Sustainable human resource management: six defining characteristics

Abstract

Sustainable human resource management (HRM) has been evolving for more than 15 years. It builds on strategic HRM (SHRM). Sustainable HRM is built around broad organisational goals in a number of areas, not just 'business' goals. Central to this approach is the link between HRM and sustainability. Sustainable HRM seeks to achieve positive economic, social, human and environmental outcomes simultaneously, in the short term and the long term. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development established Sustainable Development Goals. These provide strategies, goals, activities and management practices which human resource practitioners can apply to further sustainability outcomes. This link with sustainability has contributed to studies in areas very different to SHRM and required consideration of additional theories for insights into Sustainable HRM. This article identifies six characteristics of Sustainable HRM which explain the divergence with SHRM. These characteristics are contradictory outcomes, concern with capability development, the need to recognise potential and actual positive and negative outcomes, attention to the development and implementation of HRM activities, the explicit statement of values informing Sustainable HRM and the design of metrics to promote sustainability.

Towards Managing Humanely

“…The so-called sustainable HRM brings together a varied number of contributions that aimed all, in one way or another, at integrating the sustainable development goals into the management of human resources and at raising HRM awareness and then measuring HR-related activities in terms of economic, social and environmental impact [30]. Perceived as a 'green' version of traditional HRM, Kramar [31] identifies six constitutive elements of sustainable HRM: (1) identifying tensions between different organisational outcomes, (2) building the workforce in terms of capabilities and performance, (3) admitting to the negative and positive impacts that some HRM activities might hold, (4) dedicating attention to developing and adopting HRM activities, (5) having a straightforward statement containing ethics and values about Sustainable HRM and (6) developing metrics destined to promote effective change in society, mainly at the organisational, ecological and economic levels.…”

Work, life and COVID‐19: a rapid review and practical recommendations for the post‐pandemic workplace

“…Therefore, we call for concerted efforts by businesses to work with policymakers, governments, unions and other relevant stakeholders to lay the foundations and build momentum for a well‐being‐oriented HR management strategy (Guest 2017 ) amid the unfolding socio‐technological changes produced by the pandemic. Central to this well‐being‐oriented HRM approach is the link between HRM and positive short‐ and long‐term economic, social, human and environmental outcomes (Kramar 2022 ). Lansbury ( 2021 ) suggested it is time for a new social contract, arguing that the pandemic has clarified the nature of our unequal societies and provided us with an opportunity to reset this balance.…”

The impact of benevolent human resource management attributions on employees’ general work stress, with the mediating influence of gratitude

“…Ogbonnaya and Aryee (2021) strongly recommend that future HRM research must consider how HRM can improve employee well-being and not just focus on performance enhancement. Another emerging and possibly more comprehensive field is sustainable HRM (Kramar, 2022;Stankevičiūtė and Savanevičienė, 2019) and common good HRM (Aust et al, 2020). One of the main foci of common good and sustainable HRM is focusing on improving employee health at work through HR practices and encouraging health promoting behaviors among employees (Stankevičiūtė and Savanevičienė, 2018).…”

“…Since the Covid-19 pandemic has also increased levels of toxic stress among the working population, it has become even more vital for researchers to develop theoretical frameworks through which employee stress levels can be reduced/managed through both proactive HRM policies and reactive/remedial measures. Thus, the present study was carried out because researchers are demanding scholarly robust yet practically viable HRM frameworks that show how HRM can reduce employee stress and improve their well-being (Guest, 2017;Kramar, 2022;Ogbonnaya and Aryee, 2021;Peccei and Van De Voorde, 2019;Savanevičienė, 2018, 2019).…”