Green Human Resource Management: An Exploratory Study from Moroccan ISO 14001 Certified Companies

Abstract

Green human resource management (GHRM) is one of the most critical topics that aim at driving green change and improving environmental performance of companies. However, implementing GHRM functions may pose a major challenge in Morocco since the term is still new, especially for developing countries. Thus, the present study was carried out to assess the awareness of HR managers and directors of GHRM, explore the connection between environmental concerns and HR strategies, investigate the perceived importance of GHRM, its requirements, the feasibility of its practices, and the challenges related to its implementation. For this purpose, the data required for this study were collected through in-depth semistructured interviews with HR managers and directors of four ISO 14001 certified companies, a qualitative analysis was conducted through a thematic analysis using NVIVO12 software. The results revealed that GHRM is still in its beginning stages in Morocco, faces many challenges as well as the unfeasibility of several GHRM practices. Thus, the significance of the present study stems from the fact that very few studies have explored GHRM in Morocco, which provides additional insights and perspectives into GHRM from an unexplored nation.

1. Introduction

Due to the adverse consequences of industrial pollution and waste, climate change, and resource depletion, the effects of environmental issues on the quality of life have increased in recent years [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35]. The world is witnessing an aggressive violation of nature. In response, companies nowadays have to find a way to balance the relationships between economic development, resources, and ecology [4]. This balance has been among the most complex and important managerial challenges of the twenty-first century [2].

Consequently, the implementation of environmentally friendly policies is an emergent priority on the policymakers and managers’ agenda. Studies on green marketing, green economics, green accounting, green management, and green supply chain management have increased [36]. Thus, the need to integrate green management within human resources is what we call green human resource management (GHRM). In this respect, green human resource management (GHRM), as a management function, has received great deal of attention in the environmental management literature recently [37].

Despite the growing number of studies on GHRM, several researchers outlined the lack of empirical studies from the African continent [20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 38]. Thus, researchers need to conduct empirical research in Africa instead of limiting themselves to Asia, Europe, and America, especially, Africa, which is suffering from severe environmental degradation and environment-related humanitarian disasters [26]. Furthermore, researchers need to investigate the current status of GHRM in the African context given the socioeconomic development challenges and other pressing priorities facing developing African organizations [19].

According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, The North African country of Morocco is the fifth-largest economy in Africa and considered to have the most competitive economy in North Africa. Morocco participates fully in international efforts to preserve the environment. For instance, the country has set up many foundations to strengthen its environmental policy, such as the Green Morocco Plan or plan Maroc vert. In addition to the governmental authority in charge of the environment, the Mohammed VI Foundation for the Protection of the Environment plays a key role in the development of many educational and preservation projects [39].

Along with the kingdom commitment and efforts for the good of the whole planet, GHRM should be taken into account in order to assume the environmental responsibility of companies. Thus, this paper aims to investigate GHRM in Morocco.

Given the “newness” of this concept in Morocco, the first aim of this study is to gain insight on the awareness of GHRM. Unless awareness is created, adoption is out of question. In this regard, we believe that assessing awareness on GHRM is an effective way to gain insight on its actual or potential implementation.

Additionally, according to Pardhi et Chaudhary, [25] the focus of the researchers was mostly toward the GHRM and its importance. However, to best of our knowledge, no effort has been made to studying the perceived importance of GHRM by policymakers. Thus, this paper was carried out to examine the HR managers and directors’ perceived importance of GHRM.

Moreover, this paper calls into question the main challenges that may hinder GHRM’s implementation. Assessing GHRM challenges may build resilience capacity, which would enable managers to create a proactive strategy as well as to predict potential problems and solutions. As posited by Kodua et al. [14], studying GHRM challenges serves as a valuable reference to policymakers and practitioners to help them take suitable measures to mitigate the GHRM implementation barriers and consequently promote it. Thus, we believe that investigating challenges related to GHRM may lay a solid foundation for its implementation success and promotion among managers.

Besides, to make sure that the nonawareness of GHRM will not influence our findings, and that GHRM practices (GHRMP) may be implemented implicitly without referring to the term GHRM, we aimed to examine the connection between environmental and HRM strategies within companies as well as to highlight the efforts made by HRM staff to meet environmental management requirements. Thus, the fourth aim of this paper is to emphasize the connection between environmental concern and HRM in the selected companies.

Furthermore, an essential prerequisite for launching GHRM in companies is to identify the key requirements for business decisions to implement it. Thus, the fifth aim of this paper is to improve the understanding of the requirements for GHRM’s implementation. Understanding the necessary requirements is crucial in order to understand the key practices that need to be analyzed and developed to best implement GHRM and for researchers to better understand the issues and the managerial difficulties that need to be addressed.

Finally, studying GHRMP status and feasibility is able to help in determining the viability of this process by identifying the factors that can promote or refrain from its success. For this reason, this study aims to provide a broad picture as well as a detailed analysis of the potential risks associated to GHRMP in reality. Thus, feasibility of practices may give to HRMS the chance to “get it right” before committing time, money, and business resources to some GHRMP that may not fit in Morocco.

The exploration of the questions above is crucial, as this investigation can offer a theoretical foundation for rendering GHRM more rational and valuable to the company’s decision-makers. Overall, this study aims to (a) shed light on the awareness and perceived importance of GHRM among HR managers and directors; (b) explore the connection between environmental concerns and HR strategies in the selected companies; (c) investigate the challenges related to GHRM’s implementation; (d) explore GHRM requirements; (e) highlight HR managers’ and directors’ perceptions of the various GHRMP and their feasibility in the Moroccan context.

In this respect, we selected four ISO14001 certified companies as this certification requires companies to always manage environmental policy and improve environmental performance according to the standard requirements [10]. Additionally, environmental management system (EMS) as a regulatory framework requires from companies to document the procedures and policies that guide the environmental impact of the firm [40].

This article is structured as follows. The first section examines the literature review of GHRM, the second section presents the research methodology, the third section presents the results, while the fourth section presents discussion.

2. Literature review

2.1 Green HRM

In the past, companies and their shareholders expected good economic performance to guarantee the success of the company; however, this is no longer the case; financial and economical outcomes need to be combined with a reduced ecological footprint and increased attention to social and environmental aspects [41]. Wehrmeyer [42] stated that if a company needs to take an ecological approach to its operations, employees are the key to its success or failure.

GHRM concentrates on using human resource management procedures and guidelines to ensure sustainable resources usage and vigorously boost environmentalism [14]. Thus, through GHRM, the company ensures that employees have a positive attitude toward the environment, have green skills, and are responsible for the environmental consequences of their actions [43].

Given into consideration the above discussion, organizations need to engage in GHRM and build a positive green image and reputation to stay ahead of the competition [37]. Thus, the term of “green HRM” has become the focus of environmental management research and is considered as a hot topic in recent studies [3, 4, 38, 40, 44].

Research studies on ecology based on HRM and environmental management linkage started in the 1990s through the book “Greening people: human resources and environmental management” by Wehrmeyer [42]. Subsequently, GHRM was introduced as a new effective management discipline that integrates environmental management to enhance performance through environmentally friendly management practices [35].

