Green Recruitment Practices and Employees’ Green Behaviour in the eThekwini Municipality of South Africa

Abstract

Discussions on green recruitment practices are sparsely interrogated in the canon of green human resource management literature (GHRM). Existing studies have focused on other areas of GHRM, especially in South Africa. This study addresses this gap through the examination of green recruitment best practices for employees’ green behaviour, and unearths the collection of challenges plaguing green recruitment practices. The study purposively recruited 12 units’ managers and employees from the corporate and human resource cluster of the eThekwini municipality. The semi-structure interview was employed to collect data and the NVivo (v.12) qualitative software was employed to identify themes and sub-themes from the transcript. The content qualitative analytical tool was employed to make sense of the themes and sub-themes respectively. Findings show a collection of green recruitment practices including the use of automated application process replacing the paper based application, the application of green interview process through Skype and Zoom and the advertisement of jobs on LinkedIn and other e-career portals. Other practices include the use of psychometric test in evaluating applicants’ green behaviour value system and the setting up of a computer laboratory as job application hubs. The challenge of green recruitment practices include political interference, limited access to online facilities for job applicants, lack of online knowledge and skills and resistance to change. The study concludes on the need for a more strategic and innovative green recruitment practices and measures to address these challenges in the eThekwini municipality.