AN OVERVIEW OF GREEN HRM PRACTICES AMONG SMEs IN SAUDI ARABIA

Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) has emerged as the driving force for businesses in the 21st century, as it is practiced by many progressive organizations globally. GHRM is considered as a source that is capable of gaining sustainable competitive advantage. For SMEs, it will not only provide impetus to growth but also a path towards sustainability. The current study intends to identify the most relevant aspects of GHRM, considered important by SMEs. Moreover, the study also intends to examine what should be the focal area among SMEs from the perspective of GHRM. The study is significant due to the fact that most SMEs lacks formal and full-fledged HRM department/activities due to financial and size constraints. The current study is grounded on the methodology of a multi-criteria decisionmaking approach, as without a scientific background and analogy, a sound decision making is not feasible. The current study utilises the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), a multi-criteria decision making tool to support the objectives of the study. The data for the study was collected from the human resource managers/owners of facility management companies, based in Riyadh region of Saudi Arabia. Based on the results derived from analysis, the study establish the analogy that facility management SMEs in Saudi Arabia are least concerned about the “Green HR Acquisition” but moderately concerned about “Green HR orientation, Training and development”, and are highly concerned about “Retaining highly competent employees in green HR practices”. The implication of the study will be useful for mangers/owner of SMEs, and academicians.


Introduction
Rapid growth after the industrial revolution has caused various environmental problems like climate change, resources depletion, decrease of biodiversity and other challenges to worldwide ecosystem integrity (Sulphey & Safeer, 2017). Destruction of natural resources, resulting from mass production also posed immense challenge to mankind (Opatha & Arulrajah, 2014;Chehabeddine, & Tvaronavičienė, 2020). This imposes a responsibility on global organizations to pursue environment friendly strategies to protect natural environment and follow sustainable business practices to avoid further damage to nature. Similarly, employees and other stake-holders also expect environmentally responsible behavior from corporations (Boiral et al., 2015;Rajnoha et al., 2019;Borimdesouza et al., 2019). It is now being widely recognized and emphasized that for sustainable competitive advantage, environmental management must be included as an integral part of management strategies (Brío et al., 2007). According to Haddock-Millar, et al. (2016) sustainable development of any organization depends on how well environmental functions are aligned with the organizational performance.
Organizational performance along with other factors depends upon the effective and efficient utilization of resources. Human resources, which form the human capital for companies are considered as the source of competitive advantage. An organization could inculcate the environmental aspects in the form of green policies that lays the foundation of organization cultural change process (Arulrajah et al., 2015). The human resources department need to motivate employees in the adaptation of organizational green initiatives (Priya et al., 2014). Emphasis to the green initiatives and value to environmental protection practices forms the concept of Green Human Resource Management (GHRM). GHRM contributes towards the successful strategic implications of environment management practices (Renwick, et al. 2013). Competent human capital along with shared perception of sustainability help in the strategic positioning of the organization (Jabbour et al., 2010, Yong & Yusliza, 2016. Researchers across the Globe have studied GHRM practices in distinctive contexts and cultures. For example, Jabbour et al. (2010) conducted research on Branzilian manufacturing industries. Longoni et al., (2016) examined influence of GHRM of financial performance of organization in their study of various supply chain managers across different industries in Italy. Gholami et al (2016) et al., studied the impact of GHRM on sustainability of sports center in Malaysia. Masri and Jaaron (2017) tested impact of GHRM practices on environmental performance of Palestinian Manufacturing organizations. Mishra (2017) studied the status of GHRM in Indian manufacturing sector. Gupta (2018) analyzed the performance of different manufacturing organization in Indian context. Chaudhary (2019) studied the GHRM practices implication in Indian automobile Industry. Islam et al., (2019) examined the challenges of GHRM implication in ready-made garments factories in Bangladesh. Raut et al., (2020) identified most significant indicator of GHRM in their study of automotive service sector in India. Yong et al., (2019) conducted review of GHRM research from the period of 2007 to 2019, they also not found any GHRM research conducted in SMEs context globally.
It is highly evident that GHRM has been explored and tested upon by researchers across the globe, industry, contexts and cultures. It is practiced by many corporates in Arab world, Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. However, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) still remains indifferent by GHRM practices. The current study explores the GHRM practices among SMEs in Saudi Arabia. With the focus group and interview data from SME's owners and managers this study has also priorities the GHRM practices among SMEs.