GHRM is most regularly used to refer to the concern of people management policies and practices toward the broader corporate environmental schedule [41]. Ren et al, [28] state that GHRM is an organization’s aspiration to design and implement HRM practices, policies, and philosophies to support environmental objectives, promote attitudinal and behavioral change, and improve the environmental performance of the organization. Therefore, management scholars around the world are currently analyzing different management practices that can contribute to the achievement of environmental goals. HR professionals are advised to deploy green cues in traditional HR functions to ensure environmental sustainability [1].

The following subsection provides a summary of emerging GHRM practices for each HRM function.

2.2 Green HRM practices

In order to ensure that a company achieves appropriate green contributions from its workforce, altering or adapting the HRM functions to be environmentally friendly is essential [21]. It is therefore important to substitute green aspirations and mere good intentions into a real organizational policy.

GHRM practices (GHRMP) are similar to traditional HRM practices as they include recruitment and selection, training and development, performance appraisal and compensation, etc. However, GHRMP ought to lead to the capabilities necessary for the continuous improvement of the firm’s environmental performance [45]. Thus, human resource departments play a major role in greening the policies and practices from entry to exit processes such as recruitment and selection, training and development, performance appraisal, rewards, compensation management, and exit policies that are collectively termed GHRMP [46]. Therefore, such green practices help in fulfilling green objectives and in achieving organizational goals throughout HRM process from recruitment to retirement [25].

2.3 Green job analysis and description

Many companies reported that job analysis enhances administrative efficiency; for this reason, a clear delineation of roles and responsibilities for a given position guarantees that each level of the organizational structure understands its contribution and adds value to the company [47]. From an environmental management perspective, an appropriate job design should follow the principles of environmentally friendly jobs, and each job description should specify environmentally friendly duties and tasks [48]. Thus, the implementation of GHRMP begins with job analysis and design and emphasizes the importance of incorporating environmental protection responsibilities and duties in each position [33].

2.4 Green recruitment and selection

According to Wehrmeyer [42], recruitment practices can support environmental management by ensuring that new entrants are familiar with the environmental culture of the organization and are able to uphold its values. Tang et al, [49] define green recruitment as the organization’s preference to select candidates who are committed and sensitive to environmental issues and who are willing to contribute. Thus, employees’ green tendency should be given attention in recruitment and selection, which is helpful to engage employees in green behaviors, ensure that employees have a positive green attitude, emphasize information about the green agenda in recruitment campaigns, and strive to recruit employees with high environmental behavior [50]. Accordingly, the selection activity for future employees should focus on the overlap between the candidates’ environmental values and those of the organizations and should select those who have significant environmental values as part of their daily practices [45]. As stated by Ramasamy [27] and Ullah, [41], creating this culture at the recruitment stage ensures that the new recruits will be well set in pursuing the objective of corporate green policy and are familiar with the words of conservation and sustainable environment.

2.5 Green training and development

The workforce training has long been identified as an important component in fostering and implementing environmental management practices in an organization [51]. Thus, green training is defined as a specific training provided to employees on power saving management, safety, energy efficiency and supported by softcopy as material rather than printed handouts [16].

Xie et al. [52] has defined green training as a process of continuing education designed to update employees’ knowledge and skills, which is exactly what both companies and employees need for sustainable development. Thus, green training is provided to employees in order to improve their environmental awareness and practical operation ability [50].

Indeed, via green training, employees become more receptive to change through the assimilation of the environmental dimension, and they consequently understand the importance of acting proactively [6]. Therefore, enterprises should guide employees to think and handle their work in a more environmentally friendly way while cultivating their professional skills and knowledge [50].

2.6 Green performance appraisal

According to Bombiak et Marciniuk-Kluska [48], the integration of environmental management objectives into performance appraisal system ensures regular feedback on employee’s progress. The green performance assessment can be defined as the process by which employees are prompted to enhance their professional skills that help to achieve the organizational goals and objectives in a better way [53].

Green performance appraisal has different activities such as setting green targets for all members, creating green performance indicators, evaluating employees’ green outcomes, and using disbenefits [49]. Accordingly, green performance management creates green indicators to establish green criteria for all members, covering topics such as environmental incidents, environmental responsibilities, reduction of carbon emissions, and communicating environmental concerns and policies [31].

2.7 Green pay and rewards

The success of employees in their ecological performance appraisal is the proof that a company’s strategic sustainability goals are being mirrored and accomplished from the top to the bottom [53]. Thus, the reward system is meant to be linked to the outcomes of green initiatives to effectively boost pro-environmental behaviors and to reflect company’s commitment to environmental performance [22, 23].

Green compensation and benefits can be defined as possible tools for encouraging environmental activities in firms [54]. These compensations include financial rewards (salary increases, cash bonuses, a variable component linking pay to eco-performance) and nonfinancial rewards (paid excursions, time off, favored stopping, free transport pass, and blessing declarations) [11].

2.8 Green involvement and participation

The process of decision-making becomes a much simpler task when people are given green opportunities, and the end result would be a competitive workforce with high green values that benefit forward-thinking organizations [46]. Thus, motivated employees equipped with new skills will be likely to be proactive in practicing new values and methods at work and to further learn by engaging in green initiatives, such as introducing new ideas to customers and suppliers on how to reduce their environmental impacts [55].

In this regard, green ideas should be embraced of all employees, regardless of their function, which will encourage their interest in environmental issues and enable them to make the most out of their skills.

2.9 Green discipline management

In order to ensure compliance with environmental management, organization must develop and communicate a clear set of rules and regulations that require employees to be concerned about environmental protection. Therefore, setting sanctions and disciplinary measures (demotion, lay-off, salary, and allowances reduction) for employees who do not meet their performance requirements will ensure that all employees remain committed to achieving the company’s environmental objectives [27].

Maintaining the green discipline in the organization builds and facilitates green employee competence, which contributes toward pro-environmental behaviors. Accordingly, managers should maintain green discipline by punishing employees or fining them for not observing the environmental policy in companies [20]. Thus, organizations can implement a consistent set of rules and regulations that require/regulate workers to follow the organizations’ environmental policies and to be concerned with environmental conservation [13].

2.10 Green health and safety management

In order to improve employees’ health and safety, some organizations have created strategies such as green factory or green zone to maintain a conducive environment to prevent various health problems [12]. Thus, green health and safety cover the old-fashioned health and safety administration and other aspects of a company’s environmental management [33]. This position comprises a wider range of activities associated with green initiatives.

In this regard, a better workplace can be made possible through “Green Health and Safety” management practices such as wearing helmet, gloves, and glasses wherever necessary, proper waste management at workplace, etc. [46]. Thus, green health and safety management ensures the implementation of environmental standards that meet national and international regulations and eventually to ensure the safety of not only employees but also customers and other stakeholders [56].

3. Research methodology

In Morocco in particular, there is a lack of publications on GHRM [38]. Thus, this research is an exploratory qualitative study that aims to provide a deep understanding of GHRM in the Moroccan context rather than a generalization.

