Green Management for Eco-Friendly Business

Introduction In recent years, one of the essential factors – Green management has been gaining a lot of attention on achieving the echo-friendly business in terms of both production and mind. First of all, the essay will seek to understand the importance of Green HARM and how it will affect the organization. A discussion will subsequently be put forth on the concepts of “Going-Green” at every functional area of HARM in order to assist organization in becoming sustainable in their business.

Next, benefits of Green HARM as well as why some companies are still yet to greening their business will be pointed out too.

Lastly, some examples of recent cases and companies adopting Green HARM will be brought up as well. 2. Green Human Resource Management Green HARM is the intersection of both HARM and environmental management where they meet and combine as one. People around the world are very much concerned about the environment these days and that is why even the profile of a ready fresh job applicant is changing.

Injecting a high sense of awareness of the current issues based on social, political and environmental plays a huge role in sustainability now. Hence, employees not only need to be trained and educated, they need to also be inspired and increase their knowledge on environmental-related issues in order to carry corporation green management. On the other hand, according to Sudan (201 1), there are not much literature on scopes, direction and standards on the HER aspects of environmental management available. However, based on the early researches (Irenics et al.

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, 2008. Jackson et al, 2011 Huffman et al. , 2009 and Wherever, 1996) contributed, they can be distinguished in consideration of training, recruiting, management in performance and appraisal, and more. 3. “Green” in Different Aspect of HARM 3. 1 Recruiting Green recruitment is echo-friendly by the use of a paper-free recruitment procedure with minimal environmental impact. For instance, using social networking sites such as Faceable and Linked to recruit potential candidates (Cares and Castanets, 2010). Online mediums such as email and e-application forms are used to invite applicants.

Interviewing over the phone or video-based like Keep are also made possible to minimize travel-related environmental impact. There are many reasons why companies choose to adopt this trend. Firstly, company’s recruiting leverage can be enhanced only when it is environmental friendly. Secondly, as Gene Y incorporate knowledge of the environment and recycling since school days, they assess almost everything in the view point of their green mindset. Thirdly, employees and even Job applicants now tend to monitor the environmental credentials of a company before accepting the Job offer.

They want to work in an organization that integrates both business and the environment (Charier and Jacob, 2012). 3. 2 Training and Development knowledge and skills needed to complete their tasks (Charier and Jacob, 2012). The purpose of such training is where the importance of environment is emphasized – Value statements where corporate values, goals and objectives including environmental elements are taught. Using advanced technology like computers, internet, email, websites and more to train the employees by bringing them the awareness of environment in terms of reducing tree cuttings and paper work.

Allow employees to gain more knowledge about the in-house products that are environmentally friendly. Role plays, group discussions and seminar events are organized to gain more awareness about greenness and the importance of supporting the firm’s initiatives of Going Green. This will allow employees to think of ways on how they can contribute to the effort. Encourage employees to familiarized and bring the company’s Going Green concepts to their personal life. Such can be beneficial for everyone. Conduct an annual Going Green surveys for measuring ongoing progress.

Form an advisory group which consist six to eight environmentally friendly employees to evaluate the quality of the message the company is promoting, as well as ways to reach applicants and convince them of their strong history record of being “green”. Conduct post exit interviews with all the employees of the company o find out whether environmental factors are one of the reasons behind their exit so that the firm can develop and improve their green credentials. 3. 3 Employee Services and Benefits By directly crediting their accounts, the company will be able to offer financial benefits to their employees.

By this meaner, paper work is reduced as we all know that it takes hundreds of trees for a piece of paper to be made. Greenness propaganda is being done by conducting entertainment programmed like yoga courses. Company can make it compulsory in order to promote good health as healthy people tend to know more about the importance of green. Also, benefit package can includes paid volunteering session for environmental causes, alternative transportation options support, holistic health option and matching donations to green causes etc. 3. Motivation Motivating employees is one of the essential moves for the successful companies. Motivation like mentioning them in the media as regards to their green efforts will help to uphold a durable image and create word of mouth in the positive way. Another way is to award them with monetary methods such as paying out generous bonuses to employees who pass down the word of the company’s going green objectives to their younger peers. Another kind of awards is by giving them recognition by presenting environmental awards to employees who contribute efforts for their achievements.

Winning awards for excellence has always been the key element to build an employment brand, therefore such environmental awards should be one of the company’s major strategy. Developing metrics and rewards can be another way as well. Metrics and rewards must be tied to the green recruiting effort of the company. Some inclusive metrics can be the percentage of applicants who knows about its strong environmental record and the percentage of new hires who mentioned that they accept their Job offer is partially due to company’s environmental record. . 5 Compensation Green” program should be implemented by the HER department with the intention of rewarding employees instead of their usual compensation schemes for their green efforts. For example, offering rewards to the workforce for using reusable water bottles, utilizing energy saving power strips and recycling unwanted paper. Such reward system will aid the organization in recruiting echo-friendly candidates. 3. 6 Industrial Relations When there are two or more working together, conflicts are inevitable.

However, these deed to be resolved as quickly as possible. The process of resolution and its records have to be maintained. Efforts done with the use of computer, recycled paper, emails etc wherever possible allow teams with different views to work for informal events such as gardening etc that may help to resolve the conflicts with minimal disturbances of the company’s Going Green campaign. 3. 7 Employee Records Take note of the employees who have records of helping the company in maintaining its green environment by any meaner.

