as innovative and citizenship behaviors.

GWE exerts a positive effect on employees’ in-role green behaviors.

GWE exerts a positive effect on employees’ extra-role green behaviors.

GWE exerts a positive effect on employees’ GIWB.

The mediating role of green work engagement

GWE mediates the relationship between a) GHRM and in-role green behaviors, b) GHRM and extra-role green behaviors and c) GHRM and GIWB.

Research model.

The study aims at proposing a model of the effects of GHRM in higher education on green work-related outcomes at the individual level, namely, in-role green behavior, extra-role green behavior and GIWB. As shown in Figure 1 , GWE was hypothesized to serve as an intervening mechanism among the aforementioned links.

Participants and procedures

Data were collected from staff working in Palestinian higher education institutions ( n . 5). These included both academic staff and administrative employees. In total, 410 questionnaires were distributed, 215 were returned back, of which five were removed due to incomplete answers and two were removed due to the presence of multi-outliers. In total, 208 questionnaires were usable for statistical analysis representing a response rate of 50.7%. Questionnaires were distributed in Arabic, the official language used at the Palestinian workplace. The questionnaire was translated using the back-translation method of Brislin (1986) . Drop off and pick up method was used to increase the response rate. Cover letters were attached to the questionnaire explaining the main purpose of the research and ensuring that respondents’ personal information will be kept confidential. The questionnaire was short, clear and easy to fill within 10–15 min. Of the respondents, 73.1% were men and 26.9% were women. Concerning age, 44.7% were between 25 and 30 years of age, 5.3% were between 31 and 35 years, 21.6% between 36 and 40 years and 28.4% were older than 40 years. Regarding experience, 53.8% had an experience ranging from 1–5 years, 14.4% had 6–10 years, 30.8% had 11–15 years, whereas only 1% had more than 15 years of experience. All employees had full-time contracts, 70% of which occupied administrative positions and 30% occupied academic positions.

Multicollinearity and common method bias remedies

Multicollinearity was checked using the Variance Inflation Factors for each item. According to Hair et al. (2018) , data are free of multicollinearity if the VIF values are below 5. In this research, VIF values ranged from 1.061 to 3.304. This indicates that the data were free of multicollinearity. To check for common method bias, the Harman single factor test was used to check for the percentage of variance explained. The results suggest that a single factor did not explain the majority of the variance (only 31.495). As the variance explained was below the cut-off point of 50% ( Podsakoff et al. , 2003 ), this gives an indication that the data were free of common method bias (CMB) contamination.

Statistical strategy

Descriptive statistics, reliability measures and correlations were analyzed using SPSS v.24. To test the study hypotheses, the author has used partial least squares – structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) ( Hair et al. , 2018 ). PLS-SEM was used as it has been widely used in different scientific disciplines, such as human resource management ( Ringle et al. , 2018 ), marketing ( Hair et al. , 2011 ), strategic management ( Hair et al. , 2012 ) and hospitality ( Ali et al. , 2018 ). PLS-SEM technique measures the path coefficients through the ordinary least squares ( Rigdon, 2012 ). Moreover, PLS-SEM deals with correlated measurement errors ( Rademaker et al. , 2019 ) and ordinal measures ( Schuberth et al. , 2018 ).

Green human resources management.

This was measured using the six-item scale developed by Dumont et al. (2017) to gauge employees’ perceptions of GHRM adopted at their organizations. A sample item was “my university sets green goals for its employees.” The Cronbach’s alpha for this construct was 0.883.

Green work engagement.

This was measured using six-items obtained from Schaufeli et al. (2006) . As this scale was originally developed to measure work engagement, the six items were modified to assess green employee engagement. A sample item was “I am enthusiastic about my environmental tasks at my job.” The Cronbach alpha for this construct was 0.851.

In role green behavior.

This was measured using the three-item scale developed by Bissing-Olson et al. (2013) . A sample item was “I adequately complete the assigned duties in an environmentally friendly way.” Cronbach’s alpha for this construct was 0.667.

Extra role green behavior.

This was measured using the three-item scale developed by Bissing-Olson et al. (2013) to assess voluntary green behaviors. A sample item was “I take initiatives to act in environmentally friendly ways at work.” The Cronbach’s alpha for this construct was 0.667.

Green innovative work behavior (GIWB).

The six-item scale developed by Scott and Bruce (1994) was borrowed to gauge innovative work behavior. This scale was modified in which green-related terms were added to adapt to the study purposes. A sample item was “I Investigate, and secure funds needed to implement new green ideas ” The Cronbach’s alpha for this construct was 0.866.

Measurement model assessment

Factor analysis loadings were checked for the items of the research scales. As shown in Table 1 , the values of standardized factor loading ranged between 0.658 and 0.866. All the loadings were significant at the 0.001 level. The average variance extracted (AVE) and composite reliability (CR) were computed to check for convergent validity and internal consistency ( Fornell and Larcker, 1981 ). The results suggest that all the research variables had AVE values higher than 0.5 and CR values higher than 0.70, indicating that the data were convergently valid and internally consistent.

Discriminant validity was checked using two tests. First, the Fornell and Larcker (1981) rule which compares the square root of AVE with the intercorrelations among the variables. The results in Table 2 , show that the square root of AVE was higher than the intercorrelation, indicating that the condition of discriminant validity was met. On the other hand, to further confirm the presence of discriminant validity, the heterotrait-monotrait ratio (HTMT) was employed. The results in Table 3 , suggest that all ratios are below 0.85 as suggested by Hulland (1999) suggesting that constructs were discriminantly valid.