Given that GHRM is a relatively new, we consider that ISO 14001 certified companies are the most likely to have introduced or at least acknowledge the importance of GHRM. As stated by Al-ghazali and Afsar [40], organizations with environmental management systems, such as ISO 14001, are expected to have implemented green initiatives across the business functional areas. Additionally, ISO14001 certified companies tend to apply more environmentally oriented work practices, have an environmental policy, and are more sensitive to environmental issues [21]. Thus, the selection of the companies and the sample for the interviews were based on the purposive sampling technique. We targeted four ISO14001 certified companies, which are continuously improving their environmental performance in line with the requirements of the standard.

As mentioned previously, data were collected from four ISO14001 companies. The reason for choosing these companies in particular is the fact that they are sensitive to environmental issues and have implemented several projects and proactive actions, including employees and community environmental education, environmentally friendly process, employees environmental volunteering, and several other projects.

Although our sample size contained only four companies, it allowed us to provide a deeper understanding by presenting rich data on HR managers’ perceptions of GHRM. Furthermore, our sample size is considered acceptable compared with other similar studies on GHRM. For example, Suharti and Sugiarto [56] used an exploratory qualitative approach in a single multinational cement company in Indonesia. A study by Yong et al, [57] used a sample of four HR managers/leaders from four large manufacturing companies. Yusoff et al, [58] conducted an exploratory study to understand how four HR managers from four multinational companies in Malaysia perceive and understand the concept of GHRM.

At the first stage, we contacted managers or senior personnel of the selected companies through emails, LinkedIn, and phone calls addressed to HR departments. We stated the objectives and relevance of the study and the potential contribution of the company to the research. Besides, we narrowed the sampling to the HRMs and HRDs because this category is well aware and knowledgeable of HRM practices and strategies. As argued by Obeidat [21], HR managers are in a good position to provide GHRM information. Thus, strategically placed managers within the HR division were the main target group of the study because of the in-depth knowledge they have of administrative HR functions, the strategic planning, and implementation (Table 1).

Activity	Interviewees
Mining	Human Resources Director
	Human Resources Senior Manager
	Human Resources Manager
	Sustainable development Project Manager
Water and electricity distribution	Human Resources Senior Manager
Construction and public works	Human Resources Director
Water solutions and equipment	Chief Financial and Administrative Officer

Table 1.

Respondents profiles.

The data were collected through semistructured interviews. The themes have been previously prepared in the interview guide. Therefore, the interview questions were framed to understand the connection between environmental concern and HRM, the current status of GHRMP, GHRM awareness, perceived importance, challenges and requirements. Thus, using NVIVO12 software, we created the six main categories of codes listed below.

The data analysis involved the following steps: (a) a careful (re-)reading of the interview after transcription; (b) coding and analysis of the text according to the themes predefined in the guide; (c) interpretation of the results in the light of the codes and themes discerned. NVIVO was used, in particular, to organize the transcription of the interviews by theme, which resulted in a better-quality result than with manual methods.

4. Findings and discussion

4.1 GHRM awareness

The purpose of this theme is to examine the awareness of HR managers and directors of GHRM. Data are collected to find out the extent to which managers are aware of this process and have enough information on the subject (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

World Cloud.

All managers in the surveyed companies (1, 2, 3, and 4) have never heard of GHRM. This result implies the lack of awareness and the non-familiarity of the process in the Moroccan context. This result is also illustrated in the word cloud where the most used expressions by our respondents were “no,” “never heard,” and “new.”

No, I have never heard of GHRM before your announcement. I have only heard of green finance and green management. Going further to GHRM is something new for me.

Although we are a bit developed compared to other companies, the concept of GHRM is completely new for us. It is not very common in our organization.

The unawareness of GHRM may impedes the consideration of implementing it in the core practices of HRM and in the companies’ environmental initiatives. Since the respondents don’t have enough information to determine how important GHRM may be, HRM and HRD may not consider the possibility of taking such insecure step.

4.2 Relationship between environmental concern and HRM

After defining, presenting, and explaining GHRM, its relevance and practices, we discussed “the link between environmental concern and HRM”. We aimed to understand if there is an integration of environmental issues into HR strategies, policies, and practices. The collected data revealed that companies implement some green initiatives; however, they don’t have a well-developed process such as GHRM, and in which, the environmental agenda is included in all HR practices.

“We are ISO14001 certified, so the environmental footprint is included in our employees’ job descriptions, and in training programs to raise employee’s awareness about the environment.”

“The link exists on the training aspect, if we prepare a certification, the HR department will seek to provide training in this area.”

Accordingly, the results revealed that environmental concerns are integrated into HRM through training and job descriptions. The setting up of these two practices refers to the requirements of ISO14001 certification, which implies, on the one hand, the need to integrate environmental concerns into job descriptions by assessing the risks associated with each job and, on the other hand, to provide training in order to raise employees’ awareness to ecology.

There is no direct link, I cannot say that we have revised our processes or our management procedures and orientated them towards the environment. However, the contribution of HRM to the environment is sporadic and occasional.

In the same vein, one of our respondents emphasized that the contribution of HRM to the environment is of a short-term nature to meet a periodic demand for certification. Thus, the company implements practices and initiatives without implementing GHRM and without revising and reviewing its HR practices and policies.

4.3 Perceived importance of GHRM

In this category, we aim to explore the perceived importance of GHRM. Particularly, we attempted to understand whether HRM and HRD were aware of the need to align HR strategy with environmental strategy and whether they recognize the contribution of the HR function to the environmental management success. All respondents perceived the importance of this process except two respondents.

Why would we implement GHRM and we are imposing environmental protection in other ways, through citizens’ education, through actions such as cleaning up cities, beaches, etc.? I don’t know why I’m going to go through GHRM to have an impact on the environment, when we already have actions that are precisely defined and that I can evaluate afterwards.

Our company has a set of initiatives and actions to motivate and involve employees, when we hear about GHRM, we think that we already involve our employees in ecology with no need for this process.

These two respondents focused on the WHY question of GHRM, more specifically, the reason and motivation for implementing GHRM as they involve their employees in the process through targeted environmental initiatives. Thus, to address this kind of debate on GHRM importance, researchers should frame the arguments of HMRs and HRDs into eminent researches.

In contrast, other respondents perceived the process as important.

Honestly, the GHRM topic was very interesting to me because in our company’s management style, sustainable development is the cornerstone of our strategy. So GHRM will be a reflection of our efforts in terms of ecology.

For me, GHRM is very important, because we try make sure that our employees respect the environment, it is an inherent part of our policy. Now we need to formalize our efforts in a GHRM. Unfortunately, we have not reached this level of detail, perfection and alignment yet.

According to our respondents, GHRM is considered as a formalization of environmental responsibility and a level of sophistication of green efforts. Instead of having scattered and dispersed organizational initiatives and practices, GHRM is considered as a targeted policy to address the need of involving human resources in environmental issues. Thus, the corporate environmental efforts should involve the workforce through a policy that includes several practices such as GHRM.

