Chapter 8: Sustainable Human Resource Management and Organisational Sustainability

This chapter is written in the context of twin parallel crises: a global pandemic and climate change. In a post-pandemic world, society and organisations must change, which underscores the need for continuous learning and change in both the practice of Human Resources (HR) and the way we practice Human Resource Management (HRM) (Bratton et al., 2022). In COVID-stricken economies, organisational leaders and HR professionals are beginning to recognise that the ‘new normal’ involves change. Leaders need to realign their business values and management practices with social, environmental and ethical goals (Stahl et al., 2020). As a reaction to the criticism of corporate sustainability business models to effectively address the ‘grand challenges’ of our time, interest is growing in alternative ‘outside-in’ models that seek to resolve sustainability challenges (Aust et al., 2020). The Common Good HRM approach assumes that it is the responsibility of organisations to ‘make an effective contribution to resolving the sustainability challenges we are collectively facing’ (Dyllick and Muff, 2016, p. 156). This assumption is built on the understanding that despite the prevalence of ‘triple bottom line’ (TBL) and ‘quadruple bottom line’ frameworks, and environmental management practices, these initiatives have had, at best, limited positive societal or environmental outcomes (Aust et al., 2020). The ‘Common Good’ HRM approach extends the scope of analysis beyond short-term financial goals to include human rights and environmental protection.