Theoretical background
Gaining and maintaining the sustainable competitive advantage by adhering to the environmental norms has been a major concern for organizations in the current arena (Paille et al., 2014). The term GHRM involves different HRM policies and practices in that manner it can be aligned with environment and sustainability (Renwick et al., 2008(Renwick et al., , 2013Mishra 2017;Longoni et al., 2016;Haddock-Millar et al., 2016;Nejati et al., 2017;Pham et al., 2019). According to Jackson et al, (2011) GHRM uses the HRM practices in a way that environmental management development among organization could be achieved in best possible manner. The primary motive of GHRM is to develop employee skills, knowledge and change the behavior to accomplish organizational sustainable goals (Renwick, et al. 2013). GHRM is considered as the culmination of green environmental practices to the basic functional structure of HRM (Arulrajah et al., 2015). The basic HRM functions usually resolves around three major activities namely, human resources' acquisitions, human resources development and retaining the competent employees (Opatha, 2013). Organizations create their human capital by effectively executing these basic functions. Human capital has always been a great source of competitive advantage. With a blend of green organizational practices, the GHRM has emerged as the means to achieve sustainability (Yong et al, 2020). There are various studies available in literature which elaborate these features in details. Table 1 indicates the different dimensions of GHRM which have been used by different authors in their studies.  (2013)  On the basis of existing literature, and for convenience & suitability to the nature of the present study, the dimensions have been reduced to basics GRHM criterion and model. The categorization utilized in the study is confined to three major functions/categories of GHRM namely "Green HR Acquisition", "Green HR orientation, training & development" and "Retaining highly competent employees in green HR practices". The subsequent paragraphs take an exploratory and critical overview of these dimensions.

Green HR Acquisition
Green Human Resource acquisition includes all activities related to green talent acquisition process. Top management should make effective strategic plan for talent management to improve the performance of organizations . The major activities available in literature which can be categorized under green HR acquisition includes, green human resource planning, green job analysis, green job description, green job specification, green recruitment and green selection.

Green Human Resource Planning (GHRP)
Human Resource Planning (HRP) is the process of deciding in advance number of personnel required to meet the future demand of company as per predetermined objectives of company (Aswathappa, 2008). HRP integrate with organizational planning to ensure the availability of right type of employee in the right numbers (Sayyadain, 2004) GHRP could be the first step towards the GHRM practices implementation. GHRP identifies the appropriate number and type of employees required as per stated green or environmental objectives of the company (Opatha, 2013;Jackson et al., 2011). To meet the corporate environmental management goals organization require special skills of employees for imminent job position. GHRP accomplishes this obligation in a planned manner (Arulrajah et al., 2015). To maintain the balance between supply and demand of employees this planning process should be flexible in accordance with future changing environmental orientations (Siyambalapitiya et al., 2018).

Green Job Analysis
Job analysis is the process which determines job duties, responsibilities and specifies characteristics of an individual for a particular organizational position (Dessler & Tan, 2006). Job analysis generates necessary details for writing Job description and Job specification (Shah, 2019). Green Job Analysis provides the environment related duties and task of a job position and also specifies the technical abilities of a person for performing environment related task. Therefore, it is essential for effective green recruitment that job description and job specification should cover environment related issues, expected roles, duties and other technical requirements appropriately (Renwick et. al, 2013;Shah, 2019).