Structural model assessment: quality check

To assess the structural model, several criteria were computed. First, the R square ( R 2 ) for the research variables were as follows: GWE (0.102), in role green behavior (0.164), extra-role green behavior (0.199) and GIWB (0.433). As per the recommendations of Chin (1998) , these values are considered acceptable. Second, the f square ( f 2 ) for the research variables were as follows: medium effect for GHRM on GWE (0.113), GHRM on in-role green behavior (0.026), GHRM on extra-role behavior (0.037). The effect size was of GHRM on GIWB (0.509) was a string. On the other hand, the effect size of GWE on in role-green behavior (0.116), GWE on extra-role green behavior (0.140) and GWE on GIWB (0.062) was medium. Finally, predictive relevance (Stone–Geisser’s Q 2 ) was calculated for latent variables and the results showed that Q 2 values were: 0.053 for GWE, 0.083 for in-role green behavior, 0.092 for extra-role green behavior and 0.23 for GIWB. As Stone–Geisser’s Q 2 values were higher than 0, this indicated high predictive relevance as suggested by Hair et al. (2018) .

Table 2 presents descriptive figures, means, standard deviations and correlations between the research variables of this study. Correlations were found significant and positive between the research variables. The reported correlations were: GHRM and GWE ( r = 0 .329, p = 0.000), GHRM and in-role green behavior ( r = 0.256, p = 0.000), GHRM and extra-role green behavior ( r = 0 .267, p = 0.000) and GHRM and GIWB ( r = 0.614, p = 0.000). significant correlations were found between GWE and in-role green behavior ( r = 0.361, p = 0.000), GWE and extra-role green behavior ( r = 0.390, p = 0.000) and GWE and GIWB ( r = 0.363, p = 0.000).

Hypotheses testing

Figure 2 presents the results for the direct path analysis and mediation analysis. The results suggest that GHRM was positively associated with in-role green behavior ( ß = 0.154, t = 2.38, p = 0.017), with extra-role green behavior ( ß = 0.182, t = 2.42, p = 0.015) and with GIWB ( ß = 0.567, t = 10.31, p = 0.000). The results lend support for H1 , H2 and H3 . Furthermore, the results provided support for H4 , in which it was indicated that GHRM showed to exert a positive effect on GWE ( ß = 0.319, t = 4.93 p = 0.000). GWE demonstrated to have a significant effect on in role-green behavior ( ß = 0.329, t = 4.64 p = 0.000), on extra-role green behavior ( ß = 0.353, t = 4.84 p = 0.000) and on GIWB ( ß = 0.198, t = 3.45 p = 0.001), suggesting that H5 , H6 , H7 were supported. Finally, using the 5,000-sample bootstrapping technique, the mediating effect of GWE was examined. The results suggest that GWE showed to have a significant mediating effect between GHRM and in-role green behavior ( ß = 0.105, t = 3.26 p = 0.001), between GHRM and extra-role green behavior ( ß = 0.113, t = 3.39 p = 0.001) and between GHRM and GIWB ( ß = 0.063, t = 2.89 p = 0.004), therefore, H8a , H8b and H8c were supported.

Discussion and implications

The study examined the relationship between GHRM and in-role green behavior, extra-role green behavior and GIWB through the mediating effect of GWE. The results demonstrate that GHRM significantly predicated both in-role and extra-role green behavior. The results were in line with the research of Dumont et al. (2017) that found that GHRM positively influenced both in-role and extra-role green behavior. Furthermore, these results were in line with the norm of reciprocity embedded in SET in which employees exchange the green management efforts of the organization with task-related and voluntary green behaviors. The results, as well, suggest the GHRM exerted a positive and significant effect on employees’ GIWB. This implies that attributes of HRM practices determine employees’ innovative work behavior as suggested by ( Wright and Nishii, 2013 ).

The results indicated that GHRM and GWE were positively associated. The results support what has been discussed in the JD-R framework ( Demerouti et al. , 2001 ), highlighting that resources at work serve as a motivational variable to encourage employee’s engagement at work. Further, GWE was found to positively affect in-role green behavior, extra-role green behavior and GIWB. This implies that employees with higher levels of GWE are more prone to have a trustful and quality exchanges with their organization, which would ultimately encourage employees to display positive outcomes such as green outcomes.

Finally, the results suggest that GWE demonstrated to be a significant mediating mechanism among the examined relationships. GWE significantly mediated the relationship between GHRM and in-role green behavior, GHRM and extra-role green behavior and GHRM and GIWB. This implies the relationship between GHRM and green outcomes may not be only direct, which means that HRM (GHRM in this case) affects workplace outcomes (green outcomes) through a particular mechanism ( Karatepe and Olugbade, 2016 ) such as GWE.

This study has several contributions to GHRM research in general and higher education research on green management in particular. Research on GHRM is evolving, and more research is needed ( Pham et al. , 2019 ), especially within the context of the higher education sector ( Gilal et al. , 2019 ). In response to that, the study proposed a model and empirically examined a new mechanism through which the relationship between GHRM and its consequences can be explained. It is the first study of its kind to use the GWE construct as a study variable and as an intervening mechanism. In previous research, the intervening mechanisms used were green psychological climate, environmental knowledge, environmental passion, green employee empowerment, green capital and green crafting ( Dumont et al. , 2017 ; Fawehinmi et al. , 2020 ; Gilal et al. , 2019 ; Hameed et al. , 2020 ; Song et al. , 2020 ; Luu, 2019 ). Furthermore, a new variable (GIWB) was introduced in the model as a latent variable, among other green outcomes. Most of what has been introduced on employees’ green behaviors in the GHRM literature was task-related green behaviors, voluntary green behaviors, organizational citizenship toward the environment ( Pham et al. , 2019 ), while GIWB was not addressed as a potential outcome of GHRM practices.

