INTRODUCTION:

All the processes involved in creating, implementing, and maintaining a system that attempts to make employees of a business environmentally friendly are referred to as "green HRM." In order to meet the organization's environmental goals and ultimately make a substantial contribution to environmental sustainability, it is the area of HRM that is concerned with converting regular employees into green employees. For the benefit of the individual, society, the environment, and the business, it refers to the policies, procedures, and processes that make employees of the corporation environmentally friendly. The goal of green HRM is to develop, support, and retain greening in each employee of the company so that each performs to the best of their ability in each of the four professions (environmentalist, ecologist,

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY:

The main purpose of this study is:

1. To give the readers a fundamental understanding of green human resources management.

2. To learn the justifications for implementing Green HRM.

3. To identify any constraints or obstacles to its effective implementation.

4. To offer some potential green initiatives that the HR Department could take.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

According to Renwick, D. et al. (2012), it's critical to comprehend how green HRM methods affect employees' enthusiasm to participate in environmental activities. They noticed that businesses are not utilising all available green HRM techniques, which may hinder their ability to create a sustainable company environment.

In their 2013 article, Marhatta and Adhikari "highlighted the policies and practises of green HRM for sustainable use of resources inside the business organisations and so furthering the cause of environmental sustainability."

In their 2014 study, Opatha and Arulrajah stated that "green HRM is the use of policies, practices, and systems in the organisation that make green employees for the benefit of the individual, team, society, natural environment, and the organization."

According to Wei and Yazdanifard (2014), "individual motivation is stated to be the major driver for in-role and extra-role behaviours of the employees and as such it would be predicted that individual motivations for each of these types of behaviours is likely to be conflicting."

According to Yusliza, Ramayah, and Othaman (2015), managing an organization's people resources is one of its most crucial tasks. The integration of the green human resource philosophy into the corporate mission statement and human resource policy is a new obligation for modern human resource managers. They believed that implementing green human resource initiatives in a firm would result in higher productivity, decreased costs, and staff retention. Environmental, social, and economic balance are also established by green HR policies and practises.

Mehta, K., and Chugan, P. K. (2015) "found that company executives, governments, consumers, and management experts expressed greater worry on the perception of environmental sustainability. Despite the difficulties stakeholders confront as a result of environmental issues, green HRM tasks are becoming more significant in current conversations and debates. According to them, the corporate sector perceives the emergence of Green HRM with the HRM functions' rising roles in the search for ecologically sustainable firms.

The effect of green HRM practises on banking sector businesses was noted by Ayeswarya, R. B. (2017). The outcome demonstrated that green recognition, training, recruiting, resource conservation, promoting, and environmentally friendly manufacturing are the key components of green HRM practises.

In 2018, Kanapala, P. K., and Battu, N. "examined the impact of green HRM practises on employee performance from the health sector." According to the findings, "green HRM services such as green pay and rewards, green performance management and appraisal, green training and development, and green employee relations had a moderate effect on employee performance."

According to Zubair, D. S., and Khan, M. (2019), "environmentally friendly policies should be enacted to secure the globe being a good place to live in. By incorporating a variety of fundamental environmentally friendly activities into their corporate strategies and daily operations, both public and private businesses must significantly contribute to guaranteeing a greener environment.

According to Mukherjee, S. et al. (2020), "many environmental challenges have evolved over the last few decades, and the government of various nations have urged the companies and organisations to focus on environmental management programme vis-à-vis their economic operations."

According to Suharti, L. and Sugiarto, A. (2020), "the implementation of green HRM can result in the creation of an organisational culture and work climate that is environmentally friendly, increased efficiency of different resources, the formation of a positive corporate image, and enhanced economic performance."

What is green HRM?