Green Job description
A green Job description is a written statement about role, task and responsibilities of a green job what an employee is supposed to perform in implication of environmental management (Renwick, et al. 2008(Renwick, et al. , 2013. As mentioned by Shah (2019), an organization has both environmental and societal responsibilities to protect environment that's why companies now a days includes at least one task related to environmental management in job descriptions. Therefore a green job description includes the environmental commitment of employees apart from routine duties. (Jabbour et al., 2010;Gupta, 2018).

Green Job specification
Job description provides details of the job while job specification highlights human traits and required experience to perform a job effectively. Green job specification is the process of mapping the required level of competencies and qualification to perform environment related jobs (Siyambalapitiya et al., 2018;Faisal & Sulphey, 2018 green job specification ensure that new employees will be according to the predetermined need of the job and will be fit in environmental strategies of the organization (Phillips, 2007;Stringer, 2009).

Green Recruitment
Green recruitment and selection is the most significant phase of implementing GHRM practices in organization. Many researchers (Renwick et al., 2013;Yusoff & Nejati, 2019;Islam et al, 2019;Saeed et al., 2019) hold the similar view on green recruitment. Arulrajah et al., (2015) argued that proactive companies about the environment develop their own system and policies as they require employees according to their planned framework. These types of companies, first focus on green recruitment, second develop their existing workforce by imparting training and awareness about the environment. For effective green recruitment the job description and job specification should focus on environmental aspects and company's green expectations from future employees (Wehrmeyer, 1996;Mandip, 2012;Renwick et al., 2013). Therefore, recruitment advertisements need to mention clearly the environmental related agenda of the organization (Crosbie & Knight, 1995;Wehrmeyer, 1996). By this way only potentially talented candidates will be attracted towards the organization and will apply for vacant positions (Greening and Turban, 2000). Showcasing organization's environmental accomplishment through own website, different web portals and other public facing channels leads to "employer branding". Furthermore, this amicable behavior with environment gives an edge to organization and fascinate environmental aware applicants (Phillips, 2007;Stringer, 2009;Jackson et al., 2011;Guerci et al., 2016).

Green Selection
In this phase, organization needs to distinguish the green awareness of the applicant and ensure whether the personality of the employees is well aligned with the organization environment related objectives (Tang et al, 2018;Saeed et al., 2019, Shah et al, 2019. According to Arulrajah et al., (2015) the environmental related selection criteria helps organization to select best environment friendly employees in order to meet organization' expectation as per predetermined job description. Therefore to hire most suitable employees the green selection criteria is based on the applicant knowledge, attitude about environment. Organizations need to examine applicant awareness and concern about environment during interview and evaluate them appropriately before the final selection (Crosbie and Knight, 1995;Wehrmeyer, 1996).

Green HR orientation, Training and development
A proper Orientation and training program amplify newly recruited employee towards organization and retain existing employees as well. Furthermore, it also helps in increasing employee productivity and establish long lasting relationship with organization. The Green HR orientation, Training and development program can be summarised into two elements namely "Green Induction" and "Training and development". Wehrmeyer (1996) describe that green induction program aim to make new employees aware about the organizational environmental culture in a proper manner. This program can be of two typesfirst the general induction, and second job specific induction. In the first program employees are given basic knowledge about policies of the organization related to environment. Some organizations arrange job specific induction program for new employees which cover each aspect of a particular job (Arulrajah et al., 2015;Yusliza et al, 2019). Many researchers opined that induction program must ensure that employees are aware of their environmental responsibilities and become familiar with organizational policies, culture as well (Mandip, 2012;Renwick et al, 2013;Al-Romeedy, 2019).

Green Training and development
Green training enhances skills, knowledge and develop sustainable behavior of employees by providing training about environment sustainability. (Zoogah, 2011;Gupta, 2018). According to North (1997) to change the attitude of the employees, organization should conduct seminar and environmental education workshops. Anthony (1993) states that environment related training needs analysis is the first step towards training the manpower. It ensures the required level of environmental knowledge needed by employees. After identification of training needs organization should design the training program for employees (Tang et al., 2017). According to Jabbour (2011) in order to attain environmental organizational objectives, green training is an effective system that provides more knowledge to employees about different aspects of environmental issues. It gives insight to them to deal with it properly. A green training program should not be for specific department, it should provide equal opportunity to develop skill, knowledge and awareness about environment to all categories of employees (Sammalisto and Brorson 2008). For the future needs of the organization, a well programmed job rotation needs to be implemented that can give more exposure to employees (Renwick et al., 2008).