Managerially speaking, higher education organizations are called upon going green and creating a roadmap for their staff to serve as environmental activists. These organizations will need to effectively and successfully implement GHRM activities for better environmental management and to promote employees’ green behaviors at the workplace. Higher education organizations are required to adopt sustainable green practices to assist employees in resolving environmental challenges and concerns. This may lead to the improved green performance of these organizations and the community as a whole. Human resource (HR) professionals in higher education are advised to include GHRM practices at the top of their agenda, in addition to other HRM systems such as high-performance work practices and high-commitment HRM systems. GHRM practices should include clear green hiring policies, green training and development, a system of green performance evaluation and effective rewarding green rewarding and compensation policies. This research strongly recommends that HR specialists and senior management in higher education establish core organizational concepts and principles when articulating GHRM strategies. Hiring staff (academic and administrative) with common environmental protection values is an important practice to create a state of person-organization fit. Furthermore, HR practitioners in higher education may give a strong example by communicating their environmental morals and ethics at work through different techniques such as communication emails, broachers and regular seminars on green management. HR professionals can also assess candidates' environmental principles in the interview process by analyzing their awareness and readiness to get involved in green management practices. Furthermore, HR personnel can provide higher education staff with adequate training and coaching about environmental conservation, which will help align staff with the environmental policies of their organizations and increase awareness of environmental management concerns. Finally, HR policymakers in higher educations may link performance appraisal and rewarding schemes with employees’ environmental performance. This might include measuring the amount of paper used within a period of time and the number of printing orders performed, which can be tracked using printing monitors.

Limitations and future research

This study has limitations that provide opportunities for future research endeavors. First, the model proposed was investigated using data collected from one source (employees) at one point in time. Although, it was demonstrated that CMB was not a concern for this study, collecting data from multiple sources and at different intervals would minimize CMB. This includes having supervisors evaluate the green behaviors of their employees. Second, data come from employees working in five higher education institutions, which might limit the generalizability of the results. Hence, future research may consider replicating the study model using larger samples. Third, this study is cross-sectional in its nature, which puts restrictions on drawing cause-effect conclusions. Future studies may consider a longitudinal research design to examine the model over time. Moreover, the study examined one mediator (GWE) among the investigated links. Future studies may consider other intervening variables such as green engagement climate, green perceived organizational support and organizational identification. Finally, future research may consider investigating the model in diverse service sectors including higher education, nonprofits, healthcare and hospitality to check for differences between these sectors.

The study investigated the impact of GHRM practices on green outcomes, namely, in-role, extra-role and GIWBs, through the mediating effects of GWE. With data collected from the higher education sector in Palestine, the results demonstrated that GHRM showed a positive relationship with the aforementioned outcome variables. GWE was found to play a significant mediating role between the links examined. The study suggests future research to enrich the literature of GHRM with further investigation of the precise mechanisms governing the relationship between GHRM and its consequences.

Hypothesized model

Model estimates

Factor loading, with t -values, CRs and AVEs

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Further reading

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Corresponding author

About the author.

Mohammed Aboramadan is a Postdoctoral research fellow at the department of economics, management and statistics. His special interests focus on HRM and leadership in service-based contexts. Aboaramadan has published in the following journals: International Journal of Educational Management, International Journal of Organizational Analysis, International Journal of Public Administration, Journal of Workplace Learning and other published scientific pieces at AOM proceeding 2020, EURAM 2020, a Journal for Higher Education Policy and Management and International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management .

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Organizational direction, expectations, and employees’ intention for Green HRM practices in the Philippines: a signaling theory perspective

• Original Article
• Published: 07 November 2022
• Volume 22 , pages 1301–1327, ( 2023 )

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• Mendiola Teng-Calleja   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4592-0647 1   na1 ,
• Alfred Presbitero   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3154-9026 2   na1 &
• Mira Michelle de Guzman 3  

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Green human resource management (HRM) highlights the importance of aligning human resources practices with the environmental goals of organizations. Given that employees are at the core of HRM, it is important to determine how they form intentions for green HRM practices, particularly in contexts such as the Philippines—a country in Asia that frequently experiences disasters. Guided by signaling theory, we assert that organizational directions that are environmentally oriented relay signals to employees about prioritizing environmental sustainability, which influences employees’ intention for green HRM. We also assert that pursuing such organizational directions entails articulating expectations, and employees wanting to deliver these expectations explains why employees will want to institute green HRM. We conducted a survey among 189 employees complemented by interviews with 15 HRM leaders in the Philippines. Our findings advance current understanding of the mechanisms through which employees’ intention for green HRM practices are shaped by and orient efforts to engender employee involvement in environmental sustainability initiatives.

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Acknowledgements

This research project was conducted through the Loyola Schools Scholarly Work Faculty Grant of the Ateneo de Manila University and the support of the Ateneo Center for Organization Research and Development (Ateneo CORD).

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Teng-Calleja, M., Presbitero, A. & de Guzman, M.M. Organizational direction, expectations, and employees’ intention for Green HRM practices in the Philippines: a signaling theory perspective. Asian Bus Manage 22 , 1301–1327 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41291-022-00206-1

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Green HR Management: the What, the Why, and the How

Sustainability is becoming an increasingly important factor in the success of companies that want to remain relevant and competitive in today's world, and green human resource management (green HR management or green HRM) is one way to achieve this. 

This strategy encourages companies to make better, “greener” decisions and ensure that all aspects, from hiring to training and development, are carried out in an environmentally-friendly manner. In this post, we'll go over the benefits of green HR for your company and show you how to implement it.

