Green HRM
Green HRM
Green HRM
ABSTRACT – Amongst business communities it has been observed that there is an increased awareness on the
significance of going Green and adopting various environment management practices since a long time. Today,
this area of environmental management (EM) with respect to sustainability strategies plays an important of
various key business strategies in the significant organizations. But despite its importance, there are not many
studies which consider the role of human resources in organizations with respect to attaining a goal of sustainable
environment. Thus, there is a growing need for the integration of the concepts of environment management into
Human Resource Management practices in the organization which gives rise to the concept of Green HRM. The
primary objective of this review is to explore various Green HRM practices in organizations based upon previous
literatures and explain the simplified meaning of Green HRM in detail. Hence this review incorporates various
functions from HRM perspective in an organization such as job design, recruitment, selection, performance
evaluation, induction, training & development, health and safety management, employee relations and to explore
how the Green HRM practices are linked to the same.
KEYWORDS - environment management, green HRM, corporate social responsibility, green management,
organizational sustainability
1. INTRODUCTION
The need for sustainable development is of utmost importance so as to meet the demands of both our present
needs and as well as that of our future generations. Developing and developed nations around the globe are facing
an urge for highly sustainable and environmental friendly practices (Mohd-Yusoff Yusliza, 2017). The function
of HR will turn into the controller of creating a sustainable environmental inside the association, by imposing
various practices and keeping in mind an environmental friendly focus.
Developing worldwide ecological concerns and the advancement of universal natural standards are making the
requirement for organizations to embrace formal environmental projects a necessity. The development of
internationally accepted standards and the increasing environmental concerns are forcing the corporates to adopt
programs and formal environmental strategies (Bonnie F. Daily, 2001). Utilization of corporate green
organization exercises requires an incredible state of specialized and administration talents among workers
because of the certainties that the organization will create, such as, development centered ecological activities
and projects that significantly affect the economical aggressiveness of the organizations. Specialists have
contended that environmental administration framework can be successfully executed if the organizations have
the perfect individuals with the correct aptitudes and skills. To attain HR effectiveness, researchers in the field
have stated that the Green HRM should be aligned with the organizational goals through which the companies
could sharpen the skillset and behavior of the employees Invalid source specified..
The major driving force in the direction of achieving business sustainability goals is the concept of green HRM
(Swapna, 2018). The emphasis on green practices advancement in organizations has influenced both industries
and businesses to go for conditions and practices which are known as Green administration. Green HR is a part
of Green organization rationality and strategies taken up by firms for environment management. Green HRM
incorporates all exercises, which goes in helping an association do its game plan for Environment Management.
As part of the people and talent management green HRM considers sustainability as a core value by aligning the
goals of organization with it (Mandip, 2011).
The idea of the GHRM proposes the utilization of HRM strategies with the essential goal of advancing the
reasonable utilization of assets inside the business associations and also in guaranteeing the advancement of
ecological manageability. Thus, GHRM centers around the part of seeking after eco-friendly HR roles and in
addition safeguarding the knowledge capital. The recruitment of personnel, their training and induction,
performance and the reward or incentive management is where the green HRM practices could be employed in
the industry (Prasad, 2013). Thus the objective of this study is to discuss the need for business to adopt green
practices, the objectives of Green HRM and to analyze various Green HRM practices and their impact on
sustainability of environment and organization.
Literature review is a term related with a way towards gathering, checking and reanalyzing information from the
existing literature with specific goals in mind. A Literature Review characterizes a particular issue, idea, theory,
phenomena. As per the SLR technique, in the accompanying subsections the scope of paper, the way toward
recognizing apt writing, and the papers incorporated into this survey are depicted. The paper is proceeded by
reviewing environmental management from the aspects of HR, second, by discussing about the objectives of the
review of these literatures, third, the need for businesses to adapt green practices, and fourth, by shedding some
light on the impacts on sustainability and development of organizations due to various HRM practices.
With a specific end goal to accomplish the expressed survey objective, an orderly way of writing was led by
utilizing a chronological technique. After a wealth of research into Green Human Resources Management
practices, discontinuities still exist in the Human Resource Management (HRM) processes, particularly on the
HR parts of Environmental Management known as Green HRM. Further, authoritative systems for natural
administration and manageable improvement will succeed when they are all around lined up with its HR exercises,
such as, less printing and more energy conservation.
