Sustainable human resource management: a new perspective for organisations

Retrenchment and downsizing has not been an effective cost efficient strategy. On the contrary many organisations have lost their valuable HR asset and the community and government is left with handling the aftermath of retrenchment and downsizing. Decline in the rate of population growth in many developed countries poses a major HR supply threat to organisations. But organisations HR waste their HR by construing that HR supply is readily available in the community because it is the gift of Mother Nature. Using Sustainable Human Resource Management (Sustainable HRM) framework, this study attempts to explain HR as a scarce resource and how retrenchment cause damages to the social and emotional web of the community and depletes the HR supply. Sustainable H RM is defined as "the management of HR to meet the needs of the company and community of the present without compromising the ability to meet the needs of the future". Sustainable HRM is a theoretical framework, which highlights the direct and indirect effects of downsizing or retrenchment on the community, government and eventually the organisation too. Sustainable HRM explores the benefit of HR conservation in understanding HR asset and how this can be used in the retrenchment and downsizing strategies.