Why Human Resources Must Focus on Sustainability

The term "sustainability" is used in many different ways to refer to "adequately meeting the needs of the present population without preventing future generations from meeting their own needs." Sustainability is used as a synonym for lasting, long-term, systematic or robust.  In human resource management, sustainability is used to refer to human resources that promote a supportive work environment and positive human and social outcomes without focusing on financial strategies and results. There are several reasons why human resources should embrace sustainability. Some of these reasons include:

Sustainability Attracts Top Talent

Making sustainability one of its core values helps a company attract top talent. Bright, talented employees are often interested in working for organizations that value ethics over profits and work to create a better world. As a result, this raises recruitment standards and builds better teams.

Human resources can help build momentum for the adoption of a culture of sustainability.

Since human resources involves recruitment, onboarding, and training, human resources professionals can ensure that sustainability is instilled in the culture of new employees. As a result, these practices can help reduce waste during the onboarding and training process and lay the foundation for more sustainable practices.

Competitive Advantage

Social legitimacy is the foundation for creating competitive advantage. The competence gained through the evolution and development of employees to stop environmental pollution is a resource that cannot be imitated by competitors. In addition, product management is associated with sustainable competitive advantage because it accumulates sophisticated resources, such as a smooth flow of communication between different departments, functions, and organizational boundaries. Nevertheless, sustainability helps create competitive advantage by fostering and maintaining a collective sense of social environment in the organization.

Sustainability also brings a positive culture among employees

Sustainability ensures that a positive culture exists in an organization. Such behaviors and cultures stem from human resources where diversity and inclusion programs are integrated. Through sustainability, the organization is able to maintain a positive culture of pay equity, workforce inclusion, diversity, and reduced sexual harassment. This tenacity in educating and retaining new employees allows them to instill meaningful practices that consequently become the culture of the organization as a whole.

Sustainability helps build ethics

The human resources department is considered the agent of sustainability in any given organization. Clearly, no one department in a given organization can take responsibility for installing and maintaining an ethical culture. Therefore, the human resources department is responsible for coordinating the ethics, sustainability, and compliance teams so that they can work together to create cultures of integrity. Ethical culture is what is needed to foster ethical development in the workplace, to reduce instances such as data breaches and leaks, sexual harassment and even discrimination.

Therefore, it can be noted that sustainability is consistent and essential in human resources, as it welcomes all activities, actions and resources present in any organization. Therefore, human resources must adopt the principle of sustainability in order to ensure the smooth running of events and operations, the use of limited resources and the creation of a conducive working environment.

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