According to Tang et al. (2018) “GHRM as a scale for credibility and development which results in employees’ green behavior and awareness through adoption of a green perspective and making use of green communication channels”. Similarly Latan et al. (2018) believe that “the functions and measures of GHRM are highly tangible and cause the green issues to be considered for, in employees’ daily tasks, and also have positive effects on employees’ lives and performances” D. W. Renwick et al. (2013) says that “GHRM improves the credibility of organizations and causes the labor force to show more willingness to stay in their organizations, and also causes better labor forces to be willing towards getting recruited by green corporations”. While attempting to create the overview towards the definition of the green human resource management the concept of GHRM is dominated by the two school of thoughts. The first of thought says that GHRM is the accumulation of HRM that is recruitment, performance management, training, development, rewards and Environmental Management and strives for the environmental performance (Jabbour and de Sousa Jabbour, 2016; D. W. Renwick et al., 2013). The Second School of thought says that not only integrating the functions of HRM with the environmental management increases the environmental performance but it is necessary to change the employee attitude and behaviour towards the environment and thus leading to improved environmental performance (Ehnert, 2009; Taylor et al., 2012).

Need for Green HRM:

The world now recognizes the necessity of green human resource management. Every person's understanding of the environment influences their way of life and the environment around them. Due to its importance and necessity in the current workplace, green human resource management is a concern for all employees. There are various implications that have an impact on our personal and professional lives. The corporate world is most responsible for advancing environmental issues, and the corporate sector must explain these risks. Organizations today require green HRM for a number of reasons.

· In order to make work meaningful and the workplace safe and healthy both inside and outside of businesses, it is important to safeguard environmental factors such as global warming, climate change, energy crises, etc.

· To inform, educate, and motivate staff to carry out their tasks in a way that is ecologically responsible whether it is financially or not.

· To boost or enhance business environmental performance through specific HR initiatives like training, employee empowerment, and Environmental Management System (EMS) awards.

· Provide opportunities for employees to participate in corporate environmental management projects and efforts in order to inspire them, get them interested in such initiatives and efforts, help them build their green skills, and encourage them to do so.

· To offer environmentally friendly products and operations (businesses are under increasing pressure to do so), to successfully manage corporate environmental programs (without making any mistakes), and to get around implementation problems with corporate environmental programs.

Challenges of Green HRM:

Human resources are crucial in controlling employee entrance and egress. The Human Resource Department now has the extra duty of "becoming green" in addition to HR rules as the corporate focus is on greening the firm. Green HRM highlight certain challenges, they are:

· Changing an employee's performance and activities in a short period of time is quite challenging.

· It takes a lot of work and time to instill Green HRM practices throughout the entire organization.

· It can be difficult to find green employees who have exceptional talent.

· Not all employees are equally encouraged to support the advancement of green HRM practices inside a firm.

· Measuring the effectiveness of green HR strategies in employees' behavior is easier said than done.

· Green initiatives need a lot of support and commitment from both the government and an organization's management.

· It has a large initial investment need and a comparatively poor rate of return.

· HR professionals have a difficult time delivering the appropriate green structures, procedures, tools, and mindset in order to make the right decision and grow the organization's future green leaders.

· Utilizing green materials may result in producers paying more for raw materials, which may ultimately result in consumers paying more for finished goods.

· Installing solar panels at commercial buildings is a requirement for switching to solar energy. Going green does not always result in cost savings from energy savings that are sufficient to cover the initial conversion expenditures.

GREEN HR INITIATIVES:

Present day Organizations all around the world are adopting and working toward implementing GHRM principles to get a competitive edge in the business sector. Complete GHRM adoption and integration in the organization is not impossible, but it does require a shift in management's and employees' perceptions of current HR practices. HR environmental executives may have a crucial role to play in helping line managers secure full staff support for implementing environmental policies. To do this, HR must nurture supporters and create networks of action-oriented problem-solvers. The following activities can assist businesses in going green.

1. Paperless office:

In the office, work is typically managed on paper, although the arrival of IT has reduced the usage of paper. The methods and practices at offices have altered in the modern day, making them paperless workplaces thanks to e-business and education. A paperless office is one where paper usage is either reduced to a minimum or completely eliminated by turning critical official documents and other paperwork into automated workflows. The custom will significantly decrease the amount of paper consumed, the expense of paper-related activities like copying, printing, and storing, as well as the time needed for document searching. We can immediately safeguard the environment, stop pollution, and use less water and energy by using less paper for documentation.