Retaining highly competent employees in green HR practices
Human capital is the driving force of an organization, and competent employees play leading role in gaining the competitive advantage over others. Organization needs to take strategic initiatives in their GHRM practices to retain competent and talented workforce (Faisal et al., 2020). Therefore, organizations should provide suitable career development opportunities along with good work environment. By taking a cue from the existing literature, retainment of employees can be confined to three important pillars, namely "Green performance Management", "Green Reward system" and "Green employee relations."

Green performance Management
Green performance management system is key aspect of implementing the GHRM process (Gholami et al., 2016). An organization needs to judge separately the environment related performance of employees, and then the normal performance system to ensure the employees are on predetermined track. Companies usually prefer to have the environment performance standard, Environment Management Information Systems (EMIS) and environment audits to measure the environmental performance (Marcus and Fremeth, 2009;Renwick et al, 2013). According to Milliman and Clair (1996) EMIS should be integrated with the performance measurement system to evaluate the performance of employees rather than using it just as a reporting system. Saeed et al., (2019) discussed the usage of green performance indicator to specify the green criteria (environmental responsibilities, environmental incidents and communication of the green policies) in performance appraisal system.

Green Reward system
Green reward system is an integral part of GHRM system as it motivates employees who performed as per environment standards set by the organization (Jabbour et al., 2008;Ahmad 2015). Similarly, Organizational sustainability is highly dependent on the green reward system (Arulrajah et. al., 2015). This can be adopted in two forms, financial and non-financial. Some organization give financial rewards like monetary incentives, bonus and cash prizes for good environmental performance (Phillips, 2007;Jabbour et al., 2008;Tang et al., 2017). Crosbie and Knight (1995) mentioned that some companies review the salary of employees as a result of good environmental performance. On the other hand some companies give non-monetary rewards in form of awards, prizes, admiration and special recognition. Opatha (2013) mentioned that this type of extrinsic rewards also gives motivation to employees to perform better.

Green employee Relation
Employee relation refers to cordial relationship between employer and employee. Hormonal employee relations lead to high moral of employees that also increase the productivity, employee participation and employee involvement (Ahmad, 2015, Siyambalapitiya et al., 2018). Arulrajah et al., (2015) suggested that for the maintenance of green industrial relations unionized workforce participation is crucial as they play centralized role in implementation of green initiatives of the organization. Some companies offer a range of benefits like joint consultation and gain sharing with trade union to accomplish environmental objectives. The company should encourage employees to be the part of environment sustainability and their eco-friendly suggestions should be welcomed (Casler et al., 2010). Green employee relations includes actively involving employees in green suggestion schemes, allow them to work with green idea, encourage them to participate in problem solving circle and increase their participation in other green matters. Supervisor also supports employees in environment sustainability related issues (Renwick et al., 2008(Renwick et al., , 2013. Thus, in the background of above discussion it could be easily understood that the green initiatives from HRM perspectives might not fetch equal weight from stakeholders, specifically the top management of corporations. Moreover, Small and Medium enterprises (SMEs) are highly susceptible to these practices due to their financial constraints. Overall, GHRM practices and systems are not practiced among SMEs. They tend to focus more on certain area rather considering the entire practices. Medium size companies might adopt the whole GHRM processes, while for small and micro enterprises, it is always difficult to look for entire system to be established. The current study is an endeavor to understand the highly expedient practices among SMEs and rank them in terms of their prioritization. Therefore, the model presented in figure 1 could be proposed for the current study to tackle the intended objectives of current study.  From the figure 1 we can easily understood the theoretical framework of our study. Our aim is to identify the green HRM practices instrumental for sustainable competitive advantage. The objective can be further split into criterion for achieving the stated objectives. Each criterion has a series of distinct alternatives. Which form the stage three of our framework? The nature of the model aligns it into a hierarchy which can be understood by figure 1. Since, these criterion and alternatives are multiple, it create an ambiguous decision making scenario. Each criteria or alternative may not be equal in terms of importance to the objective. We need to shortlist the highly appropriate criteria and alternatives based upon their weighted score. A peer wise comparison is also needed to select the most appropriate criteria and alternative. The organic nature of current framework makes it highly appropriate for multicriteria hierarchy analysis tool. We assume that Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) as the highly appropriate tool for problems with such nature.