These environmentally friendly employees will then become the role models to the newcomers who Joined and hopefully, follow heir footsteps. 3. 8 Research As going green has become the buzz word these days, company should implement their green campaign. Research has to conducted in order to find ways on how can they contribute greenness to the world. Hence, research in terms of recruitment, marketing, services, product designing, production and even financial aspects have to be done in order to convince their customers, employees, stakeholders and suppliers by tallying “Green” to all their contributed efforts. . Benefits and the Hidden Benefits With the benefits placed on the surface, most of the companies had already started adopting Green HARM. It is a win-win scenario for both the employer and the employee (Wagner, 2013). Primarily, Green HARM has definitely helped the environment to a great extend. In terms of innovation, brand differentiation, cost saving, customer and employee engagement, and long-term consideration, the employer gained them all. Moreover, the employer manages to hold on to the top talents and at the same time, increase productivity as contented employees tend to be productive.

However, the employer must be keen to present strong leadership, shower care for their employees, offer opportunities for empowerment and reflections growth, provide flexibility and most importantly, offer perks. Despite the benefits, there are still companies that have not made an effort to go green for their business. With the number of companies which ‘Go Green’ do it the wrong way (Blakely, 2011), they rather not adopt it. Reason being, firstly, the cost of it can be high and many companies are simply lack of that extra cash flow to get the green policy working.

Secondly, it can be tough to convince the shareholders in investing the cost even if the higher managements were keen to go green. Thirdly, the cost and ROI to o green is hard to examine and calculate and that creates a high level of uncertainty. Fourthly, operating a green company can raise the bar of the monthly and yearly expenses on top of the initial costs. Not many businesses are willing to bear those additional costs. Lastly, not everyone has the understanding of green companies do not wish to devote the time or energy into learning the practices and solutions. . Recent Cases – Both Micro and Macro According to Park and Ghana (2013), approximately 6,000 pig corpses were pulled out of Hung River in Shanghai few months back in March. Apart from the foul stench, it caused severe water pollution too. The leak of blood, intestinal fluids and other pollutants from the pig in the water could in turn affect the taste and color of the tap water. This had imposed fears of contamination in the residents. A Chinese farm had admitted to the wrongdoings of such improper disposal.

Operating as a farm, there were no HER management like those in organization. As a result, no appropriate planning was done. Saving cost and hassle was what all the farm wants, which leads to harsh consequences. Another recent case reported in February 2013, 236 patients reared at Corning Hospital in New York have unknowingly became victims of the exposure to diseases by a nurse reused single-use saline syringes (Kick, 2013). This had led to serious consequences not only to the patients, but also to the hospital such as bad reputation and facing court cases.

HER management plays a huge role whereby if proper training was conducted, such mistake would not have happened. Especially in health industries, it is important to know what can be reused and vice versa. Other than the problems coming from internal, there were macro issues as well. For instance, the unavoidable bad haze in Singapore around midst of June, 013. Many companies have taken measures to help the staff overcome this unprecedented period and such measures include distributing NON masks as well as providing lunches to keep them away from the haze.

McDonald’s – the significant employer who shows concern to the Incisively riders stopped their lucrative delivery business. Such Green HARM not only benefits the employees, it also makes the organization reputable and likable. Another firm, Dell which practices flexible work arrangements provides employees with tools to help them stay connected and productive, even when working from home. Such flexibility ensures employee well- being and work-life satisfaction helps particularly during the bad haze condition (HARM Asia, 2013).

Another highly reputable company – Google is taking the lead in both its environmental practices and the publicity of their environmental record and approach (Bolton, 2011). As a rising green companies, Google has a director who matches corporate environmental efforts with their corporate business strategy in parallel. Other companies such as Struck, Honda, Body Shop and Timberland have also successfully promoted their products and gain media exposure through sing environmentally friendly policies. 6.

Recommendations and Suggestions In general, going green benefits all the departments in the organization, from Marketing; Production; Finance and especially Human Resource, to the company and society as well. Thus, Go Green strategies should be structured by getting employees to share ideas through different meaner like brain storming for saving energy and cutting down on the use of natural resources which are not renewable that are IT equipment and other business process energy use Company operations, for example lighting and air conditioning.

Recycling opportunities Assist employees in reducing their personal energy using ways like implementing compressed four-day work week, car pooling to discourage driving that contributes to air pollution, flexible working hours in order to avoid peak hour traffic, telecommuting and more. The usage of costs and energy in the transportation/shipping of company’s products, as well as purchased goods and supplies. Using alternative yet appropriate energy sources and materials in the goods production Streamline processes Cut down on paper work, packaging costs and water usage Use CD or thumb-drive to store and retrieve data

Choose “Green” suppliers It is also advised to evaluate the awareness of the employees concerning Green initiatives of the company. Sourcing ways to engage employees and get them more involved in the firm’s environmental initiatives are recommended too. In regard to HER, green recruiting is the key to attract Gene Y applicants. Thus, the HER manager should go to any lengths to fix the environmental concerns in all the structured strategies about the different HARM functional areas such as those mentioned above. Also, organizing effective corporate social responsibility (CARS) programmed can help in alluding good and strong image of the company.

Here, Green HARM plays an important part in promoting and enhancing CARS as a result of contributing to the development of the coordination between social and economic goals, as well as the performance of the organization (Bucketing and Qualitative, 2011). 7. Conclusion Paying attention to environmental issues is the mantra for a successful company to stand strong in the battle field or the expansion of their business. Society prefers green, in fact going green exists in everyone’s head. As pollution is increasing day by ay, causing ill and negative impacts on the society, it definitely makes sense to go green.

As discussed above, Job applicants prefer to work in echo-friendly companies. Consumers prefer to purchase products from socially responsible companies. Suppliers prefer to provide machines and materials to companies that contain strong desire and commitment towards reducing pollution. Partnerships can be formed between firms if both have the common standpoint of upholding green environment. All in all, Green HARM benefits the organization not only in terms of profitability, as well as sustaining the business in all different points of view.