4.4 Challenges related to GHRM’s implementation

In this theme, we address the need to explore the challenges that may confront the implementation of GHRM in the Moroccan context. The first challenge that has been raised is the lack of in-depth knowledge of GHRM by HR managers in Moroccan companies.

The concept needs a strong communication campaign to promote awareness of the concept among managers.

The second challenge concerns the operationalization of GHRM. Indeed, GHRM needs a well-designed guideline, an appropriate action plan, and performance indicators.

It is easy to give a strategy and a vision, but the most important thing is to put it into practice. GHRM has to become a management system that is ready for absorption and available for redeployment. If you can do that, it will be interesting.

Operationalizing GHRM will provide a clear standard against which HR managers can measure progress toward their environmental goals. This requires a deepening of the necessary knowledge, skills, abilities, and operations. Therefore, there is a need to set targets to create focus on the gap between the current state of performance and what the company hopes to achieve.

For the moment, we need to re-examine the evaluation system to ensure that we have well-defined targets for measuring environmental performance. That’s where we will have the difficulty, it’s mainly the measurement.

In the same vein, another respondent emphasized the ambiguity and confusion in designing a reliable measure of environmental performance. Thus, it not an easy task to measure every particular human activity that may occur as well as changes in ecosystem conditions.

4.5 GHRM requirements

In this part of our interview, we aimed to find out the extent to which managers in these companies are willing to propose and introduce GHRM. More specifically, the requirements that need to be fulfilled by this process in order to be feasible in ISO14001 certified companies. One respondent showed interest in implementing GHRM, stating that it is a promising path without limitations and restrictions.

I think there is no limit, I see no limit and no excuse. Because greening is part of our orientations and it would be very interesting to implement GHRM. I think we just lack the integration of HRM. It is a very plausible path, and we need you to help us to go further down this path.

I will be able to defend GHRM when I actually see its benefits. Typically, as a businessman, you need to demonstrate to me what I am getting behind your GHRM. Not in millions of dirhams, but in terms of mindset, culture, responsibility, commitment and value change. Because this concept can work elsewhere, but not in Morocco.

Besides, the first requirement that was outlined by our respondents is to demonstrate the impact of GHRM on environmental awareness, responsibility, and green values of employees in Morocco. Several research studies have demonstrated these causal links [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 38, 39, 44, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63], but unfortunately, none of these research studies was conducted in Morocco.

As mentioned by our respondent, the impact of GHRM on cultural and value change among employees needs to be demonstrated by taking into account the contextual Moroccan factors.

Another requirement that was underlined is the setting up of a GHRM action plan. Indeed, for GHRM to be a process embraced by companies, it is necessary to specify how it should be implemented, create reporting for monitoring and analysis, and design performance indicators.

I would be ready to implement GHRM when I would have visibility on how it will be carried out, the necessary skills, the performance and operating indicators as well as the monitoring and analysis reporting. I also need visibility on its positioning in relation to all the structures, as GHRM can be the core of one activity and a support for another activity.

4.6 GHRM practices

The aim of this part of our analysis is to find out the perception of HR managers of different HR practices and their feasibility in the Moroccan context.

4.6.1 Green recruitment and selection

Regarding green recruitment, all companies use social media and online job portals to recruit. However, none of the organizations have planned to specifically assess the ecological awareness, values, or contributions of the applicants.

The first reason for which green recruitment is not feasible in the Moroccan context refers, for our respondent, to the uselessness of including environmental concern in the recruitment of profiles who are not concerned with the environmental goals of the company.

In terms of recruitment, we are not expecting candidates to master the environmental aspect, it all depends on the position to be filled, if we want to recruit an IT specialist or a mechanic, it is not necessarily that he or she must be proficient in that aspect.

The second reason why green recruitment is not practicable refers to, on the one hand, the difficulty of finding candidates with the main and most necessary skills to carry out the basic and fundamental tasks of the job. On the other hand, the unfairness of judging candidates on skills, knowledge, or values that they did not have the opportunity to acquire or develop at school.

I cannot honestly say that one of the criteria we are going to use to recruit new employees is their respect for the environment. We can’t require it because we can’t judge people on things, they didn’t have the opportunity to learn at school.

It is already very difficult to find profiles with the required skills for a position. So as long as the Moroccan society is not impregnated with this environmental aspect, it could be a discriminatory recruitment. Maybe it would be interesting if we were in a country where the environment is part of the culture and education system.

It’s not my priority as a recruiter to select a candidate simply for their environmental values. I think it is a much higher level of management where recruiters have already achieved and saturated a level of equity, transparency, communication, and managerial openness and are looking for an additional ecological dimension.

Another reason that was emphasized is the concerns and the priorities of recruiters, and for whom, environmental criterion is not the first factor to be taken into account in recruitment. As long as it is difficult to find the right profile for a vacant position, it is not possible to add an additional environmental criterion, which is also difficult to be found.

4.6.2 Green training and development

In this category, the objective was to explore training and any learning activities that organizations have engaged in to raise environmental awareness. All our respondents perceive the importance green training except for one who stated:

Take me as an HRD, there’s a 3-day seminar run by a specialist cabinet on ecology, do you think I’d be interested in taking it? After the training, what am I supposed to bring back in terms of skill gains? For me, ecology is not a skill, but a mindset. There is no need for training, but for a cultural change.

For this respondent, green training is not necessary to get employees involved in ecology, for him, the act of behaving in an environmentally friendly way requires a cultural change and that ecology is a posture rather than a skill to be acquired during training. In contrast, the other respondents expressed their appreciation for green training.

One of the key aspects raised by our respondents was the need to make employees aware of the environmental footprint of their actions. Indeed, the implementation of an environmental management system must be followed by raising employees’ awareness about the behaviors to be displayed and providing them with the necessary skills to perform their tasks.

Once you have introduced a new system, you have planned, processed and monitored it. HRM needs to implement a process to develop the required skills, which is why environmental training is necessary.

In our company, awareness is a very critical aspect, especially for the ban on discharging oils and dangerous products into the sewage system. So, we raise employees’ awareness so that they adopt this approach in their daily work and pay attention to these products. We have also carried out environmental protection awareness-raising activities for the benefit of an elementary school.

A major challenge related to green training was highlighted by one of our respondents as the difficulty of sensitizing and changing the behavior of the ageing workforce.

We always hear “ it is necessary to raise awareness” do you know the weight of this sentence? If you have an employee who is 59 or 55 years old, it is very difficult to change their behavior at work. You can have major problems in managing change, you will be even facing psycho-social risks.

4.6.3 Green performance appraisal

In this part, the data were collected to understand whether the performance appraisal system includes environmental responsibility. The majority of companies implement an evaluation of high environmental risk activities as well as environmental related positions. Thus, a risk assessment is undertaken thorough a look at HSE engineers’ performance. Additionally, harmful activities to the environment are also analyzed and evaluated on how severe the risk is.

In general, the performance assessment is limited to activities with a high environmental footprint, regarding administrative activities, there is no assessment as they are in some ways similar, there is only the paper waste, scheduled tests in energy audit and waste treatment.

Only engineers are evaluated on the HSE targets.

