Sustainable Human Resource Management Practices and Strategies for Achieving Triple Bottom Line
How do you cite this article according to RMIT Harvard Business Referencing style?
The article has been cited using RMIT Harvard referencing style. The in-texting in this style is written by author’s name and date of article publication. Footnotes are not used in this referencing style. The authors of the article are Manzoor et al., and article has been published in the year 2019.
The article aims to investigate the impact of sustainable Human Resource Management (HRM) practises on work performance, as well as the role of training as a moderating factor in evaluating the relationship between HRM practises and employee job performance. The purpose of this study is to see how selection, engagement, and employee empowerment affect job performance in Pakistan’s government owned universities. Job performance is the dependent variable, and training is the moderating variable.
The main arguments of the article are focused on gaining “sustainability” in every function HR performs. This means practising sustainable human resource practices for enhancing the performance of employees. Human resource management is the practice of managing and developing workforce by enhancing their skills; to think about employee well-being, hire best talents, performance management, develop strategies to retain them and many more such activities. However, in this article, the author does not focus on simple human resource management practices but stresses on practicing it in a sustainable manner.
As per the article, sustainable HRM is defined as combining HRM practices as well as strategies for achieving social, financial and ecological goals of the organization. It focuses on Triple bottom line of the company i.e., people, profit and planet.
In order to achieve sustainable practices, training has been defined as moderator for enhancing performance of employees. Many theories have been incorporated in the article like action theory approach, social learning, expectancy theory and Skinner’s theory of reinforcement. The action theory approach to performance has a number of characteristics which describe and explain the directive learning and behaviour technique. Such method not only incorporates a wide range of training strategies, but it also assists in revealing higher-order cognitive functions that help people govern their learning and achievement. Skinner’s theory is dependent on learning behaviour and suggests that a person is likely to repeat behaviour if it is attached with positive outcome.
Social learning theory is about learning new behaviours by imitating others. Expectancy theory influences human behaviour and makes them perform better if they realize that their best performances will be rewarded and recognized.
The manuscript contributes towards both literature and practitioners in many ways. Previous studies were conducted on human resource management practices in an organization but this article aims to contribute towards contemporary organizational practices by making practitioners aware about the sustainable practices in human resource.
This contributes a new topic towards enhancing performance, motivation and employee engagement to achieve triple bottom line and at the same time assures long-term sustainability and health of both internal and external stakeholders of the organization.
The authors tried to establish sustainable practices by defining relation among practices like selection, employee empowerment and training and development which could be used in a sustainable manner to gain maximum efficiency among employees.
Moderating Role of Training in Enhancing Employee Performance
The current study model used a cross-sectional study approach for data collection; future studies must use a continuous study design to avoid the ambiguity of an informal relationship. The article or the study is only limited to one sector and one country i.e., University of Pakistan. In order to gain accurate results more institutions and countries should be included in further research. To improve the generalisation of the outcomes, future studies must examine the model in other less-developed nations.
One of the significant limitation of the study is that it only focused on selection, empowerment and training. This should include more HRM practices like promotion, reward system, fair compensation, pay parity and other while emphasizing their impact on employee performance.
The course outlines various HRM practices like compensation, recruitment, selection, on boarding, employee retention, motivation, training and development, performance management and other. The article is related to many concepts taught in the class. Human resource management is a broader concept and it is not possible to summarize every concept of HRM in one single article. However, it has helped me gain valuable insights into HR practices like in what manner training, selection and employee participation could assist in enhancing employee’s performance and help the organization gain triple bottom line efficiency.
According to me authors have very well defined sustainable practices in HRM. In the article, authors have outlined three aspects of HRM practices to enhance employee performance. However, according to me, sustainability must be incorporated in every HRM practices and not just three areas.