Research objective and methodology
The nature of the problem discussed in the current study suggests that it emerged as a multi-criteria decision. The study intends to know the most relevant aspects of GHRM, being given high importance among SMEs. Moreover, it is intended to know what should be the focal area among SMEs for GHRM perspectives. It attracts the attention because most of SMEs lacks a formal and full-fledged HRM department/activity due to financial and size constraints. Therefore, the current study is grounded on the methodology of a multi-criteria decision-making approach. As without a scientific background and analogy a sound decision making is not feasible.
Therefore, a multi-criteria decision making tool must be considered for the given problem. Analytical Hierarchy process (AHP) is a multi-criterion decision making tool used in complex decision making problems, where criterion are many or ambiguous. AHP is a logical multi-criterion decision making technique based on human psychology and mathematics (Pourshahbi et al., 2018). Traditionally, AHP methodology is considered as a five step process (Naushad & Sulhpey, 2020). The first step of AHP is designed to set the goal. At second step the stated goal is decomposed in multiple criteria. In the next stage these criterion are again broken into multiple alternatives. In forth stage each criterion and alternatives are assigned weight based on their importance. The fifth stage of AHP methodology carried out the pairwise comparison with regard to criterion and alternatives. The final stage combined all judgments and come up with priority weights. The hierarchy thus developed for AHP studies could be seen in figure 1.
Usually, for AHP studies, data is collected either by structured interviews or focus groups with experts/practitioners in the same field. The data for the current study was collected from the HR practitioners in facility management SMEs in Riyadh region of Saudi Arabia. A structured questionnaire based on AHP scale was developed. Satty (1977), the premiere of AHP methodology seemed to develop a special nine point scale different from Likert scale. Before administering the AHP questionnaire, HR managers were oriented about green HRM practices and it's utilities. A focus group with HR managers was also conducted. Data thus collected was analysed by using Expert choice® software.

