Green Human Resource Management Practices as a Strategic Tool for Sustainable Organizations: A Conceptual Perspective

Manpreet  Kaur

Abstract

In the contemporary business environment, sustainability has emerged as a strategic issue in modern business setting because of the increasing environmental concerns and business regulations, as well as the increasing demands of stakeholders. As a reaction to this, Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) has introduced itself as a strategy, which incorporates environmental goals into mainstream HR practices and policies such as green recruitment and selection, green training and development, green performance management, green rewards and employee engagement. Despite the previous studies that recognize the applicability of HRM to sustainability, GHRM is still a subject that is mostly discussed as a collection of fragmented practices as opposed to a consistent system of strategies that develop the ability to sustain organizations over the long term. This theoretical paper states GHRM as a strategic HR mechanism and comes up with a model where GHRM enhances psychological green climate, which subsequently facilitates green behavior of the employees at workplace and the ultimate organizational sustainability results. This framework also identifies the contingent nature of top management commitment and pressure on the stakeholders in influencing the nature of these relationships. The paper makes a contribution in that it helps to explain the strategic rationale of GHRM, outlines major mechanisms and conditions of the boundaries, and provides propositions that can guide subsequent empirical studies and managerial actions.

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