Green Human Resources Management Explained

Business and sustainability are all about green HR management in recent years, but what is it really? Simply put, the concept refers to a set of policies, systems and practices aimed at encouraging employees to engage in environmentally-friendly behaviors in the workplace. The aim is to further develop the company's mission as a socially responsible company determined to reduce the environmental impact of its operations.

This is to be achieved through a combination of effective employee management and sustainable HR management, i.e., a holistic approach to managing a company's human resources that takes into account the environmental impact of the company's operations. This can range from reducing energy consumption and waste to promoting green initiatives in the workplace.

The Role of HR in a Sustainable Workplace

The world is becoming increasingly concerned with sustainability, so it comes as no surprise that sustainable workplaces are on the rise. An environmentally-friendly workplace meets the needs of both employees and employers, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, increases employee productivity, and lowers costs,

It is possible to improve the sustainability of a workplace in many ways, but human resources play a major role. By developing policies and procedures that promote sustainable practices, such as recycling and energy efficiency , HR can help. These issues can also be taught and discussed with employees to ensure everyone in the organization is on the same page and create a culture of sustainability .

By taking a leadership role in creating a sustainable workplace, HR can positively impact the environment – but there’s more! As a result of sustainable HR management, positive financial, human, and social results can be achieved, alongside the ecological impact.

Benefits of Green HR Management

There are many benefits to adopting green HR practices. For one, a company can save money by reducing its carbon footprint . In addition, green HR practices can improve employee morale and engagement, as well as organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Here are some benefits of green HR management:

Improved Communication and Collaboration

Green HR management can help improve communication and collaboration within an organization by promoting transparency and encouraging employee participation in environmental initiatives. All hands on deck!

Increased Employee Engagement

Engaging employees in green initiatives can increase employee satisfaction and motivation, as well as improve job performance. The feeling of contributing to something so big can quickly improve both mood and mindset!

Enhanced Organizational Efficiency

Green HR management practices can help streamline processes and procedures, resulting in increased efficiency and productivity. The bonus is that these practices help organizations create a green workforce that understands and values environmental initiatives!

Reduced Costs

Adopting green HR management practices can reduce a company's operating costs, for example, by reducing energy and water consumption, waste disposal, and office supply expenses. This means that companies cannot only save money, but also contribute to environmental protection at the same time.

Improved Sustainability

Implementing green HR policies and practices can improve an organization's sustainable development goals by reducing its impact on the environment. Energy efficiency measures can reduce energy consumption, water-efficient fixtures can reduce water usage, and using less paper and toner and ordering office supplies in bulk can help reduce office supply expenses and waste.

Are There Disadvantages to Green HR Management?

One of the main disadvantages is cost. Implementing and sustaining certain green HR initiatives can require an investment of time and resources. Another disadvantage is that it can create additional work for employees; for example, recycling programs require employees to sort materials into different bins. Other green initiatives, such as energy-saving practices, may require employees to change their daily routines.

However, even though green HR management can be costly, it doesn't have to be if you integrate sustainability into your everyday operations – including the technology that you use. YAROOMS is a highly cost-effective way to track carbon emissions without creating additional work. Employees simply commute and use the office as usual, and YAROOMS calculates the carbon footprint of all these actions.

Remember that the main purpose of green initiatives is to reduce the negative impact of energy consumption and pollution. Since companies also contribute to environmental problems, it is honorable to make an effort to contribute to solving some of these problems and start green initiatives in response.

Examples of Green HR Management Practices

Having employees use public transportation, encouraging remote working, conducting energy audits, going paperless and using recycled materials, and incorporating sustainability considerations into employee training programs are just a few examples of how green HR management can be put into practice.

By taking steps to reduce the environmental impact of their operations, you cannot only do your part to protect the planet, but also improve your bottom line. Here are some ideas that can help you in your sustainability efforts:

Transparent Sustainability Goals

Setting sustainability goals is an important part of green HR management. To be effective, these goals should be transparent and openly communicated to all employees and stakeholders. Some examples of transparent sustainability goals include:

• reducing the company's carbon footprint 
• setting targets for reducing electricity consumption 
• increasing the use of renewable energy sources
• reducing waste and increasing recycling rates

Achieving these goals requires the commitment and cooperation of everyone. By making them transparent, everyone can see the progress and feel part of the solution. Another tip would be to ask leaders to set green goals and responsibilities for their teams, and perhaps reward the best team at the end of the quarter with a cash prize or team-building activity!

Sustainability-Focused HR Policies

In order to implement green HR management practices, organizations must have sustainability-focused HR policies in place. Some examples of such policies include the following:

• incentivizing employees to walk, cycle, carpool or use public transportation to work when possible
• introducing green office initiatives, such as encouraging employees to recycle and use recycled materials, using energy-efficient office equipment, or introducing a "Bring Your Own Mug" policy
• encouraging flexible work arrangements, such as offering employees the opportunity to work from home one or more days per week or having flexible work start and end times
• establishing employee committees to develop and implement sustainability initiatives in the workplace, or offer rewards and recognition to employees who participate in green activities outside of work.

Incentives for “Green” Behaviors

Studies clearly show that employees are more likely to be motivated by a company's green HR practices (these include behaviors such as favoring green products over non-green ones, reducing waste, using recyclable products, using water and electricity sparingly, and so on) if they are paid in accordance with a green compensation plan or green performance appraisal plan.

Companies can encourage sustainable practices by incentivizing such behaviors. In this way, they send a clear signal that they value sustainability, are committed to promoting environmentally-friendly practices, and are willing to improve their processes in ways that allow for greater care for the environment while keeping the interests of their employees in mind.

For example, they can offer their employees cash rewards for carpooling, biking or taking public transportation to work. Or they can give their employees gift cards for completing energy-saving tasks, such as conducting an energy audit at their workplace. They could even subsidize the cost of memberships in environmentally-friendly organizations! The possibilities are endless – what would you choose?

