INFLUENCES OF GREEN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES ON ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY AT KENYATTA UNIVERSITY, KENYA

Abstract

Green management initiatives have become an important factor in forward thinking businesses around the world. Researchers argued that employees must be inspired, empowered and environmentally aware of greening in order to carry out green management initiatives. Corporate green management requires a high level of technical and management skills in employees since the company will develop innovation focused environmental initiatives and programmes that have significant managerial implications. There is thus a growing need for the integration of environmental management into Human Resource Management through Green Human Resource Management practices. Green Human Resource is the use of Human Resource Management policies to promote sustainable use of resources with business organizations and more generally, promotes the course of environmental sustainability. The objective of the study was to establish the influences of green human resource management practices on environmental sustainability in Kenya. Green Human Resource Management theories and models were used to show the importance of Green Human Resource Management concerns that will impact on environmental management and sustainability and to understand the unique features of Human Resource managers, decisions and behaviours which are central to Green Human Resource Management. The study specifically looked at the effects of selected Green Human Resource Management practices and how they influence the overall organizational environmental sustainability. The study employed a descriptive research design specifically for a case study of Kenyatta University. The target population was 2400 employees of Kenyatta University from which a sample of 96 employees was selected. The data was exclusively gathered from the questionnaire as the research instrument. The collected data was summarized and analyzed using both descriptive and inferential analysis and then presented in frequency distribution tables and figures. Males made the majority of the participants at 64% while the females formed 36% the results of the study indicated that more non-teaching staff; administrators (35%) clerks (32.5%) participated in the research than teaching staff. The participants’ application for employment at Kenyatta University was not based on green issues (mean 2.31, disagreed 52.5%). Green/environmental performance indicators were not adequately included in performance management and appraisals systems (mean 3.31). There were benefits in performance management system for compliance/ meeting the green/environmental management and sustainability goals (mean 3.93). The university empowered and encouraged the employees to make suggestions and contributions on environmental improvement (46.3%).Many of the respondents were aware of Environmental sustainability and National Environmental Management Authority policies and regulations compared to Green Human Resource Management. Further research is necessary as the findings were based on a relatively small sample that may have influenced the nature of the results that were obtained. Further, to develop staff for environmental sustainability and management, widespread use of environmental training, developing environmental knowledge bases and developing pro-environment managers and leaders of the future should be put in the University system.