One of our respondents pointed out that his company evaluates the overall environmental performance, emphasizing that individual evaluation of environmental performance will have a great contribution to the overall environmental performance.

We assess the global environmental performance, but we do not evaluate the individual environmental performance. I’m sure that if we integrate these individual components into the performance appraisal, it will certainly have an impact on the overall performance of the company.

4.6.4 Green discipline management

In this part, we aimed to explore HR managers’ opinions on the possibility of integrating environmental considerations into the company’s disciplinary system. All interviewees agreed that it is impossible to integrate environmental orientation into the disciplinary system. Broadly speaking, a negative and unfavorable judgment was expressed by all interviewees.

You have to think first, does the sanction exist in the labor code? Is the fault sanctionable? There are things that are interesting in the literature, but they aren’t feasible. We don’t even have the culture of CO2 emissions, of buying a green car. So, it is not possible to be pioneer in green when we don’t even have the base and the mindset required.

The environmental component is not included in the disciplinary system, because when we talk about discipline, the regulatory code is the reference, we talk here about the labor code and the civil service code. We already have articles on serious professional misconduct. So even if you notice that an employee does not respect an environmental criterion on the worksite, you cannot punish him because you don’t have the required authority.

Managing green discipline is not doable according to our respondents because there is a regulatory system to be followed. In fact, companies do not have the power to punish employees who violate green conduct because environmental misconduct does not exist in the civil service code and the labor code.

Besides, one of our respondents thinks that green discipline management is a severe and extremely strict practice. Thus, conducting green change in the company requires motivation and involvement practices. For our respondent, punitive system may create resistance to change.

For the employee to respect the environment and to have this green conscience and spirit, it is not necessary to behave with him with a punitive or forceful approach. Because this concept must be included in all softness, if not, there would be a resistance to change. Instead of having a disciplinary system, it is better to implement initiatives to involve instead of forcing.

4.6.5 Green health and safety

In this part, we aimed to assess, on the one hand, the extent to which the surveyed companies have a green workplace that complies with environmental standards and to list the different initiatives that are in place, on the other hand.

The environmental aspect of the administrative departments includes paper, toner, and batteries, so we identify the processes that have an impact on environment in each activity. We have also signed agreements with organizations to collect waste.

We have carried out a Carbon Audit to assess the impact of our company on the environment. We have eliminated a polluting foundry activity for several reasons, especially the environmental aspect. We also worked on optimizing water, energy, and electricity consumption and switching off lights. Finally, we have set up a cartridge and toner recycling system and a tree planting program.

In our context, the initiatives that have been put in place are diverse, including recycling of paper and toners; carbon footprint; suppression of polluting activities; tree planting; optimization of water and energy consumption. However, e-work initiatives such as web and teleconferencing, virtual job interviews, telecommuting, e-learning, etc., weren’t implemented.

Accordingly, it is time for HR managers to consider teleworking and strike a balance between virtual and in-person work so that both employees and employers benefit from a wholesome environment.

4.6.6 Green involvement and participation

Giving employees the necessary independence helps to generate creative solutions, to solve environmental problems, and to invest the best of their abilities [17]. In this category, we tried to understand whether organizations gather and treat employee suggestions on the environmental aspect. We also tried to shed light on the initiatives put in place by the surveyed companies to involve employees in ecology. Two respondents highlighted initiatives that have been put in place in this regard.

We are currently working on the development of a new production unit. We have launched a small game with a symbolic prize. We have collected suggestions in order to find the best solutions that can be implemented in this unit with two conditions: respect for the environment and innovation.

There are two initiatives that have been launched in this respect. The first is to give all employees the right to make proposals in all areas, including the environment, and there is a unit that deals with these suggestions. The second initiative was launched to involve employees in voluntary work, whether it be environmental, cultural, sporting, or agricultural. Every employee is entitled to a 30-day paid leave to participate in cooperative activities of his choice.

Accordingly, the first company has introduced a game in a new production unit to gather employees’ innovative and environmentally friendly suggestions. Thus, this initiative would allow employees to not only identify problems but also suggest solutions. The second company has implemented two initiatives: the first one is a formal program to gather suggestions. The second initiative is to encourage volunteering and contribute to local community. Thus, environmental volunteering may promote employees to be more active in environmental programs and concerned of environmental degradation.

4.6.7 Green compensation

In this category, we aimed to identify the opinion of the HR managers on green rewards, two respondents showed their interest.

The compensation system must also incorporate incentives for environmental protection. While talking about the assessment of environmental performance, we must also talk about the reward system. In my opinion, it is an important practice.

To implement an environmental management system, it is necessary to have rewards, and if there are no rewards, I don’t think EMS will have very convincing results and it will be forgotten and unimportant. But when the company includes the incentive part, the employee suddenly becomes interested in the subject.

According to our respondents, rewards are important tools to increase employee’s motivation toward environmental aspects. Without rewards, employees won’t give much attention to the environment. Thus, this practice may support and encourage the employees to give ultimate environmental performance.

Additionally, our respondent emphasized that performance appraisal needs to be supported by rewards. Therefore, to increase employee’s engagement toward the corporate goals, companies need to implement a green reward program in order to compensate employee’s environmental efforts performance.

Table 2 represents the key findings of this paper.

Topics	Key findings
Awareness	Nonawareness of GHRM and non-familiarity of the term.
Relationship between environ. concern and HRM	Implementation of certain practices to comply with the certification requirements.	Training programs to raise environmental awareness among employees in compliance with the standard.
		Job descriptions to evaluate environmental risk in order to fulfil the standard requirements.
	Occasional relationship, there is no GHRM that include environmental concern permanently.
Perceived importance of GHRM	Not important	The Why question of GHRM. Thus, there is an ambiguity about its value and importance.
		Companies already involve employees to environmental preservation with no need for GHRM.
	Important	If sustainable development is the cornerstone of the company’s strategy, GHRM will be a reflection of company’s efforts to preserve the environment.
		GHRM is a formalization of the company’s attempt to involve employees in environmental protection.
Challenges	Lack of in-depth knowledge of GHRM.
	Nonexistence of an operational plan and a well-designed guideline.
	Difficulty to design a reliable measure of environmental performance.
Requirements	Prove the benefits of GHRM in Morocco specifically.
	Emphasize the impact of GHRM on mindset, culture, responsibility, commitment and value change.
	Set up a GHRM’s action plan with a reporting for monitoring and analysis as well as performance indicators.
Green recruitment	Extensive use of E-recruitment and non-feasibility of assessing candidates’ environmental awareness.
	Uselessness of including environmental concern in the recruitment of profiles who are not concerned with the environmental goals.
	The difficulty of finding green profiles.
	Unfairness of judging candidates on skills, knowledge or values that they have not acquired or practiced at school.
	Not a priority for recruiters.
Green training	Not important	Ecology is mindset and a culture, not a skill to be developed in training programs.
	Important	The introduction of every new system must be followed by training on its key requirements.
		Raising employees’ awareness of the behaviors to be displayed is crucial in some activities.
Green performance appraisal	Assessment of High-risk activities.
	Assessment of HSE engineers’ performance.
	Assessment of the overall company environmental performance.
Green discipline	Companies do not have the power to punish employees who violate green conduct.
	Environmental misconduct does not exist in the civil service code and the labor code.
	Green discipline is a rough practice that may engender resistance to change.
Green health and safety	Companies have an environmentally friendly workplace. However, e-work isn’t implemented.
Green involvement	Green suggestions.
	Encouragement for environmental volunteering.
Green compensation	Without rewards, environmental programs will not be considered by employees.
	Performance appraisal should absolutely be followed by rewards.