Results and Discussions
While, executing the AHP hierarchy (mentioned in figure 1) results were obtained in two forms of priority weights and pairwise comparison, i.e. (i) priority weights for criterion and (ii) priority weights to alternatives. Priority weights and pairwise comparison was made on a special AHP scale recommended by (Saaty, 2000), i.e. (from 1-9, where 9 is extremely important and 1 is equally important). Figure 2 specifies the importance of criterion selected based on their weighted score and pairwise comparison obtained after analysis. Results indicates that retaining the 1236 competent employees in green HR practices had been the vastly important criterion for HR managers among SMEs. Moreover, Green orientation, training and development remains the second important thrust area for HR managers. While, green human resources acquisitions attracted the least importance from HR managers, retaining employees with value to the green HR practice attracted the highest weightage because of one obvious reason that organisations invest their good amount of resources on training and development and maintaining the good human relations. It is supported with the fact that among the facility management SMEs in KSA, "green human resource acquisition" attracted the least weightage. It could be arguably because that majority of workforce in KSA are expatriate workforce. Where employers are left with less choices because of availability and high acquisition cost. Therefore, they focus more on developing the existing/acquired workforce in green and environmentally sustainable practices. Which simply means that facility management SMEs are more interested in developing at their own "the sustainable green human capital". However, it has to be replaced with vice-versa strategy. SMEs are usually characterized with low financial resources. Thus, investing on training and development will add to their fixed costs. Therefore, SMEs in KSA must focus more on acquiring the workforce which are good in green HR practices instead of developing them at their own. They must acquire the employee which are already trained in Green HR practices. The results of relative weights for alternatives with respect to goal are presented in Figure 3. Green reward systems contributed highest to the goal with a priority weight of 58.30% (0.53). While, green job analysis contributes the lowest with a minimal weight of 0.20% (0.02) which is less than 1 percent (w<1). Green reward system gains the highest priority weight which indicates that SMEs in KSA generally and facility management companies specifically value the green initiatives and conduct of employees. This is in confirmation of the recommendations of studies like Jabbour et al., (2008); Opatha (2013); Tang et al., (2017) etc. It is supported by earlier studies too that rewarding the good conduct of employees not only motivate them to perform better but also helpful for organisational financial performance and human capital formation. A good amount of human capital ultimately results into a sustainable competitive advantage of organisations (Sulphey & Naushad, 2019;Naushad, 2019). If the top five green HRM practices are identified among the facility management SMEs, it could be summed up as (1) Green reward system with a priority weight of 58.30%, (2) Green performance management with a priority  The last step of AHP decision making process is to carry out a sensitivity analysis, where the input data are slightly modified in order to observe the impact on the results. If the ranking does not change, the results are said to be robust (Chen & Khan, 2013;Chang at el., 2007). The sensitivity analysis in Expert Choice varies with the weights of the criteria as input data. Sensitivity analysis is a fundamental process in the decision with AHP. Figure 4  In order to carry out the sensitivity analysis equal weights were assigned to three criteria selected for the study. Each criterion claimed approximately 33.33 per cent of weights. Figure 4 Figure 5 shows that changing the weights of criteria alters the priorities of alternatives. However, the top five alternatives were found to essentially remain same.  This indicates that the results are directed at the same direction with a pattern. This shows that the alternatives that emerged from the analysis are robust enough to moderate changes in the criteria. Therefore, the priorities that emerged from the analyses could be sufficient and relied upon.

Conclusion
This study investigated the high priority factors of green HRM among facility management SMEs in KSA. Based on the results derived from AHP model, this analogy can be established that facility management SMEs in Saudi Arabia are least concerned about the "Green HR Acquisition" but moderately concerned about "Green HR orientation, Training and development", and are highly concerned about "Retaining highly competent employees in green HR practices".
Alternate adopted for the study witnessed the similar trend as "Green Reward system" attained the highest priority rate, followed by Performance Management. Both are considered elements of "Retaining highly competent employees in green HR practices". The results are in alignment of Gholami et al, (2016). This indicates that GHRM is in initial stage in SME sector. There is low recognition and acceptance of GHRP, Recruitment and selection, which are considered elements of "Green HR Acquisition" among SMEs. Most of the organizations are willing to adopt low cost initiatives of protecting environment. Masri and Jaaron (2017) Yu et al., (2020) suggested training (ability) and incentives (motivation) should be given focus in GHRM practices for better environmental collaboration. Current study also in line with this as it emphasized on "green reward" and also indictive towards importance of training in studied units.
The role of different GHRM Practices is widely acknowledged in the existing literature. Present study provides list of GHRM practices are highly effective and used by different SMEs in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, present study clearly specifies the most important aspect of GHRM by comparing each practices using AHP tool. Therefore mangers can effectively plan and prioritize environmental related task. It is evident that organizations need to assess employees green behaviour and link it with pay and promotion (Hameed et al., 2020). The implications of the present study are in line with this, as it also suggested retention of effective green performance, and rewarding of the employees. The implication of the study is not only useful for mangers / owners of SMEs, but also for academicians working on GHRM especially for SMEs sector. A limitation of the study is that the results are based on only one sector, i.e. facility management SMEs in Saudi Arabia. This is considered to be a service sector organization. GHRM practices may vary between sectors, industries and national economies. Future research can be conducted on a bigger sample of SMEs by including manufacturing sector within and outside Saudi Arabia.