The success of any strategic measure depends on the availability and potential of its people. In this manner,
effective workforce and human asset frameworks are basic for an impactful ecological development procedure.
As GHRM joins individuals with natural maintainability, it helps in crossing over any barrier between accessible
versus required and authoritatively gifted workforce for fruitful execution of ecological administration
frameworks. This paper utilizes a technique to survey the articles referred to in the databases Scopus, Emerald
Insight, Science Direct and Google Scholar with “Green HRM, Environmental Sustainability or Environmental
HRM‟ as the topic. Subsequently the research on this paper turns into a work area to explore as opposed to an
overview or some other method of inquiring about.
DATABASE NAME SCOPE OF THE SEARCH DATE ON WHICH SEARCH PAPERS OBTAINED
AND CRITERIA USED WAS CONDUCTED
SCOPUS SEARCH: TOPIC, 18/7/2015 156
JOURNALS
EMERALD INSIGHT SEARCH: TOPIC, 19/7/2015 256
KEYWORDS
GOOGLE SCHOLAR SEARCH: KEYWORDS, ALL 21/7/2015 2680
JOURNALS
SCIENCE DIRECT SEARCH: TOPIC, 24/7/2017 351
KEYWORDS, ARTICLES
TOTAL 3443
ARTICLES SELECTED = 37
Figure 1. Flow chart of the SLR process depicting the selection process of Green Human Resource Management
papers
2.3 Systematic literature review results
The 37 articles selected for this SLR review were released between 2001 and 2018, with a somewhat regular
increase over this eighteen-year period depicting the importance of the role of Green Human Resource Practices
in today’s world. In spite of the fact that numerous researchers have highlighted the significance of GHRM in
advancing conditions of the organization’s practices among workers, it is yet a less-examined region.
Additionally, the accessible writing on GHRM fundamentally gives bits of knowledge in the Western culture.
Thinking about the criticalness of Asian financial improvement and natural emergency, it is similarly vital to
investigate the same in the Asian organizations. GHRM is an under-looked into territory in India, albeit green
associations are in need of great importance. Henceforth, it has turned out to be critical to investigate GHRM in
India.
NO OF ARTICLES
7
NUMBER OF PAPERS
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
YEAR
NO OF ARTICLES
In our view, while acknowledging that a lot of obstacles may act towards limiting the development of a Green
HR Management advancement, as we will be discussing in the review paper, we additionally observe that what
is vitally lacking in the majority of the investigations assessed previously is an all-embracing Green HR process
model that displays the whole process from beginning to end which focuses on Green HRM, which could have
enabled to put the concept into practice throughout all the organizations. These gaps are what is to be taken care
of and thus provide a continuous smooth path towards this ingenious concept.
3. Methodological review
The methodology plays a primary important role in any research paper. The effectiveness of any research work
depends upon the correctness and accuracy of the research methodology. And for this literature related to our
topic Green Human Resource Management was collected from different websites and databases.
Hence the Methodological review in particular aims at giving an overview of the methods we have used to analyze
effective works on Green Human Resources Management papers, integrating Human Resources perspective with
environment management, not precisely briefing on the research procedures & designs of the articles under
review. With respect to method applications, inputs giving description about the applied methods were segmented
from respective articles. A joint analysis amongst our team led to categorizing article methodologies into 4
respective segments given as
(1) Qualitative research methods, combining interviews & case-studies;
(2) Quantitative research, consisting of surveys;
(3) Mixed methods of research, combining Qualitative as well as Quantitative methods both; &
(4) Non empirical methods, comprising mainly conceptual papers.
Non empirical methods of research were used in 45.94% in the articles under review (n = 17), and then Qualitative
applications in 29.72% of articles (n = 11), Quantitative methods of review integrated in 16.21% of the reviewed
articles (n = 6), and finally Mixed method in 8.10% of the articles (n = 3). Table 2 gives a description of the same.
The methods of segmentation used can be determined using the different themes and research questions on the
same explored in the respective articles, along with the deviated levels of analysis. The domination of qualitative
and non-empirical based methods in the investigated articles on the applications of Green Human Resource
Management in Organizations can be explained by the intensification in the enlargement of environment
management system. Studies that integrate Green HRM theory play significant part in creating connections among
areas that don’t generally converse with one another. Though the literature with regard to the Green HRM
practices is limited, the trends in the current scenario can be used to forecast the future course as large no of
Organizations continue to administer the GHRM practices.