Table 2.

Key findings.

5. Discussion

5.1 Awareness

Several research studies were conducted to assess GHRM awareness among HR managers. Findings were diverse. In India, Mathur and Soni [18] found that in Indian manufacturing companies, the majority of participants were not aware of GHRM and have never heard of it. However, in [64], the majority of Indian IT professionals were aware of this process.

In Bangladesh, Almamun [1] affirms that Bangladeshi HR managers from different industries are aware of GHRM, However, proper green HR activities are not yet practiced in the organization. In the same vein, Uddin [65] found that the majority of Bank commercials in Bangladesh are ware of GHRM and believe that it helps the organization indirectly by improving its image as a green organization.

Moreover, In Egypt, Farid [60] found that HR managers in hotels were aware enough and familiar with the GHRM concept. While Tsymbaliuk et al. [66] found that GHRM practices have not become widespread in Ukraine.

These research studies oppose our findings in which all our respondents without exception have never heard of this construct. Indeed, GHRM is not a common and well-known process at the surveyed companies and has not earned yet the proper attention it deserves.

Although GHRM has proven its relevance and benefits in several environmental aspects and is increasingly gaining researchers’ and practitioners’ attention in the European and Asian context [38]. The nonfamiliarity of the concept by Moroccan HR managers could hinder its implementation. Indeed, if HR managers are not convinced, persuaded, and confident of the importance of their involvement in greening, they can never undertake a green revolution within the department. Thus, since GHRM can only be initiated and implemented with the support of senior managers [21], this process needs more campaigns to promote and communicate the importance of green practices to HR managers. Thus, all managers must have sufficient amount knowledge in greening without which, it is impossible to deploy green policies in their departments [60].

5.2 Connection

According to Opatha and Arulrajah [24], in order to achieve green contributions and environmental performance from employees, it is essential for all HRM practices to be adapted to be green or modified to ensure green outputs. However, most of our interviewees pointed out that there are only few practices required by ISO14001 certification. From this perspective, the HRM function according to our respondents is considered as a momentary support function to the implementation of environmental management system (EMS).

Our findings are in line with those found by Saifuddin et al. [32], who observed that HR managers implement green HR policies and strategies because their internal policies are based on the environmental standards. Thus, GHRM implementation is limited to practices required by IS014001 certification.

Additionally, this limited coverage of GHRMP can be explained also by the lack of knowledge of GHRM by all our interviewees. By introducing GHRM and its practices, HRDs realized that they are implementing some GHRMP such as green training and green job descriptions, without knowing that they are actually, GHRM practices. Therefore, it is the concept of GHRM that is not overly common and the level of refinement and perfection of the practices that has not yet been achieved.

5.3 Perceived importance

Concerning the perceived importance of GHRM, we found that there is a debate on this process significance. Our respondents emphasized an important question that should be proven in future studies, it is the WHY question of GHRM. According to HR managers, since they have green initiatives that are working well, why would they implement GHRM. Thus, the WHY question of GHRM refers to the need to prove the value and importance of GHRM.

According to Ullah [41], raising awareness on GHRM’s importance could be achieved by proving that the success of environmental systems is crowned by its alignment with other corporate strategies. Thus, it is suggested to demonstrate the importance of having a policy with a package of interrelated and synergistic practices where the impact of each practice is enhanced when the others are also implemented [29]. As a result, GHRM will reflect the environmental efforts that the company redeploys by having a goal-oriented HR policy.

On the other hand, some of our respondents considered GHRM as an effective tool to enhance employee’s involvement toward environment. According to them, GHRM is a level of refinement, perfection, and formalization of the corporate green efforts toward a well-defined policy.

In summary, since GHRM is an understudied field in Morocco [38], it has become important to demonstrate its importance in the Moroccan context in order to limit this debate and uncertainty related to its relevance and importance.

5.4 Challenges

Based on our findings, the lack of knowledge on GHRM is the first challenge that has to be overcome. This finding is consistent with past studies, according to Fayyazi et al, [61], the lack of knowledge could be considered as the main challenge related to GHRM implementation. In the same vein, Mtembu [19] reported that there is a lack of knowledge of GHRM in the African continent. This lack of knowledge is a major barrier to successful EMS implementation [62], which was also highlighted by Shukla [34], who stated that the lack of awareness is considered as the biggest challenge to bring GHRM into practice.

If managers do not have a clear vision of GHRM, they will not embrace the responsibility of implementing it [61]. Therefore, the involvement of HR department in environmental management should be encouraged through appropriate communication and awareness raising.

The second challenge that was outlined is the nonexistence of an operational plan of GHRM. In this regard, Janaki et al, [8] affirm that the fundamental problem for organizations does not lie in the strategy formulation phase, the problems often emerge during operationalization. Indeed, the operationalization of GHRM and its decomposition into clear lines and concrete practices are a challenging task that needs to be addressed. This challenge was also outlined by Al-Rommedy [36], who noted that there isn’t a comprehensive design for GHRM implementation. Indeed, if there is no comprehensive plan that defines the guidelines for GHRM and its operational plan, there will be no commitment to its implementation [61]. As stated by Dhingra, [64], most managers lack the knowledge of GHRM practical application.

The third challenge that was highlighted is the difficulty to create a reliable assessment of environmental performance. Our results corroborate those found by Renwick et al, [29], who pointed out that environmental performance management presents a challenge related to the measurement of green performance in different departments/units of the organization. Therefore, the incentives that could be linked to unreliable and unfair measurement of environmental performance are potentially conflictive and could compromise the organizational climate [6].

Similarly, Saeed et al. [31] affirm that there is a need to create performance indicators for all employees that include environmental responsibility, environmental incidents, car emissions, etc. To do this, it would be appropriate to address this challenge by focusing on assessing the risks associated with each department, section, or production unit. Then decide on actions to be taken to monitor environmental performance, ecological footprint, and pro-environmental behaviors.

5.5 Requirements

GHRM requirements may emphasize what needs to be proven and improved to implement GHRM in companies. The first requirement that was outlined is to prove GHRM benefits in terms of values, awareness, culture, responsibility, and commitment.

Contemporary literature on values has emphasized the importance of individual values in explaining attitudes and behaviors [59]. Therefore, demonstrating the impact of GHRM on employees’ green values is of paramount importance. From this perspective, if the employee’s green values are in line with those of the organization, it is expected that the employee will be more likely to adopt environmentally friendly behaviors in the workplace. Chaudhary [44] states that GHRM reflects the environmental values of the organization, influences the environmental values of the employees, and shapes their green behavior. In this regard, employees can become “environmental activists” within the organization by absorbing organizational pro-environmental values [67]. Despite the previous studies that have proven the importance of GHRM in shaping employees’ green values, none of those studies have been conducted in Morocco.

