Introduction
Since the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700’s and early 1800‘s organizations have become increasingly prosperous. With this rapid growth, however, has come irresponsibility in the management of business resources. This irresponsibility increases the costs to the company and is also taxing on the environment, increasing: ozone depletion, deforestation, and global warming (Shrivastava, 1995, p. 936). Sustainability in the business sector goes beyond environmental initiatives and includes the company’s financial and managerial performance, and employee quality of life. The movement of sustainable human resource management provides a balance between economic development, environmental stewardship, and societal equity—often
7). Their definition was as follows: “ It is in the hands of humanity to make development sustainable… to meet the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own. (SHRM, 2011, p. 7).” Sustainability is the organization’s commitment to balance financial performance with contributors to the quality of life of employees, society at large, and environmentally sensitive initiatives (SHRM, 2011, p. 2). Workplace sustainability requires observation of the following: work force diversity, environmental impact, bribery and corruption, community involvement, ethical sourcing of goods, human rights, product safety, and product usefulness (Epstein & Roy, 2001, p. 588). Creation of a stable, sustainability culture can support the company’s efforts to reach its long term goals; however, sustainable practices are more often found in medium and large staff-sized organizations, publicly and for-profit companies and multinational companies (SHRM, 2011, p.
57). During recruitment, younger candidates are likely to show higher interest in a company with a successful sustainability program (SHRM, 2011, p. 33). Employers should seek those who seek to include environmental stewardship and social responsibility in their core values (Liebowitz, 2010, p. 52). Employers should also identify those individuals who are willing to work as team, adapt quickly to change, and inclined to take risk while finding creative solutions to problems. Success with new employees depends on early introduction of company sustainability goals; by including sustainability in the onboarding process, employees can relate the sustainability efforts to their job
It will be advantageous for the company if they can project themselves as responsible corporate citizen and an environment friendly company. Social enrichment schemes, recycling schemes and educational funds can be initiated to cater to this cause and long term goal.
The Human Resources department is dedicated to hire and build an excellent team with a great teamwork and leadership. As one of the most important strategies of the business is the innovation of their products, it is needed people who can add value to the company through its diversity, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, in a competitive and fun environment.
Epstein introduces a new framework for implementing corporate sustainability. He states the by addressing the nonfinancial aspects of business, companies can improve the bottom line and earn superior returns. Sustainability can be broken down into nine principles. These components include ethics, governance, transparency, business relationships, financial return, community involvement and economic development, value of products and services, employment practices, and protection of the environment. All of these sections should be considered while working towards corporate sustainability.
The importance of Human Resource management is associated with the beginning of mankind. As the knowledge of survival had begun including safety, health, hunting and gathering, tribal leaders passed on the knowledge to their youth. However more advanced HRM functions were developed as early as 1000 B.C and 2000 B.C. Since the modern management theory took over, the working environment was transformed into a more friendly and safe work place. The workers were termed as most valuable resources. While some companies took the human side of employment seriously, there were others who did not find it mandatory. Hence they faced huge labor unions and factory shut downs (Henning, 2001).
Sustainability is an “enduring and balanced approach to economic activity, environmental responsibility and societal benefit”- Tata Steel. Sustainability is about meeting the ...
Whether an organization consists of five or 25,000 employees, human resources management is vital to the success of the organization. HR is important to all managers because it provides managers with the resources – the employees – necessary to produce the work for the managers and the organization. Beyond this role, HR is capable of becoming a strong strategic partner when it comes to “establishing the overall direction and objectives of key areas of human resource management in order to ensure that they not only are consistent with but also support the achievement of business goals.” (Massey, 1994, p. 27)
Another approach is bottom-up and it makes the employees the central cog in the innovation process. Such a concept, when applied to sustainability, shifts the focus from the happenings at the management level to what decisions the mid and front-line level employees make. The lower level employees are the ones who take daily actions that could make or break a company’s sustainability potential. A bottom-up approach has a multiplier effect since it is easily visible to others and becomes quite difficult to thwart. Furthermore, the daily decisions made by mid-level employees incorporate the views of the
Stuart Hart, in a business article, discusses the tough task for companies to make a sustainable global ec...
