The perceptions of green HRM practices at a selected rural institution of higher learning

Abstract

In the past, the success of organisations was strongly dependent on promotion of economic value. However today, organisations can no longer sustain their long-term survival solely through economic factors. Environmental management has recently been demanding recognition, whereby corporations integrate environmental management into their Human Resources Management practices (HRM, resulting in the emergence of Green Human Resource Management (GHRM). There are debates and uncertainties on how environmental management can be incorporated into the traditional HRM practices and be effectively implemented in the organisation. This paper was aimed at scrutinising the Human Resources (HR) professionals' perceptions of GHRM at a selected institution of higher learning, with the intent to broaden up scholarly literature on the phenomenon. A qualitative research approach was adopted in this study. The study was descriptive in nature, as attempts were made to describe the HR professionals' perceptions of GHRM practices and processes prevailing within their institution. Semi-structured interviews were conducted from a convenient sample size of 19, drawn from a population of 32 HR professionals. The collected data was transcribed word-for-word, and data was captured in an Excel Spreadsheet. Thematic analysis was used to analyse data. The results revealed that majority of 94.7% have limited understanding of GHRM, 84.2% identified benefits of GHRM, GHRM practices prevalent within the institution and those they wished should be incorporated with current HRM practices; 89.5% identified challenges of GHRM; while 15.8% seemed to have no knowledge and interest in GHRM. The findings propelled management to communicate about the prospective organisation's GHRM initiatives. Keywords: Environmental management, Human resource management, Green HRM, Sustainability