The documentations on Green Human Resource Management practices is not only manifold and fractional but in
parallel it lags vigorous analytical and theoretical structure to support the productive knowledge obtained by
various intellectuals through systematic research works in this field except few. The earlier articles show that the
attention over the period of time has increased has on green accounting, green marketing and also green
management. Green Human Resource Management has a considerable capacity of being a management research
area, but the scholar research part has still a long way to go. The practices of environment management have
become an important constituent of business strategies but Green HR is still in an infancy stage with a few
organizations following the green practices (Nisha Jain, 2018).
4. Thematic Review
The theme of the research paper includes the focus on the need for green HRM in organizations and the impact
this would have on sustainable development. The authors reviewed over 37 research papers and found out the
most recurring topics in those papers.
Figure 3: Main themes of research
It was found that environment management (6), green HRM (13), corporate social responsibility (3), green
management (10), organizational sustainability (5) were the most repeating keywords in the papers. So the
following review describes what is green HRM, the need for it, how to implement it in the organizations and the
impact it would have on sustainable development.
5. LIMITATIONS
Few constraints were encountered during the process of the review. Initial constraint was with respect to the
chosen keywords. Though the combinations of keywords with respect to our topic didn’t have much scope as
variable inputs, we tried to apply them in broader prospective, and the criteria for searching consisted of titles,
abstracts and keywords where ever applicable, yet still there is a possibility that some importance and relevant
pieces of literature might have been overlooked. The next constraint encountered involves the possibility of bias
while considering reviews to be included or excluded, even with the predefined criteria.
Then, the suggested articles implied that the HRM factor impacts employee’s work performance in many ways.
Hence, it wasn’t practically possible to go through all the factors that affect Green HRM associated with
employee’s performance.
The environmental management process, which is an important component for ensuring business sustainability,
has been of primary importance in the modern business environment. (Swapna, 2018). Different organizations
have adopted and implemented practices of GHRM in their HR departments. Still the Green HRM practices are
in infancy stages, growing awareness within organizations of its significant role has made them to implement
environment friendly HR practices. Additionally, it is also important to note that the Organizations need to
consider and invest in this Green agenda of their businesses as a whole (Sharan, 2013). Sustainability for
influential impact will require organizations to take a more holistic and integrated approach with respect to
management of employees and environmental concerns (Adrian Wilkinson, 2001) . We have observed through
the literature that a majority of the employees have a sense of increased responsibility as well as job satisfaction
post implementing the Go Green practices. Also, the practices of Green HRM should be monitored constantly to
analyze their impact on HRM related issues. In the present scenario, it is the responsibility of the HR Managers
to spread awareness among the employees especially youngsters working in the organization about the Green
HRM practices and its impact with respect to the professional and personal development of the organization as
well as future generations in the long run. Reduction of environmental issues will increase overall efficiency &
productivity for any business and in turn will improve the opportunities for sustainable growth within a society
(Bonnie F. Daily, 2001).
The future of GHRM appears encouraging in the wider perspective of HRM stakeholders, be it employees,
employers or even academicians (Ahmad, 2015). Also, we look forward to witness further research on this area
in future, which can spotlight the respective roles of different other HRM activities and functions with respect to
Green HRM and to some extent correlate them with environmental management studies. Research with respect
to the impact of Green HRM Systems as a whole rather than individual practices would be considerably more
helpful in this respect.
7. CONCLUSION
The review of literature finally implies that to a great extent, the intrinsic potential of HRM Functions in greening
employees and the practices in organizations regarding the same. The primary challenge for HR professionals
today is to have a clear insight about the knowledge and implications of Green HRM practices for the
transformation of their organizations into green entities. The efforts finally will result in better environmental
performance of the organization as a whole. Without implementation of these practices, the path to achieve
sustainable environmental performance will be difficult in near future. Therefore, we will conclude that the
knowledge of Green HRM, its practices and impact for creating a sustainable environment will impact business
organizations to perform in a more environment friendly and sustainable manner than before. The organizations
should now give more importance to make every aspect of their HRM practices Green.
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