A Core Evaluation of Green Human Resource Management - More than just for Hotels

MN7234ES - People and organisations: principles and practices in global contexts

Introduction

Green Human Resource Management is an emerging field of study that needs an in-depth analysis of it.

Human Resource Management

Going back to basics, we explore the concept of Human Resource Management. Professor Opatha (2021), in his journal' Definitions of Human Resource Management," describes Human Resource Management as "the efficient and effective utilization of employees to achieve goals of the organization. It is about managing people at work, being the human side of the Business Administration, having policies, procedures, rules, and systems influencing employees of the organization."

Impact of Climate Change. Source: Yilmaz (2024)

Green Human Resource Management

Riding on the coattails of traditional Human Resource Management, Green Human Resource Management efficiently and effectively utilizes employees to achieve an organization's goal of sustainability. It creates awareness of eco-friendly practices and energy conservation, as well as fostering job satisfaction and holistic approaches to the well-being of fellow employees. Therefore, human resource management has become 'Green' merely because of its values and newly improved sustainable practices.

When you take the word 'green,' it is an adjective and a noun. However, in a broader sense, the term is coined with 'environmentalism, conservationism, preservation, eco-activists, or nature lovers. We also tend to visualize green to associate it with grass, leafy pastures, and trees full of life. If we break these terms, we can further simplify the definitions as follows:

Environmentalism concerns the environment, particularly to the point of championing environmental causes while trying to reduce humans' negative impact on Earth.

Conservationism – a movement to protect and preserve natural resources, ecology, endangered species, national monuments, and landmarks.

Preservation is the act of keeping something as it is to prevent it from deteriorating, being damaged, or being destroyed.  

Eco-activists – a group of people or individuals who try to protect the environment and promote environmental awareness.

Nature lovers – people who enjoy the outdoors, time amongst nature, the wilderness, wild animals, flora, and fauna.  

Deskilling of workers in Fordism & Taylorism. Source: Cosmonaut (2021)

Taylorism & Fordism – Early Personnel Management 

Suppose you take the study of Green Human Resource Management against traditional Human Resource theories like Taylorism and Fordism. In that case, we see a stark contrast from the early personnel management in history. In the early 1920s, the era of the Industrial Revolution, productivity overshadowed employee well-being, autonomy, job satisfaction, and the environment. Shoobridge (2023), in his LinkedIn blog, quotes about Taylorism as follows: "Taylorism may be the efficient machinery of progress, but it grinds the souls of employees into dust, reducing them to cogs in a heartless industrial mechanism."

On the other hand, Fordism, with its drive for capitalism, had enormous repercussions environmentally, as mass production exploited much of the non-renewable resources, brought about climate change through pollution, and accelerated biodiversity loss.

How Important is Green HR Management. Source. W Chan (2017)

Conclusion:

The importance of Green Human Resources in the world today is to create environmental awareness within the individual and the organization. Badow (2022) mentions that "environmentally conscious human resources management initiatives that lead to increased efficiencies, reduced costs, improved employee engagement and retention" help "organizations" to "reduce employee carbon footprint through electronic archiving, car sharing, job sharing, virtual interviews and conferences, recycling, remote working, online recruitment, and training" while operating within "energy efficient offices."

Companies implementing Green Human Resources have achieved the following benefits:

• Reducing turnover – retention of talent.

• Growth opportunities by going greener and creating an eco-friendly environment will contribute to massive operational savings through carbon emission reductions.

• High levels of employee engagement and job satisfaction leads to consistent productivity and sustainability.

• Positive work culture with the well-being of all employees.

• Popular and improved brand image for the public, which builds up excellent public relations. Social media platforms have empowered many companies to share their success stories worldwide, increasing sales and customer base growth.

• Increased employee morale – who doesn't like working for a company with green values that values the individual and the Earth? The millennial and Gen Z workforce are huge international "go green" advocates and would prefer to work for a company with a "go green" initiative.

• Overall, it reduces the company's environmental impact.

• Reducing operational costs, such as energy efficiency and using less wasteful technologies, can bring significant savings.

• Tax benefits—Local governments and municipalities offer compensation or aid to organizations that better manage their utilities and energy consumption. With tax benefits in place, establishing a "go green" company is much more accessible.

• With consistent training by upskilling and reskilling, rewards, and other benefits, employees are motivated to manage the environment better and participate in the transformative "go green" human resource principles.  

With these common principles at the core of Green Human Resource Management, organizations other than hotels can also participate in the "Go Green" GHRM revolution, as the benefits are vast. 

References:

Badow, A. (2022) Advantages of Green Human Resources Management, LinkedIn. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/advantages-green-human-resources-management-abdulla-badow/ (Accessed: 28 March 2024).

Chan, W. (2017) (PDF) Green Human Resource Management: An organisational strategy, How important is Green HR Management to the Malaysian Financial Services Industry? Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321796044_Green_Human_Resource_Management_An_Organisational_Strategy_for_Sustainability (Accessed: 23 March 2024).

Davenport, A. (2024) Taylorism, COSMONAUT. Available at: https://cosmonaut.blog/tag/taylorism/ (Accessed: 28 March 2024).

Giumarro, G. (2018) How Might Henry Ford Evaluate Ecological Impacts?, We are POWER. Available at: https://www.powereng.com/library/how-might-henry-ford-evaluate-ecological-impacts (Accessed: 24 March 2024).

Hounshell, D.A. (2021) The Same Old Principles in the New Manufacturing, Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/1988/11/the-same-old-principles-in-the-new-manufacturing (Accessed: 23 March 2024).

Kanger, L. and Sillak, S. (2020) Emergence, consolidation and dominance of meta-regimes: Exploring the historical evolution of mass production (1765-1972) from the Deep Transitions Perspective, Technology in society. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7480399/ (Accessed: 23 March 2024).

National Geographic (2024) Conserving Earth, Education. Available at: https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/conserving-earth/ (Accessed: 20 March 2024).

Opatha, H.H.D.N.P. (2021) A Simplified Study of Definitions of Human Resource Management. Available at: https://journals.sjp.ac.lk/index.php/sljhrm/article/view/5010/3845 (Accessed: 28 March 2024).

Shoobridge, G. (2023) Taylorism and the dark side of employee exploitation, LinkedIn. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/taylorism-dark-side-employee-exploitation-gonzalo-shoobridge/ (Accessed: 24 March 2024).

Yilmaz, H. (2024) How to fight climate change using AI and Computer Vision, Plugger.ai - Creative AI assistant to make your photo, video, and sounds tasks. Available at: https://www.plugger.ai/blog/how-to-fight-climate-change-using-ai-and-computer-vision (Accessed: 31 March 2024).