Written By: Gihan Abu El-Ela
Publisher: Amira Haytham
Paper Submitted in the 20th GCC Green Human Resource Management Conference, Dubai 2018
Are we under pressure or is it our choice to embrace the Green initiatives?
Modern organizations increasingly experience pressure to be more environmentally friendly. Extant research shows that employee engagement enhances organizational outcomes regarding environmental sustainability.
So, the question is: How do organizations respond to the challenge of environmental sustainability?
Organizational initiatives aimed at addressing environmental performance. Many of these focused on a greater use of technology, such as:
- using energy efficient light bulbs
- installing movement sensors
- videoconferencing
- energy-efficient IT
- energy efficient air conditioning.
Although these interventions are nominally positive, they reflect a bias towards the reliance on technological responses to problems. Technology may provide the potential for substantial improvements in environmental performance, realizing this potential to its utmost relies on human Behavior environmental outcomes as it only evaluates the presence of an environmental management system, not whether it is used or has any impact on actual environmental performance. So that Field Experts and studies propose that the success or failure of these management systems is whether or not organisations supplement these with human resource management practices. Thus, is a feature of more sophisticated approaches to developing employees’ environmental competencies.
As long as it all relies on employee behavior, this led to define what is Green Employee Behavior and what are the key parameters to Green Employee Behavior?
Simply said, Green Employee Behavior is the employee’s genuine engagement towards the GREEN initiatives. And the key parameters to green employee behavior are:
- setting strategy and creating policy at the leader level
- adhering to these structural factors at the employee level
- introducing environmental sustainability into employees’ task and role requirements.
to introduce the above parameters, HR professionals need to differentiate between the required Employee Green Behavior that is similar to task performance which refers to behavior required of employees by their employer within the context of employees’ This includes adhering to: - organizational policies,
- changing methods of work including choosing responsible alternatives,
- and creating sustainable products and processes.
And the voluntary Employee Green Behavior where employees can also choose to exceed what is required by the organization with regard to the environment. This includes prioritizing environmental interests, initiating environmental programs and policies, lobbying and activism, and encouraging others.
By understanding the clear distinction between the 2 EGB types, HR professionals will have the set of the right leading questions to Green Employee Behavior. A sample of these questions are as below:
- To what extent do employee perceptions of the organizational context influence intentions to engage in, and perform, EGB?
- Can a job-performance perspective distinguish between different types of EGB?
- To what extent do individuals vary in their intentions to engage in, and perform, EGB from moment-to-moment and day-to-day?
Once the HR professionals successfully comprehend the organizational context and the employee intentions along with the EGB types, they then can start manifesting the GEB through four distinct approaches:
Attitudinal: based in the idea that individuals are likely to pursue activities that correspond with favorable internal attitudes towards, in this case, the natural environment.
Normative: focus on the extent to which a behavior is seen to be socially acceptable. It means that norms guide behavior by emphasizing the social consequences of participating (or not participating) in particular activities.
Exchange: focus on the role of interactions, such as leaders or groups.
Motivational: an employee is motivated towards engaging in EGB if they: detract personal satisfaction from doing so (self-directed motivation), or if they believe the company will reward them (controlled motivation)