Learning & Development

As a specialized function of HR, learning and development (L&D) is defined as the process of equipping employees with specific skills to achieve better organizational performance. This includes environmentally conscious behaviors that contribute to the wellbeing of an organization.

The ongoing digitalization of life is making it increasingly easy to go green, for example by reducing emissions as a result of the prevalence of remote working. Therefore, now is a great time to promote such behavior among employees and link them to the company's environmental objectives. It helps if the managers are willing to set the example for the rest of the staff!

To raise awareness about the importance of sustainability (which can become an important element of employee development), you could send out a newsletter with the latest eco-friendly solutions they could implement in the workplace, or host workshops with green influencers to educate people about the issue.

How to Implement Green HR Management

Now you know that implementing green HR management can be a great way to improve your workplace productivity, reduce costs and create a greener organization. The time has come to develop a strategy that benefits both your company’s bottom line and the environment!

Then, with careful planning and implementation, green HR management can easily become part of your company's core values and culture. If you’re looking for ways to start implement green HR management, here are some examples:

• Encourage employees to walk, cycle, carpool, or use public transportation. You can do this through free secure bicycle parking, subsidized parking for carpools, or discounts on public transportation. Another option is exploring partnerships with local businesses to get discounts on gear from local bike shops!
• Implement flexible work arrangements. Such arrangements can help reduce carbon emissions by reducing the need for commuting. Even on days when meetings are held, opting for virtual meetings and events instead of in-person meetings can save travel emissions.
• Promote sustainable practices such as composting food waste, purchasing recycled or environmentally-friendly office supplies and equipment, and reducing paper use by encouraging employees to use digital formats. If you’re struggling with creating a paperless office strategy, here are a few apps that might help!
• Implement measures to reduce energy consumption in the workplace. If you don’t get enough natural light during the daytime, choose energy efficient light bulbs that consume less power and last for longer periods of time. Remember to also switch off equipment when not in use, and print only when necessary.
• Encourage recycling in the workplace by placing informative recycling materials in common areas with high-traffic, common areas and behind actual recycling bins. Be sure to use clear and effective labels and you’re all set. You can even create incentives for employees who do their part!
• Educate employees about sustainable development and engage them in company-wide sustainability initiatives. You should report progress toward sustainable development goals to shareholders and even offer a reward to the team who is being the most consistent!
• Workplace sustainability competitions can be a  great – and fun! – way to motivate employees and get them thinking about ways to reduce their environmental impact. There are just a few things to keep in mind: make sure the goals of the competition are clear and achievable, that there is enough prize money or other incentives to motivate employees to participate, and that the rules are fair and evenly enforced!
• Using the right software can also make a difference. Take YAROOMS , for example. Our app has an interactive floor plan with real-time occupancy and availability statistics that can help you make "green" maintenance adjustments, such as turning off lights and adjusting heating systems in unoccupied areas!

Are you ready to implement green HR practices? Great! Make sure the leadership team is on board, conduct a needs assessment to determine which areas of your organization need your attention the most, and start implementing new, green processes. We're rooting for you – and the planet!

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Impacts Of Green HR Practices On Employees And Sustainable Business

"We have to bring this world back to sanity and put the greater good ahead of self-interest." - Paul Polman, Unilever

The concept of green HR practices is gaining traction in the corporate world, as leaders discover ways to foster sustainability within their organization. Adopting environment friendly HR practices as an organizational strategy can help increase competitive advantages in the present business scenario.

Also, the urgent need for a proactive solution to environmental management has become a global issue. Whether it is climate change or rising poverty and unemployment, the dispute over the effectiveness of critical human resource management principles drives us to probe the unification of the sustainable, environment, and HR practices.

It is an undeniable fact that companies can play a significant role in the fight to preventing global warming. With the support of senior management and employees, HRM can fulfill the organization's commitment to green practices.

Its function can become the driver of sustainability goals that ultimately contribute to organizational goals. It involves practicing eco-friendly HR initiatives that help achieve higher work efficiencies at lower costs and better employee engagement .

What is Green HR?

Green HR is a field of HR, extends its role in promoting and achieving sustainable goals within an organization. It uses the HRM policies to build a comprehensive system of preserving natural resources by creating employee awareness.

Green HRM practices play a vital role in a forward-thinking business that develops alternative ways to save cost without compromising on their talent & essential resources. It ranges from the promotion of saving energy to the usage of ethical practices. Its initiatives align various HR processes like staffing, performance management, training, and development with sustainable business.

The role of HR in sustainable business

The involvement of HRM in an organization's vision, effective governance, and future development is crucial. When it comes to managing sustainability with human resources, HR plays an essential role in an organization. Sometimes they have to consider ethical issues beyond economic performances when operating a new path of sustainable business.

HR can act as the moral compass of an organization. They can put forth various policies and practices that are viable for humans and nature. Achieving such a reformation can be daunting at times. But HRM can facilitate the conversation between top management and employees for a mutual collaboration of sustainable working practices.

The critical role of HR is to develop a sustainability map associating Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) , HR functions, and ethics. Organizing regular meetings with transparent communication styles , encouraging employees in brainstorming ideas, or using motivational theories are few ways to support and embed sustainability within organizations. These people-oriented skills help in developing the business not economically but socially along with the environment.

Ways to do green HR

Power save by tweaking the room temperature.

Use the latest power-saving appliances or alternative energy source

Save paper by using devices to note down.

Apply 3R’s rule(recycle, reuse, reduce)

Check every leaking water sources to save water.

Promote teleconferencing.

Mandate employees to meet a specific green score.

