Sustainable Human Resource Management: ROC Model Analysis

This essay delves into the concept of Sustainable Human Resource Management (HRM) and its role in achieving corporate sustainability. It introduces the ROC model (Respect, Openness, and Continuity) as a framework for integrating ethical considerations, employee engagement, and long-term organizational goals. The essay explores the importance of ethical HRM practices, including the development of ethical policies and promoting worker standards. It examines the significance of employee openness, encouraging innovative ideas, and the continuity of employment relationships. The analysis also considers the challenges of measuring the impact of sustainability efforts and the importance of long-term employee performance. The essay emphasizes the need for HRM departments to create long-term financial value for both employees and the organization, while also addressing the impact of activities on the environment and the community. The essay concludes by highlighting the critical role of HRM in developing leadership, training, and fostering employee engagement to drive corporate sustainability, and also mentions the need to avoid wastage and ensure the benefits of investments in times of crisis.

Sustainable Human Resource Management

Running head: Human Resource Management 1
“Supportable HRM should be developed in every organisation to achieve corporate
sustainability”.
Corporate sustainability is business models and management decisions which are based on
financial, environmental and societal concepts and hence wants to achieve sustainability.
HRM department works as a new discipline to achieve corporate sustainability in
organisation and nowadays, is increasingly attracting the attention of stakeholders.
Sustainability in HRM can be seen as two hand task. On the one side it improves the
conditions for individual employee and develops capability of HRM system to continuously
regenerate and produce motivated employees by making HRM itself renewable. On the other
hand Sustainable HRM also provides to the sustainability of the business houses as well
through cooperation with the top level management, important stakeholders like government,
shareholders, investors and NGOs (Stankeviciute & Savaneviciene, 2013).
Institutions and Stakeholders can develop sustainable HRM for a new discipline to
achieve corporate sustainability like they can introduce the ROC-model given and converted
the three P’s (i.e. Planet, People and Profit) of Corporate Social Responsibility into ‘Respect,
Openness and Continuity’ (ROC) ( De Prins, Vos, & Segers, 2014).The first and foremost feature
in ROC-model talks about ethical issues and issues related to respect. This theory focuses for
a smart and more gracious attitude towards resources (human resource). This block also
includes the ethical and critical roots of sustainable HRM as HRM professionals should act as
‘ethical stewards’. Management should focus on developing the ethical policy in the
organisation; seek more opportunities for promoting worker standards, formulation and
implementation of ethics. A sustainable HRM management is based on the objective of
observations. Sustainable approach focus on the where we have to start with and match it to
the profiles of the human resource. There should be combined view of both employee and

Running head: Human Resource Management 2
organisation
According to Cathy Sheehan, “ROC model use an ideas from the different literature
and talks about the different cultures and diversity of society and HRM should be made in
accordance with them. There should be a particular set of symbolic and conventional gestures
(Sheehan).
The second building block of ROC-model is related with the openness in the
organisation whether the human resources are open to the management or not. Openness talks
about how employees can give the new innovative suggestions or ideas to the organisation
(Ulrich, Younger, & Brockbank, 2012). According to Lee’s argument, stakeholders play a crucial
play in the organisation and institution environment. On the one side, stakeholders can
enhance the institutional force by giving attention to the decision maker of organisation. On
the other side, stakeholders can also smooth the effect by working as a mediator between the
organisational and institutional pressure. The third building block of ROC-model focuses on
the continuity of the employees in terms of organisation relationship and employment
relationship. Continuity factor can be considered as an individual challenge for employability
relationships. Companies try to make a healthy relation with employees and management so
that they can work effectively and efficiently in the organisation and management also tries to
develop an environment in which employees can survive and sustain easily for a long period
of time and HRM contributes to this process.
Evaluating human resources is a cumbersome job as every human is different in
nature and react differently every time so it is hard to measure the impact of activities
performed for achieving sustainability (Price, 2007). Sustainability objective is only to be
achieved when organisation is not facing any financial crisis.
There should be long term performance of the employees and long term

Running head: Human Resource Management 3
performance can only be achieved when they have a good relationship with the organisation.
Sustainability research is done on three levels of performance: (1) the organisation (e.g.
standards, effectiveness, flexibility, renovation, and profits), (2) society (e.g. shareholder
satisfaction, employment progress, social involvement) and (3) the individual (e.g. balance
between work and life, commitment, practicable). HRM department try to create long term
financial value for the employees as well as for the organisation also. They try to know the
actions and impacts of their activities which are affecting the environment and also try to
actively reduce the impact of that work if it is of negative nature. Management should also be
responsible towards their employees, customers and communities. Management should try to
make positive social addition in their attitudes and beliefs.
Current research has been the proof that institutions whose employees are featured by
less worth and less innovative tend to be considered as low concerned resources in the
organisation and they tend to move from one place to another and they are unable to manage
their own career (De Vos & Dries, 2013).
The greatest contribution by the Human Resource manager to sustainability to be seen
is in the field of developing leadership, training and development of individuals, giving them
knowledge of ethics and governance. Engaging the employees was seen a strongly related
concept of sustainability of the company as not only the right thing to do but to satisfy the
employee at their most. There should be long term performance of the employees and long
term performance can only be achieved when they have a good relationship with the
organisation. Moreover, only involving the employees in the organisation’s activities are
considered to be the completion of most challenging task of HR (Mauzar, 2014).
According to Budhwar, “Investment in Human resource development is a waste of
funds. When coaching and development programmes done for the employees and their results

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are not equivalent to what organisation expect then then these programmes will not be held in
organisation. Rather investing in human resource development it should be invested in the
marketing, investment in other assets, research and development (Budhwar, 2004).
Conclusions:
Overall, human resource development is the success of any organisation. Institution and
stakeholders try to train and develop the employees continuously and proactively, as those
trained employees will help to survive, excel in dynamic environment. Inspired by the three
P’s of corporate social responsibility we have marked ‘Respect’, ‘Openness’ and ‘Continuity’
as the three building blocks of sustainable HRM. The aim of the stakeholders is to make long
term financial value. Organisation should know how their activities affect the surroundings
and try to reduce the impacts of their work. Management should show their concern about
their employees, customers and communities and work to make positive changes in the
society. However developing corporate sustainability in the organisation is not an easy task,
if not managed well many problems and difficulties may occur. In time of crises it is difficult
to ensure that amount invested will give the benefits or not. Wastages must be avoided.
Reference:
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Budhwar, P. (2004). Managing Human Resources in Asia. London: Routledge.
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Price, A. (2007). Human Resource Management in Business Context.3rd ed. United Kingdom: Cengage
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844
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