In addition, our respondent highlights the importance of proving the impact of GHRM on employees’ environmental awareness. Al-Ghazali and Afsar [40] found that involvement in environmental actions requires a certain degree of environmental knowledge and awareness. Therefore, employees with a high level of environmental awareness and concern may feel a stronger moral obligation to voluntarily carry out environmental actions and initiatives [68]. Thus, GHRM practices have the ability to raise employees’ green/environmental awareness and shape their behaviors to develop pro-environmental attitudes in their personal and professional lives [31]. However, these findings need to be expanded to the Moroccan context.

The second requirement that was highlighted is to create an action plan of GHRM. Consistent with Fayyazi et al [61], the lack of a comprehensive plan for implementing GHRM creates ambiguity. Hence, there is a need to create an operational plan with specific actions to implement, and thus, so that managers become more aware of the actions to be undertaken and policies that need to be modified and oriented to be green. Hence, the operationalization of various GHRMPs and development of valid and reliable indicators are a serious requirement [31]. Thus, to commit to integrating environmental management into multiple levels of HR policies, there is a need to concretize the policy into action.

5.6 GHMRP

5.6.1 Green recruitment and selection

Despite previous research studies that highlight the need of hiring employees with a passion to preserve the environment [20], our findings emphasize that none of the respondents consider implementing this practice.

Green recruitment and selection are not achievable because the education system in Morocco does not focus on educating students in schools and universities on how to be environmentally friendly citizens. In other words, the academic programs and extracurricular activities in schools and universities do not take into account issues of environmental protection and resource sustainability. Therefore, recruiting candidates on the basis of environmental criteria does not seem adequate in the Moroccan context at the moment, efforts should be redeployed to use the educational system as a tool to raise the green awareness of students who will be employees in the future.

In the same vein, Anwar [69] states that even though universities emit relatively less pollution than companies, they bear a considerable responsibility for raising awareness and educating current and future generations about the importance of pro-environmental behavior, which was also posited by Almamun [1], who states that universities should introduce greening in their syllabus. Thus, education may be considered as driving force toward a sustainable future.

Similarly, Jabbour [5] states it is impossible to include environmental concerns as a selection criterion in the recruitment process. As mentioned by our respondents, green recruitment can only be implemented if environmental protection is embedded in the country’s culture and education system, but as long as this condition is not met, green recruitment could be labeled as discriminatory.

Additionally, green recruitment is not an interesting practice because assessing environmental awareness is not recruiters’ priority. Our findings corroborate those of Bombiak and Marciniuk-Kluska, [48] where the Polish managers considered the recruitment candidates with ecological knowledge and skills to be difficult. Thus, the assessment of candidates’ ecological skills during the recruitment process was not appreciated.

In summary, the recruitment of environmentally conscious candidates seems incompatible for several reasons, the Moroccan educational system does not include environmental protection in its curricula, the country does not have a national ecological culture shared by all citizens, the recruiter’s priorities do not allow him/her to prioritize the environmental concerns of the candidates, and finally, the difficulty of finding environmentally friendly profiles.

5.6.2 Green training and development

Environmental training is implemented by all the companies of our sample, stating that on the one hand this practice is very important to the development of the required EMS skills, and on the other hand, the need to raise awareness of any new process or implemented system. Only one respondent was not interested in this practice, stating that environmental protection is a mindset and culture rather than a skill to be acquired.

Several research studies highlighted the importance of green training. For instance, Yong et al, [51] recognized that training plays a key role in developing the environmental knowledge, raising environmental awareness, motivating creativity for green innovation, strengthening green commitment, and improving environmental performance. Indeed, companies need to enhance the knowledge and skills of employees in order to encourage them to actively participate in environmental protection activities [4].

Additionally, the result advocates that the difficulty to raise awareness and involve older workers is a major challenge. Our findings are in line with Guerci and Carollo, [63] who found that young people are more sensitive to environmental plans while older workers, because of age and narrow-mindedness, consider environmental plans unnecessary. On the other hand, our results are in contrast with those reported by Wiernik et al., [70], who found that employee age had no effect on the degree of embracing green behaviors and that older employees embraced green practices and gained broad experience more than younger employees.

In a proactive approach against older people’s resistance, companies use environmental selection criteria by mainly asking older people about their own attitude toward sustainability, to avoid older people who are unwilling to advance the green agenda and do not believe in it [15].

5.6.3 Green performance appraisal

Yong et al, [51] point out that without a formal performance assessment process, discipline will be weakened and employees’ ability to improve may be hindered. Therefore, companies need to create environmental benchmarks at the performance appraisal system for all employees to keep track of noncompliance or non-achievement of environmental goals [33]. However, our respondents pointed out that only HSE engineers and high environmental risk positions are being evaluated on this aspect. In contrast, administrative positions are not appraised on this aspect. Therefore, the assessment of the environmental performance of a specific category could limit the commitment of all staff is the EMS. The literature highlights the need to involve all employees including administrative positions to sustain good environmental performance, support the company’s core values, and build green intellectual capital [10].

Similar to Mathur and Soni [18], not all companies include the environmental performance of employees at all levels. In our case, there are companies that set goals and evaluate the environmental performance of higher environmental risk activities, while others assess the overall environmental footprint of the company’s activity. Thus, an environmental assessment of all activities is needed.

5.6.4 Green discipline management

Our findings emphasized that it is not possible to integrate a disciplinary sanction against employees who do not respect the environmental rules in the company. This is due to the legal system that must be followed, which already defines the serious offences that can be punished. Therefore, even if there is a breach of the rules, the companies do not have the necessary power to sanction. Thus, the governing environmental laws do not provide explicit powers of inspection and enforcement to companies. Instead, companies try to sensitize, motivate, and involve rather than punish. Therefore, despite progress made, the environmental legal framework remains underdeveloped and still inconsistent.

In response to legal inconsistency, Jyoti [11] emphasizes that the legal initiative that companies can undertake in the long-term is to guarantee that ecological commitments are anchored by including provisos in staff contracts, i.e., that ecologically threatening conduct may comprise a rupture of agreement and consequently a conceivable reason for expulsion. In the same line, Almamun [1] states that in Bangladesh, government should incorporate GHRM in labor law as well as promote the organizations who practice it.

Besides, this practice is not doable as it is considered as a harsh practice that will make employee involvement more difficult, which was also highlighted by Guerci and Carollo, [63], who considered that a system of control and sanctions does not assure that the workforce is truly committed to environmental actions, it only reduces deviant behavior.

Furthermore, the management of green discipline is not appreciated because companies fear employee resistance to change. Indeed, to bring in a new system, companies prefer to involve employees instead of punishing them.

5.6.5 Green health and safety

Green management is a strategic activity of the company that allows it to reduce waste, save energy, promote environmental health while preventing damage to the environment [71]. Thus, the provision of green workplace for all employees is the central function of green health and safety management [33]. The Moroccan ISO14001 certified companies set many initiatives such as using daylight, conducting green audits, recycling, reusing, planting, and optimizing water and electricity.