The social pillar of sustainability is often the one that is overlooked and under credited (Cuthill, 2009; Vavik and Keitsch, 2010;). Nonetheless, it still plays a crucial role in achieving sustainability. Social sustainability can be defined as a system or process that ensures communities achieve fair opportunities in terms of distribution, employment, social services, gender equity, health and education (Harris, 2003; Vallance, Perkins and Dixon, 2011; Murphy, 2012) An economically sustainable system, is when the organization is consistent in producing goods and services in order to maintain and manage government and external debts as well as avoid damaging imbalances that could potentially impact production (Harris, 2003, Asheim, 2007).
Sustainability is a concept with a diverse array of meanings and definitions – a widely used glamorous, ambiguous, ambivalent and vague concept that is used by different stakeholder groups in various ways. Presumably to avoid noodling over a terminology or to avoid the confrontation with a definition, most widely the concept is broken down a planning process (c.f. e.g. Döring & Muraca, 2010). That is why most common sustainability is understood as sustainable development.1
In recent years, many corporations in the US and in Europe has made efforts to include Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as part of their decision making process. In Europe, the European Commission, a political body has been a leading advocate for CSR and has set the widely accepted definition of CSR (Aßländer, 2011). The European Commission view CSR as companies not just fulfilling the legal compliance and regulations, but advancing human capital, the environment and the relations with all stakeholders. In the green paper written by the commission initiates a debate on how the European Union (EU) can further promote CSR globally (European Commission, 2011). The case study on Host Europe is an excellent example of the European Commission’s vision of corporations taking the steps toward CSR. Looking at Host Europe, the company has invested great deal in CSR as it relate to energy use and the green data initiative. At the end of their initiative for anew green data center, Host Europe had established server energy-efficiency by 75 percent. Even with such as great success, Host Europe saw other measures that could further improve CSR. Host Europe sustainability report identified need for further sustainability in areas of work gender ratio, improving employee awareness, green IT and supply chain responsibility. Even though Host Europe’s gender ratio (less than 20 percent of employees were women) depicts the industry average, it strived to encourage a level playing field for women applicant without using gender as a decision criterion for hiring practices. Another area of improvement related to employees is CSR awareness. Host Europe sees a need to bring ecological awarene...
Today the need for green human resource management is important for all over the world. The ecological consciousness of each human drives the living style and environment. The general employees are interested in green human resource management because of its important and need in the current workplace. Our personal and professional lifestyle is affected due to many consequences. The corporate world is the most significant in enhancing the environment issues and the corporate has to give solution to this hazards.
Attending three talks in this academic week, besides learning new knowledge and knowing creative ideas form the speakers, I realize that the talks are related to our course and may help us to discover more in our studies other than the materials given by the lecture. Especially the talks in Tuesday, given by Mr. Ip Ka Po and Mr. Bernard Charnwut Chan respectively, inspired me to have a further study the relationship between the sustainability of a company and the human resources management.
So, if these multinational corporations have such strong influence, it is their responsibility to activate change in terms of sustainability. Sustainability is the number one problem our society faces today. Sustainability refers to social, environmental, and economic behavior that aims to maintain our resources so that the world and everyone on it can continue to exist in a prosperous manner. Social sustainability is “identifying and managing business impact, both positive and negative, on people.”
Sustainability simply defined to me as balancing act between the development of sustainability is necessary for both planet Earth and humans to survive. This is reinforced in the World Commission on Environment and Development report (1987) that sustainable development must meet the needs of the present without compromising the well-being of future generations”. The Earth Charter Organization widened the idea of sustainability to respect for a culture of peace, universal human rights, nature, and economic justice (What is sustainability?, n.d.).