Impact of green HR practices in your organization

1. higher productivity rate.

At present-day, companies are trying to include greener approaches inside their organization. There are several pieces of research available that prove when employees indulged in green practices, be it food habits to volunteering, they are more focused than usual day.

It helps in gaining a positive impact and social outlook on employee relations in the organization. An employee feels responsible for preserving the environment apart from their functional contribution to the job. It contributes to developing holistic employee wellbeing .

2. Helps in saving your organization’s cost

Every organization has enormous growth potential when aligned with green initiatives. It involves eco-friendly initiatives that have the possibility of lowering carbon footprints in the environment. Employees who support and practice these initiatives are less likely to fall ill.

They will be more active at work, which reduces the rate of presenteeism or absenteeism . It helps save the organization's medical budget. Green HRm also helps in cutting down the cost without compromising their niche.

3. Elevated Brand Recognition

The Green HR practices help employers, manufacturers build brand image and create influence in the society. It also makes employees and society members aware of natural resources' usage, encouraging more economical and eco-friendly products. Conducting an environmental audit, upgrading the work culture , doing waste management, and serving society and its people that are getting affected by pollution are few ways that can help in creating brand recognition .

Whenever an organization implements a green initiative to its workplace, it can publicize the event to gain positive public relations. Promoting environmental contributions over social media can gain the attention of targeted customers and generate leads.

4. Increased Employee Retention

Following green HR practices can help in improving the employee retention rate . Some employees may take pride when their organization show concerns for the environment and society. It sends a positive image that the company cares about its employees, and help them connect better with organizational values apart from their benefits.

A 1997 Dolan's study observed that most of the graduates agree to work a minimum salary when organizations are involved in environmental causes. As the Generation Z prepares for a job, they will approach awareness of sustainability in the new workplace. Accordingly, companies are trying best to apply sustainable practices for attracting quality candidates.

5. Improved Employee Morale

Apart from promoting physical fitness, nutrition, and a healthy lifestyle among employees and society, wellness programs can include environment and sustainability factors to create awareness. Green HRM uses the policies to boost the judicious use of resources that promotes the cause of environmentalism, which further boosts employee morale and satisfaction.

Green HR practices can achieve higher efficiency through electronic filing, car sharing, job sharing, teleconferencing, and virtual interviews, recycling, , online recruitment and training, energy-efficient office spaces. Conducting regular meetings to discuss the development of strategic green HR capability creates awareness among employees. It must be well-aligned with the organization's overall strategy, which for higher employee commitment and organizational performance.

Now I would like to know from you

What are the green initiatives have you followed for your organization?

Let me know in the comment section below.

This article is written by Rangana Atreya , a Content Marketer at Vantage Circle . Having a creative mind with a spiritful life, she takes inspiration from travelling and learning languages. For any related queries, contact [email protected]

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What is Green HRM?

The term Green HRM has become the buzz word within the business field at present and its significance is increasing manifold with the passage of time. This term has also its secured position as a hot topic in recent research works since the awareness on environmental management and sustainable development has been increasingly rising day by day all round the globe. Today the topic Green HRM not only includes awareness toward environmental affairs, but also stands for the social as well as economical well-being of both the organization and the employees within a broader prospect.

Before proceeding further, first of all we take up the question, “what is Green HRM?” Different authors have given different definitions for this term such as—“Green HRM is the use of HRM policies to promote the sustainable use of resources within organizations and, more generally promotes the causes of environment sustainability”. GHRM is directly responsible in creating green workforce that understands, appreciates, and practices green initiative and maintains its green objectives all throughout the HRM process of recruiting, hiring, training, compensating, developing, and advancing the firms human capital. It refers to the policies, practices, and systems that make employees of the organization green for the benefit of the individual, society, natural environment, and the business.

Need for GHRM

Last two decades of this century have witnessed a unanimous consensus for the need of a realistic environmental management drive all over the world. This effort was undertaken since the damaging effects of different pollutants among which the industrial wastes being the major culprit that has been deteriorating and depleting our natural resources very fast has been evident. The “Magna Carta” on Human Environment was declared in the first United Nation’s (International) Conference on Human Environment held in June 1972 in Stockholm declared that to defend and improve the human environment for present and future generation have become an imperative goal for mankind. The Green HRM literature is largely a western one and, given the importance of Asian economic development for environmental management, this is an important gap for future studies to reduce. Scholars of management around the world are now analyzing various managerial practices that can facilitate the achievements of the goals of GHRM and also have a significant impact on the environmental competitiveness of the organizations.

GHRM functions future direction

GHRM is a manifesto which helps to create green workforce that can understand and appreciate green culture in an organization. Such green initiative can maintain its green objectives all throughout the HRM process of recruiting, hiring and training, compensating, developing, and advancing the firm’s human capital. The Human Resource Department of a company is capable of playing a significant role in the creation of sustainability culture within the company. HR processes play an important role in translating Green HR policy into practice; therefore, human capital and its management are instrumental to the fulfillment of EM objectives.

It needs to be acknowledged that the intersection of sustainability, the natural environment, and HR management are new areas in fast development and therefore, not characterized by a fully developed body of writings point out that many HR systems need to be aligned with each other in order to increase the likelihood that the organization will achieve its strategy.

Green recruitment

Attracting high-quality staff is a key HR challenge in the “war for talent. Firms are now beginning to recognize the fact that gaining reputation as a green employer is an effective way to attract new talent. German firms such as Siemens, BASF, Bayer and Mannesmann use environmental activities and a green image to attract high-quality staff. The Rover Group carmaker, in Britain, makes environmental responsibilities and qualifications part of every job profile. Increasingly, green job descriptions with environmental aspects are now being included for employees within the recruitment agenda. Green recruitment can be defined as the process of hiring individuals with knowledge, skills, approaches, and behaviors that identify with environmental management systems within an organization. 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.

