Applicability of green human resource management concept to achieve sustainable goals of green buildings in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Nowadays in world, construction of green building becomes a new trend. Many studies noticed that there are considerable amount of investments to the green buildings than conventional buildings. Since in last decade, the world has concerned about green building concept as one of the solutions to reduce environmental impacts. In achieving such foremost benefits of green buildings, human resource plays a vital role, especially to achieve sustainable goals of green buildings. Green Human Resource Management came into practice as a newest concept to create green responsive employees who make a significant contribution to environmental sustainability. However, Human Resource is not utilized in effective and efficient manner in most of the organizations. Therefore, the intention of this research is to investigate the applicability of Green Human Resource Management concept to achieve sustainable goals of green buildings in Sri Lanka. As this research required an in-depth investigation, the research problem was approached through three case studies which are conducted in three selected green buildings in Sri Lanka. Content and cross case analysis techniques are used to analyse the data. QSR. Nvivo software is used to simplify the data analysis. As key research findings derived through case analysis, in Sri Lanka, existing green buildings have not been implemented the proper Green Human Resource Management process. Hence, the gaps in existing Human Resource Management process in green buildings are identified in relation to the job analysis, recruitment, selection, induction, training and development, performance evaluation and discipline management. Improper job designing, not including green competencies, use of traditional Human Resource Management process, unawareness, no proper performance evaluation criteria are identified as major gaps in Human Resource Management process in green buildings. Accordingly, a framework is developed to propose various strategies to fill the gaps in existing process to effectively utilize the Human Resource for achieving sustainable goals of green buildings in Sri Lanka as the main implication of this research.