Human Sustainability Management

HUMAN SUSTAINABILITY MANAGEMENT
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(8 June 2011)
Human Sustainability Management
Sustainability and environmental issues have been increasing in the recent past and felt more by organizations. This is because the fundamental patterns of the industrial age are not sustainable. Thus, organizations are integrating sustainability into their daily business practices. Human resource is a kind of sustainability issue and is considered under sustainability management concept. Human sustainability management (HSM) is not a new concept. It has been applied in the business practices of various organizations. It is causing a reassessment in the management of people in organizations. The question that HSM poses to the personnel in the human resource department is whether organizations are managing people for the short-term profit it gets from them or long-term sustainability of the world and future generations.
Some of the characteristics of HSM are that it has great levels of doubt, which should be managed by shared commitment and mutual values. It sustains collaborative interaction in spite of relationship discontinuity that usually exists among various parties. Production of knowledge allows development of trust and commitment with all who are involved. The brand and reputation linked to people being prepared to go the extra mile. Other characteristics of HSM are that it takes into account the naturalism, humanism and rationalism aspects. It embraces holistic perspective elements such as plurality, flexibility, multiplicity, devolution and negotiation. It also has collaborative interaction hence it provides the necessary infrastructure in any organization. It builds social capital in the organization making alliance forming and mutual reciprocation basis easy.
Environmental values are fundamental to any organization’s culture. This is because it provides strong leadership and support and ensures that environmental values are built into all aspects of the company's operations, it implements companywide environmental education system based on Natural Step framework, it establishes policy on grounds of natural step i.e. developed knowledge economy framework. It also ensures that the ‘environmental management’ position is linked with purchaser’s domain. The four step process that Scandic followed to strategically embed environmental practices into the day-to-day activities of the company are increasing the knowledge base for the whole organization. Other changes that the company implemented include the following: It transformed the common framework within the organization by allowing all people to be involved in implementation processes within the local situation, it invoked continuous improvement model of decision-making processes, it increased documentation and monitoring of activities by integrating actions and results. It also established processes to fine tune and set standards.
The core principal that Scandic executives followed which mirrors Benschop and Watson’s comments on the place of SHRM include ‘Integration’ The environmental empowerment program was made central to the company hence the business strategy served as a major platform to fuel creative and innovative capacity. Strategy embedded in the day-to-day sense of authentic culture crated empowered relationships within the organization. It also implemented all the changes throughout the organization, which is from bottom-up to top-down. Scandic benefited greatly from their environmental integration policy. Some of the benefits that implementation of the policy created include enhanced customer base, Improved reputation, conserved energy and resources. It also developed and improved the company’s activities by being capable to anticipate market and society changes, the changes enabled the company to remain a market leader. That is being one-step ahead of other organizations.
Several HSM principles are being implemented at Scandic; they include relationship orientation that is being engaged in strategic collaborating, continuous processes of networking through a community of practice approach. Other principles applied are setup ‘Learning Environment and Learning Space’ situation - based on a continuous mutual action learning processes and training. Establishing a significant educational framework, strategy-as-practice, embedded stakeholder approach, values orientated, which emphasizes qualitative, emotional ‘felt order’ aspects of organizational culture. The metaphor that Scandic and other companies describe as the new ‘story’ of the information age is the metaphor of biomimicry. It is based on ‘living systems’ innovation inspired by understanding how living systems work, it promotes circular versus linear way of thinking and acting. Firms are now: “investing in ‘preferred supplier’ relationships, where shared understandings are developed and collaborative relationships enhance outputs”.
The trend of work at many workplaces is changing. Charles handy observed that use of hands is diminishing in many organizations. He argued that organizations are today making a choice to engage minds and hearts more than the use of hands. Examples that he gave include correctional officers, health service aide and security guards. The future, he claimed will depend on the use of brains more than brawn. The service sector is rising while the manufacturing sector is declining. Technology has made it possible for the information age to emerge to greatness than the machine age (Hamel & Prahalad, 1996). Work today does not involve production of tangible commodities but is concerned with manipulation of symbols. This change demands that organiza...