{"id":69,"date":"2026-03-31T10:55:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/optimistic-white-bear.167-86-108-143.cpanel.site\/wordpress\/index.php\/2026\/03\/31\/how-sustainable-is-your-human-resource-strategy\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T16:01:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T16:01:17","slug":"how-sustainable-is-your-human-resource-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.greenkeypersonaldevelopment.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2026\/03\/31\/how-sustainable-is-your-human-resource-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"How Sustainable is Your Human Resource Strategy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently I attended a webinar that was focused to helping make businesses sustainable which got me thinking about sustainability in deeper terms than usually addressed through our media and government. My question to the person leading this webinar was, “You have given a case study in this session which you are using to show good measures that this particular company is taking to become more sustainable. In the example, I was confused because as the company is focused to delivery service, they had switched all vans to electric. On the surface we can say that is a good step to take, but going deeper, are electric vehicles really sustainable? How is the electricity generated to charge those vehicles? The company that makes the batteries – are they operating a green, sustainable production? Where and who mines the lithium for those batteries? How much water does production take and so on? Perhaps I digress, as the essence of my question was “Please tell me what does it mean to be sustainable?”<\/i> What is sustainability?<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

Whilst I did not receive a direct answer to these questions, it was clear that we all have to start somewhere in this journey and if we can influence our suppliers to follow suit through buying choices, this can only be a good thing for all concerned, including our environment.<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

Seldom do you hear someone in conversation connecting sustainability to human resources. Perhaps I have been sleeping, but it still seems that the emphasis on creating a sustainable workforce is very much on surface level, as perhaps other aspects of becoming a sustainable business are. We measure turnover (churn), sickness and absenteeism, accidents in the workplace, mental ill health and so on. If these issues were truly addressed through the lens of creating a sustainable workforce through effective, caring, nurturing organisation leadership, surely the results of measuring these things would show minimal impact on business productivity and ultimately profitability?<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span>The conclusion of an article in Science Direct titled,<\/span> “<\/span>Systematic literature review on sustainable human resource management” by Janaina Macke, Denise Genari <\/o_p><\/span>stated “Beyond the triple bottom line concept, leadership plays a very important role in sustainable human resource management. A formal and clear leadership definition is, in fact, the most important element for the implementation of sustainability principles in human resource management”.<\/o_p><\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Some organisations take the time to measure happiness, morale and wellbeing in the operation which is a very positive action and one that will be well received by employees if:<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

1.    <\/span><\/span>They are privy to the results, in other words results are transparent.<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

2.    <\/span><\/span>Actions are taken to change those issues that are not supporting positive morale, happiness, wellbeing and ultimately sustainability.<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

3.    <\/span><\/span>Measurement is carried out on a regular basis in order to track results of actions implemented and to track any changes, ultimately making updates to the initial plan as necessary.<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

In an article by Ed Houghton, CIPD, he stated that “<\/span>Sustainable HRM recognises performance outcomes, which are broader than financial outcomes (for example, by including environmental and social outcomes) and assumes that in working towards multiple goals there are likely to be contradictory outcomes that must be resolved. In addition to this, sustainable HRM creates and captures value over the longer term and recognises that to be truly sustainable HRM must be able to deal with the internal and external environment and the changing context in which the business is operating.” <\/span><\/i>Surely this again links into the effectiveness and overall approach of leadership within the organisation?<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

A few ideas of how I understand the concept of sustainable human resources:<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

·      <\/span><\/span>Employees who stay with the company for a minimum of two years<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

·      <\/span><\/span>A healthy track record of promoting from within into positions that are created due to company expansion or to fill gaps due to natural attrition<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

·      <\/span><\/span>Employees who speak positively about the organisation in which they work<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

·      <\/span><\/span>A willingness of employees to help others without being asked<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

·      <\/span><\/span>Minimal absenteeism according to or lower than internal targets set<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

·      <\/span><\/span>Minimal sickness whether physical, mental or emotional according to or lower than internal targets set<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

·      <\/span><\/span>Orientation away from shareholder value to multi-stakeholder value<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

·      <\/span><\/span>Leadership who has the employees’ best interests at heart while remaining focused to organisation goals<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

·      <\/span><\/span>An environment of kindness and positive energy creating positive morale<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

·      <\/span><\/span>Group problem solving and decision making<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

·   <\/span><\/span>Focus to the positives of what was achieved and not the other way round in order to learn from and strengthen successes rather than only focusing towards mistakes and non-successes and what we need to do about them<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

·      <\/span><\/span>Leadership that provides a strong positive example of what is expected, knows all employees by name and gets out and about into the operation. The “old” style of management by walking about.<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

I am sure there are many more examples of what could be included into an organisation’s sustainable human resource strategy and approach. However, each one of these points has great depth to implement and get it right in order to result  not only in a strategy, but actual sustainable human resource management that really works.<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

Why are sustainable human resources important? With the shortage of candidates in the marketplace, surely it makes sense to look after those you already have. Less time fighting fires, avoids costly time-consuming hiring processes, no need for onboarding training to bring employees up to speed, giving time to focus on developing employees in the roles they hold. This translates into increased loyalty, good company reputation and overall productivity. In fact, I don’t see any negatives in this approach. This is simply effective, caring leadership that is part of the overall organisation strategy and goals for becoming and being a sustainable organisation that serves multi stakeholders rather than shareholders only.<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

References<\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S0959652618331056<\/span><\/a><\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cipd.org\/uk\/views-and-insights\/thought-leadership\/the-world-of-work\/sustainable-hr\/<\/span><\/a><\/o_p><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently I attended a webinar that was focused to helping make businesses sustainable which got me thinking about sustainability in deeper terms than usually addressed through our media and government. My question to the person leading this webinar was, “You have given a case study in this session which you are using to show good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,7,14,5,4,18],"tags":[30,27,33],"class_list":["post-69","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication-skills-training","category-executive-leadership","category-leadership-and-management-training","category-leadership-communication","category-leadership-development","category-leadership-training","category-workplace-wellbeing-workplace-wellbeing","tag-communication","tag-leadership","tag-performance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.greenkeypersonaldevelopment.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.greenkeypersonaldevelopment.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.greenkeypersonaldevelopment.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.greenkeypersonaldevelopment.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.greenkeypersonaldevelopment.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.greenkeypersonaldevelopment.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220,"href":"https:\/\/new.greenkeypersonaldevelopment.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions\/220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.greenkeypersonaldevelopment.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.greenkeypersonaldevelopment.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.greenkeypersonaldevelopment.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}