However, I agree that selection of employee must be free from biasness, employees should be empowered to express their views and opinions and training is a continuous approach to help employee enhance their skills. It is recommended that every organization must incorporate sustainable practices by taking into consideration employee problems, identify them and resolve them on priority basis. This not only motivates them to perform better but also help the organization gain financial results by retaining its top skilled workforce.
Bos-Nehles, A.C. and Meijerink, J.G., 2018. HRM implementation by multiple HRM actors: A social exchange perspective. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 29(22), pp.3068-3092.
The article has been cited using RMIT Harvard referencing style. The in-texting in this style is written by author’s name and date of article publication. Footnotes are not used in this referencing style. The authors of the article are Bos-Nehles and Meijerink and article has been published in the year 2018.
The article aims at understanding human resource management practices as a social process which is dependent on social exchange connections among employees, line managers and HRM professionals. This article explains how HRM practices are carried out in coordination with various HRM actors. The study has been carried out in engineering firm at Dutch among 20 line managers and 75 employees.
The main argument of the article is constructed on the basis of social exchange theory where social exchange is observed as two-way process which incorporates several actions that are independent to each other. The article establishes two social relations namely: connection among organizational individuals and organization and relations with supervisors.
Incorporation of Various Theories in the Study
The article mainly focuses on explaining relation line managers have with their employee and with the organization they work for. As per the article, line managers are the main implementers of HRM practices and they support HRM practices at operational level by developing social exchanges withy employees. This generates two-way relation among management and employees who in turn help the management gain trust and mutual respect of employees. Hence, they are motivated to support the line managers in implementing HRM practices and help in attaining organizational objectives.
The manuscript contributes towards literature and practitioners by focusing on establishing social relations in the organization. It provides an excellent topic to conduct further research in this area and also make the practitioners dip deeper in analysing aspects that help in developing social connections inside the organization. Inside a relationship, it explains how people minimise their costs and maximise their rewards. It explains how to keep and maintain relationships. It’s a methodical and timely strategy.
According to social exchange theory, People choose their relationships based on logical decision-making. They rank their priorities to evaluate their choices. Practitioners must evaluate more practices that help management develop positive relations with employees, so they are motivated to perform better for the betterment of the organization.
The article outlines benefits of social relation among line managers and employees. However, it focused on only line managers and employees and it would be more beneficial if more members from HR department would have been included rather just collecting data from only line managers. In order to make the readers better understand, social exchange theory, article should have explained relations among middle managers, top managers as well as trade unions and their contributions towards organizational performance.
The article is related to social exchange theory outlined in the course. Social exchange theory is beneficial in creating an exchange process between management and workforce so that benefits could be maximized and costs are minimized. Furthermore, this article has helped in making a clear understanding of the social relations and in what manner this could be used to enhance performance of employees and organization.
The article correlates with the course as it explains creating gratification among humans on the basis of implementing HRM as a social process. Furthermore, social theory also explains the relevance of communication as it involves process of negotiating exchanges among parties. This can be used as communication theory as it is dependent on exchange of rewards and costs which are used to quantify the value of outcomes from various scenarios.
Article clearly explains in a very detailed manner about the implementation of social exchange theory in the workplace for enhancing employee performance. I agree with the authors that if an employee does not have positive connections with the workplace, they are likely to quit the job and they will for other place in search of positive relations. Social exchange can be implemented in the workplace to establish an organizational culture and environment which promotes friendly, transparent and collaborating behaviours make the employees fell that they are part of the organization. This could be achieved by providing recognition, creating two-way communication, transparency, ethical practices, conflict resolution, development, performance management and other practices as well.
References
Bos-Nehles, A.C. and Meijerink, J.G., 2018. HRM implementation by multiple HRM actors: A social exchange perspective. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 29(22), pp.3068-3092.
Manzoor, F., Wei, L., Bányai, T., Nurunnabi, M. and Subhan, Q.A., 2019. An examination of sustainable HRM practices on job performance: An application of training as a moderator. Sustainability, 11(8), p.2263.