Can Sustainable HRM Reduce Work-Related Stress, Work-Family Conflict, and Burnout?

Abstract

The effect of human resource management (HRM) on organizations and human resources is mainly explained by the perspective of mutual gain or that of conflicting outcomes. Recently, sustainable HRM is introduced as a perspective suggesting that HRM can benefit both organizations and individuals. However, sustainable HRM is still at an emerging phase. The paper defines the concept of sustainable HRM and explores the principles of sustainable HRM arguing that sustainable HRM allows reducing the negative impact of HRM on employees. Moreover, sustainable HRM fosters employee engagement in contributing to employees’ well-being. The empirical findings suggest that when the principles of sustainable HRM are more clearly expressed in the organizations, employees experience less work-related stress, work-family conflict, and burnout.

Keywords:

• Employee engagement
• sustainable HRM
• work-related stress
• burnout
• work-family conflict
• negative HRM impact
• principles of sustainable HRM

Acknowledgments

The authors thank EIASM for organizing the Workshop for Strategic Human Resource Management that provided the opportunity to engage in this discussion. We also thank the French Investissements d'Avenir (ANR-11-IDEX-0003/Labex Ecodec/ANR-11-LABX-0047) for funding our working meetings to produce this article. Additionally, we thank HEC Paris School of Management and NEOMA Business School for their support of our research.