Green recruiting is a system where the focus is given on importance of the environment and making it a major element within the organization. Complementing this, the recruits are also enthusiastic, and to some extent, passionate about working for an environment friendly “green” company. Recruiting candidates with green bend of mind make it easy for firms to induct professionals who are aware with sustainable processes and are already familiar with basics like recycling, conservation, and creating a more logical world. Grolleau et al. ( 2012 ) in their study on impact of environmental standards of a company on recruitment of an employee found that environmental commitment of the company adds to profile of a company. In their primary survey, they found that professionals were more concerned with respect to the environmental strategy of a company.

Contemplating these statements, we conclude that green recruitment provides the employer with an opportunity to stand ahead of the crowd and further increase their chance of attracting the candidates and retain them after induction. Corroborating the recent green trend, we propose that the recruitment process be aligned with environment-friendly issues. Further research should address questions related to the green employer’s enthusiasm in achieving the environmental goals and how the potential job seekers perceive or rate them on the parameters of sustainability as claimed. For example, do the employers include green job descriptions, eco-friendly locations, paper less interviews, and such other practices in their recruitment portfolio? Are the new recruits made aware with the environmental policies and allegiance of the company at the commencement of the job itself? Research addressing these questions will help the new recruits to carry on with the green policies as well as cooperate with the management in establishing green policies to achieve the goals of the company.

Green performance management

Performance management (PM) is the process by which employees are prompted to enhance their professional skills that help to achieve the organizational goals and objectives in a better way. The recognition of the corporate strategy culminates into the PM. With the EM affecting global business strategy, PM is also being influenced by the green wave in a possible positive manner. Green performance management consists of issues related to environmental concerns and policies of the company. It also concentrates on use of environmental responsibilities. Today some firms deal with the issue of PM by installing corporate-wide environmental performance standards, and Green information systems/audits to gain useful data on environmental performance.

The most important aspect of PM is performance appraisal. In addition to meeting the criteria of reliability, validity, and fairness, effective performance appraisals provide useful feedback to employees and support continuous improvements in the firm’s environmental outcomes. Issues involved in environmental PA concern the need for managers to be held accountable for EM performance in addition to wider performance objectives. We suggest that future research on green performance appraisal should focus upon issues such as environmental incidents, environmental responsibilities, communication of environmental policy, and green information system and audits. The job description should be aligned with green tasks and goals to be achieved. The HR staff should modify the performance appraisal rating system to include dimensions for rating people on the following behavioral and technical competencies: teamwork, collaboration, diversity, innovation, and environmental stewardship. Such competencies would reinforce the company’s core values. Managers should discuss the performance of the employees and give the needed feedback not only during the scheduled time of appraisal, but also all round the year. This practice will help the employees to enhance their knowledge, skills and ability.

Green training and development

Training and development is a practice that focuses on development of employees’ skills, knowledge, and attitudes, prevent deterioration of EM-related knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Green training and development educate employees about the value of EM, train them in working methods that conserve energy, reduce waste, diffuse environmental awareness within the organization, and provide opportunity to engage employees in environmental problem-solving. Green T&D activities make employees aware of different aspects and value of environment management. It helps them to embrace different methods of conservation including waste management within an organization. Further, it sharpens the skill of an employee to deal with different environmental issues. In a survey of managers, on best management practices concluded that environmental training and education, along with establishing a favorable environmental culture for the employees where they feel that they are the part of environmental outcomes, were the most important HRM processes that facilitate the achievement of environmental goals. In his study on the role of HR in achieving a sustainability culture, suggests that the HR Department can offer leadership development workshops to help managers develop their “front wheel” soft, people skills, or behavioral competencies, in teamwork, diversity, managing change, and collaboration. Future research that facilitate green training on one hand and helps organizations on the other to develop eco-friendly managers who without any hesitation can indulge as well as promote sustainability throughout the process would be particularly useful.

Concluding the above discussion, we envisage that the need of the hour is: organizations should train their employees on best business practices enthused with green initiatives. Besides, sustainable training and education employees should also be adept to educate the customers regarding the advantages of becoming more earth-friendly and buying green products.

Green compensation

Rewards and compensation are the major HRM processes through which employees are rewarded for their performance. These HR practices are the most powerful method which links together an individual’s interest to that of the organization’s. We also assert that incentives and rewards can influence employees’ attention to the maximum at work and motivate them to exert maximum effort on their part to achieve organizational goals.

Though compensation and rewards increase green initiatives in organizations, it can never be completely free from some malpractices. Developing effective monetary incentives can be challenging due to the difficulty of accurately and fairly evaluating environmental behaviors and performance. By incorporating elements of green management in the compensation program, managers can promote the green behaviors among the employees. Further, managers can ask employees to bring specific green ideas pertaining to their individual jobs which can be through mutual decisions included into the objectives to attain in for the upcoming year. Attaining these objectives would be the basis of receiving incentives.

Employee compensation programs can be modified to give bonuses based in part on the employee’s appraisal ratings on the behavioral and technical competencies. In addition, employees could be awarded bonuses for their outstanding work on special projects. Green rewards can include the use of workplace and lifestyle benefits, ranging from carbon credit offsets to free bicycles, to engage people in the green agenda while continuing to recognize their contribution. Last, but not the least, more emphasis should be given on researches which determine effective approaches that will help to design and implement green compensation practices and may lead to the achievement of corporate environmental goals.

