HR contributes to CSR

Sustainable Human Resource Management is a young area within Human Resource Management. Originally, sustainable HR initiatives mainly focused on development of green competences within the organization to gain competitive advantages among stakeholders. 

Nowadays, the field of Sustainable HR initiatives is considered to include a wider range of activities to enable the employer to achieve the triple bottom line. And today, mainly HR Management initiatives considering all the three areas, social-, financial- and ecological sustainability, are considered as sustainable. 

To support the business plan and to gain competitive advantages, HR Initiatives should, beside green HR, also cover topics like ethics, diversity, work environment, people development, transparency, and resourcefulness.

How can HR contribute to more sustainability in the organization?

1) Define clear goals for the sustainable initiatives and link the goals to the business plan.

2) Define sustainability competences, that are important for the organization and develop them. Some transversal competences are important for all sustainable organizations, but you should also define the competences crucial for your business. This makes you unique as employer.

3) Develop a sustainable organizational culture from the board of directors to each single employee and develop an ethic business culture covering the topics diversity, equity, inclusion, people development, transparency and resourcefulness. 

4) Work with attitudes and values and create a plan for how to coach leaders and employees, who behave against the sustainable goals.

5) Create enabling factors for balance between work and private life through flexibility and mobility solutions.

6) Recruit, motivate and engage leaders who appreciate sustainability.

7) Communicate everything you do to your stakeholders.