2. Preservation of Energy:

Energy conservation in the workplace has the potential to have a significant environmental impact. Offices all over the world have undertaken a number of energy saving strategies to lessen their influence on the environment and provide more effective and environmentally friendly services. When leaving the office, staff are required to turn off their computers, televisions, and lights as part of an HR initiative to utilize only renewable energy. Organizations are also encouraging the widespread use of light fixtures and bulbs with the energy star label, which unquestionably use at least two thirds less energy than standard ones.

3. Green printing:

The use of printing papers increases paper consumption, toner waste, and carbon dioxide emissions. Companies are now implementing "pre-ton" saver, a piece of software that can cut the amount of paper used by 20% and the amount of ink and toner used by 50% without sacrificing the quality of the output image or printout.

4. Green Building:

Green buildings are becoming more and more popular as workplaces and offices for companies all over the world, replacing traditional offices. Since they adhere to strict standards for reducing the exploitation of the natural resources used in their construction, green buildings are a highly influential phenomenon. Green buildings also have additional features that are related to improved green practices, such as energy efficiency, renewable energy, and storm water management.

5. Save water:

Water should not be wasted during production processes or when watering the business's grass. Water loss from leaks in toilets and sinks needs to be carefully observed.

6. Recycling and waste disposal:

Recycling is the process of turning discarded resources into fresh, useful items. By recycling, less raw resources are used than would otherwise be used to create new goods. Because of the energy savings and less trash disposal caused by this method, the environment is cleaner and the air is fresher. Numerous firms are putting recycling programs in place as part of their green initiatives in order to improve the amount of recycled goods and reduce waste. In the process, many HR experts came to the conclusion that environmental protection was an essential component of overall CSR. As a result, the corporate world is once again repeating the ancient adage, "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle" in an effort to protect the environment.

7. Green Recompense:

Employees are rewarded for their performance through the main HRM processes of compensation and rewards. Rewards and pay are open to interpretation in the context of green human resource management as potential strategies for promoting environmental initiatives in businesses. Establishing green prizes for departments and people that take creative actions and contribute to the environment by using fewer resources, energy, and trash.

8. Energy conservation by implementing creative ideas, such as encouraging volunteers to turn off lights and fans when not in use and installing solar panels, electricity can be conserved.

Popular Green HRM Practices:

In this section, we've spoken about some typical green HRM strategies that businesses typically use to create environmentally sustainable business operations.

These include:

1) Green Recruitment / Selection:

The process of hiring people who have the knowledge, skills, methods, and behaviors compatible with the organization's environmental management systems is known as "green recruitment." By ensuring that new hires are familiar with the organization's environmental culture and are able to uphold its environmental ideals, recruitment techniques aid in the establishment of good environmental management. The involvement of green employers in accomplishing environmental goals and how potential employees view them in terms of sustainability, as they say, is another aspect of green recruiting, selection, and job analysis. For instance, by including green job descriptions, eco-friendly venues, paperless interviews, and other similar practices in their recruitment portfolio, potential hires are informed about environmental regulations and encouraged to adhere to them..

2) Green Performance Appraisal:

Environmental management can be protected from harm by the human resource managers' integration of environmental performance into performance management systems. Green information systems, audits, and corporate-wide environmental performance criteria can all provide important information on environmental performance. The most crucial component of performance management is thought to be performance appraisal. An efficient performance review process gives staff member’s insightful feedback and encourages ongoing improvements in the firm's environmental performance.

3) Green Training, Development and Orientation:

The organization's personnel are trained in energy-saving and resource-saving work methods as part of the green training and development programmer, which also assist to raise awareness of green practices in the sector. Additionally, this will give workers the chance to participate in environmental problem-solving and the development of fresh strategies for lowering environmental hazards and pollutants at work, particularly in the chemical, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and service industries like hotels and hospitals. Therefore, the orientation or induction programmer in such businesses includes introducing new hires to the organization's greening efforts and creating modules for them that will aid in establishing future green citizenship behavior.