Green employee relations

Employee relations are that aspect of HRM which is concerned with establishing amicable employer–employee relationship. The relationship facilitates motivation and morale of the employees as well as, increases the productivity. Basically, employee relations involve employee participation and empowerment activities. It also helps prevent and resolve problems arisen at workplace that may affect the work. In fact, positive employee relations are an intangible and enduring asset and a source of competitive advantage for any organization.

Employee participation in Green initiatives increases the chances of better green management as it aligns employees’ goals, capabilities, motivations, and perceptions with green management practices and systems. Involving employees in EM has been reported as improving EM systems such as efficient resource usage; reducing waste and reducing pollution from workplaces. Several workers in their study concluded that individual empowerment positively influences productivity and performance, and facilitates self-control, individual thinking, and problem-solving skills.

The scope of employee relations should be broadened by initiating a suggestion scheme within the organization, wherein each and every employee from top most to the lowest level gets an opportunity to contribute to the scheme. This practice will help in creating greater awareness on green issues besides, new ideas for eco-friendly practices my crop up from different sources.

Other benefits of employee involvement are improvement in employee and organizational health and safety, as well as development of eco-friendly staff. We propose that keeping the policies in place, long-term trust among the management and employees will be built which will provide an opportunity to the employees to express their personal ideas at workplace and help to create climate conducive to green management practices and systems.

Green initiatives for HR

Organizations generally organize HR practices into systems that are consistent with their culture and business strategy. We can say that green initiatives included in HRM manifesto is a part of corporate social responsibility in the long run. Today, organizations are implementing and integrating green initiatives in their agenda with the help of their human resource. Managers make sure that their HR is utilizing green human resource practices in appropriate manner. As an addendum to the statement, several authors have suggested that it is important to promote a great deal of technical and management skills among all employees of the organization in order to implement an effective corporate green management system in companies.

Organizations across the world are incorporating and working toward implementing GHRM practices to gain competitive advantages among the corporate world. Complete adoption and integration of GHRM in business is not impossible but requires a changed approach toward the existing HR practices on part of both the management as well as employees simultaneously. A key role for HR environmental executives could be to guide line managers in terms of gaining full staff co-operation toward implementing environmental policies which means HR needs to nurture supporters and create networks of problem-solvers willing to act to change the current status quo. There are numerous issues related to GHRM that is to be taken into account by HR department before implementing green initiatives and, all of them can be not contained within a single document. Owing to the space limit the following section of the paper briefly focus upon some of the major green initiatives for HR departments.

Green building

The organizations round the globe are considerably opting for green building as their workplace and offices as an alternative to traditional offices. The phenomenon is quite trend setting as Green buildings fulfill certain criterion for reducing the exploitation of natural resources that are utilized in their construction. Furthermore, green buildings include some enhanced features related to green practices such as energy efficiency, renewable energy, and storm water management. Recent years have witnessed a great upsurge in adoption of green buildings by organizations at a fast pace. The business world has become increasingly aware of the significant role played by green buildings while dealing with environmental issues. Green buildings also serve as a platform for financial savings for organizations as their construction and engineering involve low cost. Business giants like Ford, Pepsico, etc. are committed to sustainability and have included green building design principles into their buildings. Fortune 1000 companies are adopting company-wide sustainability policies that have increased the demand for work space in Green or sustainable buildings.

Paperless office

Most of the work in the office is managed on paper but, with introduction of IT, the consumption of paper has been reduced. Today E-business and learning have changed the methods and procedures at offices converting them into paperless offices. Paperless office is a work place where the use of paper is either restricted or eliminated by converting important official documents and other papers into automated workflows. The practice greatly reduce the consumption of paper, the costs of paper-related actions including copying, printing, and storing ,  and also save the time used for searching paper documents. Jamie Garratt started Idea Rebel, a Vancouver-based digital agency in 2008, which is a complete paperless office (Borzykowski,  2013 ). At Idea Rebel, pay stubs are emailed to employees and notes are taken on tablet devices and whiteboards. Designers are allowed to bring in a pad of paper but they have to take the pad to their home at the end of each day. Finally, we assert that by reducing the use of paper, we can directly conserve natural resources, prevent pollution, and reduce wastage of water and energy.

Conservation of energy

Conservation of energy in the office has the potential for a great environmental impact. In an effort to provide more efficient and eco-friendly services, offices around the world have implemented several energy conservation initiatives to reduce the environmental impact. The HR department at the UK arm of Sky has started a campaign where the employees are asked to turn off PCs, TVs, and lights when leaving, to use 100% renewable energy, and introduced solar lighting (Davies & Smith,  2007 ), Whereas the HR department of other British organizations is emphasizing upon their travel policy which promotes car sharing and the increased use of public transport (Simms,  2007 ). In addition, HR systems such as e-HR are seen to be able to help management and employees track their own carbon emissions (Beechinor,  2007 ). Organizations are also promoting the extensive use of energy star-rated light bulbs and fixtures which undoubtedly consumes at least two-thirds less energy than regular ones.

Recycling and waste disposal

Recycling is the methodology of processing used up materials (waste) into new and useful products. Recycling reduces the use of raw materials that would have been otherwise used to produce new products. Consequently, this practice saves energy and reduces the amount of waste that is thrown into the dustbins, thereby making the environment cleaner and the air fresher. As a part of their green initiatives, several organizations are implementing recycling program to increase the amount of recycled products and decrease the amount of waste.

Ever since the organizations embraced the concept of saving money, focusing simultaneously on the environment and sustainability, several human resource professionals were assigned the task of creating company recycling programs and monitoring office thermostats. In the process, many HR professionals ascertained that green initiatives were a necessary aspect of overall corporate social responsibility. At present, the whole corporate world is reciting the old mantra of three Rs—Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle to save the environment.