In this regard, companies have paid much attention to employees’ health and safety. However, video conferencing and online work were not practiced. Thus, companies need more sensitizing on the benefits of this work modality. Particularly, as the teleworking revolution helps employees and organizations in many ways. Not only does it reduce the operational costs of the organization through reduced absenteeism and transport costs, but it has also become a retention tool where employees are relieved of nerve-wracking commutes and are able to balance work and life [9].

5.6.6 Green involvement and participation

Increasing employee interest through green involvement and empowerment by creating suggestion systems for innovative environmental ideas and solutions is of paramount importance [17]. Nisar [20] states that companies are required to provide opportunities for their employees to implement what they have learned during training programs, which will result in improved environmental skills, knowledge, abilities, and pro-environmental behaviors.

Nevertheless, this practice was not very common at the surveyed companies. Only two companies out of the four gave all employees the opportunity to actively participate in proposing innovative and environmentally friendly ideas. Indeed, it is necessary to allow employees to participate in regular meetings to solve environmental problems and to encourage them to introduce environmentally friendly ideas and initiatives. Thus, implementing green involvement practices may boost employee’s confidence and self-esteem to actively participate in the corporate green goals.

5.6.7 Green compensation

The implementation of a green reward system is seen as a valuable tool to increase employee motivation and commitment to the environment. These rewards can be financial or nonfinancial, with the aim of encouraging high performers to continue and pushing the rest to become more environmentally active and involved. Despite the literature pointing out that rewards can be valuable [2, 3, 4, 46], none of the surveyed companies use a green reward system to encourage pro-environmental behavior among employees.

The development of recognition and reward programs to encourage employees to be environmentally active is a fundamental practice of GHRM. Green incentives and rewards are often recognized as the most powerful way to link organizational interests with employee interests [35]. Indeed, the use of this practice can have a positive impact on employees’ motivation to be environmentally responsible [54], which further increase the need to promote this practice in Moroccan companies.

6. Conclusion

Recent years have shown a growing scientific interest in the role of HRM in environmental management. A literature review provides evidence that GHRM brings tangible benefits to the company rather than simply adding luster to the brand and reputation. Indeed, it is time for HRM department to embrace the green agenda alongside the scattered initiatives based on environmental protection.

This study reveals that GHRM is still at a primitive stage in Moroccan ISO14001 certified companies. Although the selected companies practice many green initiatives, they have not yet reached the level of detail, sophistication, and progress discussed in the literature. Indeed, although GHRM is a trend in other countries, it is not well known in Morocco. The lack of knowledge of this process could limit its implementation, hence a wide promotion of GHRM is needed to overcome this challenge.

Overall, the implementation of GHRM practices is moderate. The majority of the initiatives undertaken refer to the certification requirements, namely green job design and analysis, green training, and green health and safety management. Two companies are the exception in implementing green empowerment initiatives.

Our research work responds to the call of researchers who have recently recognized the importance of conducting GHRM exploratory qualitative studies [7, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 41, 42, 47, 49, 52, 56, 65, 66, 70, 71] in the African context [38, 72]. To our knowledge, this is the first research work that studies this concept in Moroccan firms. Consequently, this study contributes to a better understanding of GHRM through HR managers’ perceptions from various Moroccan companies. Although the findings cannot be generalized, given its exploratory nature, we believe that this work can be considered as an opener for future research. Taking this further, we look forward to seeing more research on this topic in the near future.

6.1 Theoretical and managerial implications

The finding of this study offers several implications for theory and practice. From a theoretical perspective, as GHRM is an emerging research field, there are limited studies in developing countries such as Morocco that offer empirical evidence. Hence, this research contributed to the literature by enhancing the understanding of GHRM in Morocco. Additionally, to the best knowledge of the researchers, prior studies on the subject matter have focused merely on quantitative field studies. Thus, the current study has been one of the limited qualitative studies that aims to highlight the GHRM’s perception from the experiences of HR managers and directors. Besides, through qualitative approach, the present paper added originating themes to previous literature, which previous studies have not yet established. Finally, our framework can be a starting point for analyzing GHRM as this paper also highlights future directions from HR managers perspective.

From a practical perspective, our discoveries give HR professionals a more profound comprehension of GHRM, its practices, importance, requirement as well as the main challenges that may hinder this process implementation. Consequently, findings may provide HR managers with a better idea of the solutions and the possible factors that may logically solve the situation of the newness of GHRM. Thus, being able to forecast and predict future events helps HR managers to predict how to achieve the environmental goals and drive a more efficient green change through HRM process.

Besides, this paper contributes to practitioners within the field of HRM with insights to how organizational strategies and practices can be designed and developed to prevent the negative effects on the environment, which may further boost up the willingness of HR managers to build interest in GHRM and endeavor to set up an environmentally policy to enhance the commitment of all company’s departments.

6.2 Limitations and future directions

As is the case with most research, our study has limitations, which are also opportunities for future research. This research is a qualitative exploratory study in four IS014001 companies in Morocco. Although the results provide a deep understanding on GHRM perception by HRM and HRD, the findings cannot be considered representative of the ISO14001 certified companies as a whole. Thus, the study recommends future studies to investigate the same topic in other companies, thus potentially able to provide richer and diverse findings. Further, our sample was specially selected because of the company’s environmental concern. Thus, future research could examine whether HRM and HRD in non-green organizations have the same perception of GHRM or do not consider its implementation.

Additionally, this exploratory study was based on gathering information from only seven HR managers and, again, the limited number of participants means that the findings cannot be generalized. Besides, our interviewees didn’t know GHRM, thus, the results may have been affected by differences in respondents’ understanding of the topic.

In addition to the above limitations along with their related opportunities for future research, other avenues for further research can be proposed. We invite future research to conduct longitudinal studies to track the evolution of environmental performance, environmental awareness, green values, and EMS in organizations that are introducing GHRMP, with the aim of encouraging organizations to devote time, budget, and human resources to GHRM implementation.

Also, many HR managers seem to be doubtful about the importance of GHRM. Thus, future research can also focus on the “why” question of GHRM by emphasizing its importance in creating green businesses. Besides, as most of GHRM literature largely focuses on the consequences of GHRM [38]. It is suggested that future research should also investigate the determinants and what motivate companies to implement GHRM, which may also respond to HR managers question “Why implementing GHRM?”.

Additional research studies may also emphasize the impact of green training on attitudes, values, and behaviors, as environmental awareness is considered by some as a posture and not a skill to be acquired.

It is also recommended to focus on the awareness and behavioral change of older workers, we invite future research to focus on this aspect by investigating the impact of awareness raising of Generation X on their behavior, values, identification, and commitment to environmental policy. Moreover, a factor that is worth analyzing is local culture and educational system that are likely to play an important role in implementing GHRM.

Finally, HR professionals not only need to be certain that they have all the necessary competencies for using GHRM, but they must also be able to measure its effectiveness and consequences. Thus, it would be useful to develop a practical guide with clear policies that integrates all the GHRMP with concrete aspects to implement.