4) Green Compensation and Reward:

The effectiveness of green rewards and compensation is most felt by businesses engaged in industries with high pollution levels. Businesses with an eco-friendly culture give more than businesses without one. Long-term, businesses with green rewards and compensation systems can achieve greater effectiveness in preventing pollution. Managers can encourage staff to adopt green behaviors by implementing a green remuneration programmer. The usage of workplace and lifestyle advantages, such as providing employees with free bicycles so they may participate in the company's green goal while still making a contribution, are examples of green rewards.

5) Green Relations with Employees:

It is clear that individual empowerment improves employees' self-control, independent thought, and problem-solving skills while having a favorable impact on productivity and performance. The breadth of employee relations inside the firm can be expanded by asking for suggestions from all levels of employees, giving everyone the chance to make a contribution to the business. Along with new suggestions for environmentally responsible habits, this activity aids in raising awareness of environmental challenges. Companies frequently award incentives to their staff members and their families to motivate them to participate in neighborhood environmental projects. Supervisors that are supportive of their staff members inspire them to provide solutions to environmental issues. Releasing guidelines for a greener workplace and creating a progressive disciplinary mechanism to discipline employees who break them.

6) Green Building:

Green buildings are increasingly being chosen by companies throughout the world as their workplaces and offices instead of traditional buildings, and this trend has begun to take hold. Green buildings minimize the use of the natural resources that were used in their construction.

7) Green Welfare Practices:

Today, the phrase "health, safety, and welfare of employees" is more commonly used in businesses to refer to the management of environmental factors as well as worker health and safety. To lessen stress-related occupational sickness and workplace dangers, these firms' management makes constant efforts.

8) Paperless Office:

By converting important official documents and other materials into automated workflows, a paperless workplace decreases or completely eliminates the use of paper. Even a few years ago, paper was used for the majority of office tasks, but with the development of information technology, less paper is being used. The majority of offices today have been transformed into paperless offices as a result of the development of e-business and e-learning.

9) Conservation of Energy:

Organizational human resource managers frequently launch campaigns asking staff members to turn off laptops, TVs, lights, etc. when not in use. Solar lighting is put in workplaces so that all of the energy used is renewable. To save energy, several organizations place a strong emphasis on carpooling and expanding the use of public transportation.

10) Recycling of Waste:

Recycling is the process of turning waste (used up materials) into fresh, useful items. By using less raw resources than would otherwise be required, new goods can now be produced. As a result, this approach has the potential to save significant amounts of energy, reduce the amount of waste placed into trash cans, and create a greener, cleaner environment with cleaner air.

METHODOLOGY:

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis, or PRISMA, is the technique used exclusively in this study to conduct systematic reviews while adhering to a predetermined research process. According to Suharti, L. and Sugiarto (2020), the main emphasis of this research methodology is on the evaluation, identification, and investigation of prior studies that must be relevant to the current research. Here, the information is mostly focused on findings that are inclusive and objective. The goal of this study, which is strictly qualitative in nature, is to frame, assess, and provide a comprehensive explanation of how the business will apply green human resource management methods in order to maintain environmental sustainability.

CONCLUSION:

In today's workplace, managing employees from the point of arrival to the point of departure is crucially vital. In order to encourage employees to embrace green HRM, organizations should equip them with the required training (GHRM). While there are undoubtedly some obstacles to the adoption of green HRM, firms should focus on finding new ways to adopt green HR and should study the green HR efforts that other organizations have taken. To ensure that their staff can participate in this way, they should concentrate on empowering them. Employees who are encouraged to contribute their time and ideas to the organization's greening will be more willing, inspired, and committed to doing so. As a result, it is the Green Human Resource Management's obligation to raise environmental awareness among fresh talent.

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Received on 11.01.2023 Modified on 08.02.2023

Int. J. Rev. and Res. Social Sci. 2023; 11(2):65-71.

DOI: 10.52711/2454-2687.2023.00011