The trend toward sustainable practices in the hotel industry has become imperative, attracting scholars’ attention during the COVID-19 era. Today, the industrial and service world in general, and the field of hotel business in particular, is witnessing a growing interest in environmental issues and a rapid shift towards cultural awareness of the sustainable environment in light of the ever-increasing cognitive and behavioural awareness of the dangers of negative consequences caused by the problems and difficulties of industrial and production pollution, industrial waste, and the tremendous waste of natural resources . Significant attention has been paid by governments and non-governmental organizations worldwide, warning of the grave risks to humanity resulting from environmental pollution and its impact on most aspects of life, and establishing the endeavour to raise the necessary awareness regarding the environment. There are many calls for businesses to be more sustainable than they have been traditionally by transforming their use of resources intelligently to achieve value. Nowadays, hotels invest in diverse sustainability practices to obtain returns . Similarly, sustainable human resource management (SHRM) is a modern system within administrative thought, demonstrating its ability to shape positive hotel business outcomes .

Most service-oriented organizations in general, and hotels in particular, seek to play their primary role, related to meeting the community’s needs, to provide suitable goods and services through proper exploitation of various natural resources and adaptation with the human, social, economic, and environmental dimensions. Thus, to achieve this, these institutions witness the necessity of providing a culture of concern for the responsible environment by completing various organizational functions within the environmental management system . Where the concept of SHRM is one of the terms that researchers deal with to clarify the relationship between HRM and its interaction with the surrounding environment, attention should be paid to the need of reflecting this on reasonable practices in an organization to boost performance .

Scholars are still trying to clarify and define the SHRM concept and practical activities and work to create the appropriate mix of environmental and organizational performance issues and business strategies, increase opportunities for organizations and adapt them to the external environment to achieve competitive advantages . The SHRM goes beyond the social responsibility of organizations . It plays an integral role in solving problems related to the environment by training employees regarding the requirements of implementing laws related to environmental safety . Furthermore, SHRM practices are extensively believed to cause a strategic advantage for the hotel industry . However, a sufficient body of evidence indicates that SHRM practices are related to superior staff-level outcomes. On the contrary, screening their effects on employee-level outcomes is still under research .

Despite SHRM’s significance, this domain is still “at its development stage” (p. 295). The literature consists of many investigations on the link between SHRM and employee-related outcomes . On the contrary, scant empirical research reveals the connectedness between SHRM and the hotel organization-related outcomes (e.g., corporate performance, competitive advantage) .

A research gap emerged from this study to know the main components of the novel SHRM concept. Future research should test this best practice model in another context to give it more robustness. 

Formerly, there had been growing attention on HRM due to its effect on organizational performance . Regardless of its advancement, many businesses still plan, manage, and organise the HR function, believing it represents a cost to the company . Strategic HRM aligned to financial outcomes is insufficient. HRM is essential to support sustainable firms. It is also needed to support beneficial results related to economic aspects and cultural and ecological firm performance. Accordingly, a new HRM approach called the SHRM, or the green HRM, has been adopted to keep any firm sustainable. The SHRM is primarily connected to long-term changes in businesses and societies .

It has been demonstrated that sustainability is a people concern. Sustainability influences a firm’s behaviour and culture. It affects the communication system, companies’ practice in recruiting, how organizations engage and retain employees, how they train employees and communicate with customers, and the brand and value proposition. For that concern, HR ought to be necessary in any firm’s sustainability initiatives. HRM employees must act continuously as the organizational leaders as it pertains to sustainability. HRM creates rules and sets methodologies, develops training programmes, leads employee communications, and sets sustainability measurements . Sustainability-oriented thinking is turning out to be a part of HRM development. Sustainable HRM aims to achieve organizational sustainability by developing HRM policies, strategies, and procedures that support the economic, social, and ecological dimensions . In this context, a model to accomplish superior performance by dealing with a sustainable approach through socially responsible practices, innovation in procedures and products/services, diversity management, the inclusion of environmental management initiatives, and initiating the HRM in central organizational sustainability was recommended .

SHRM is the corporate function that reveals the best potential to include a sustainability attitude at the firm’s executive level. This way, a connection to HRM development is anticipated through green and sustainable thinking . Despite the prominence of SHRM and its impact on organizational outcomes, some scholars claim that the research conducted so far in the functional area of HRM and sustainability is insufficient .

Understanding the concept of SHRM and its approaches is vital to examining how HRM can achieve success. Accordingly, to analyse and understand SHRM’s nature, the related issues and challenges surrounding what is intended to be performed are relevant to assess HRM’s role in sustainability orientation.

The literature on SHRM has recently developed, representing an attempt to cope with the nexus between HRM practices and outcomes beyond financial consequences . However, many disciplines have published diverse and fragmented research regarding the SHRM concept. There is no single and specific definition of that term, and it has been practised in a variety of ways for numerous purposes. Generally, it has been initiated to refer to social and economic outcomes that contribute to the firm’s permanence in the long-term. It has also been referred to as HRM activities that enhance positive environmental results (e.g., green initiatives, positive social and financial outcomes).

Regarding the historical background of the SHRM concept, it was rooted in many research avenues: corporate sustainability research, corporate social responsibility research, sustainable works systems research, traditional or strategic HRM research, and ergonomics and human factors research . The terms green HRM, eco-friendly HRM, responsible HRM, and SHRM have been used interchangeably in the previous literature . Although these terms differ in how they attempt to achieve the goals of economic branding, positive social/human outcomes, and environmental results, they are all focused on acknowledging, both explicitly or implicitly, social and economic firm outcomes. They all recognise HR outcomes’ impact on endurance and a firm’s success in general. Zaki [26] guaranteed a high-performance level when hotels acclimatise to environmental predictions by turning to the hotel industry.

There are numerous definitions for the term SHRM. One of the most popular definitions was rooted in 2009 as a form of intended or evolving HR policies and procedures that enable a firm to complement its aims over time . The idea of decreasing the undesirable effect on the environment, humans, and societies was added and acknowledged the critical enabling role of headquarters, middle and line managers, HRM experts, and employees . However, three main characteristics could be concluded in the attempts to define SHRM: first, the focus is on developing employees/the human capital as a vital outcome of HRM practices; second, SHRM does challenge the idea that the principal HRM’s aim is the accomplishment of business goals; third, a leading concern is long-term success using responsible HRM practices and strategies to contribute to this success . Most definitions of SHRM were related to long-term understanding of a firm’s success and organizational sustainability .

The HR function has a dominant role in the hospitality context. It can motivate the inclusion of sustainability initiatives in the scope of the various relationships inside a firm and with other market rivals . In general, the term SHRM has demonstrated great resonance, with its increasing importance evident within the hotel business environment. It represents the overall policies to promote the sustainable use of available resources within hotels and focus on a sustainable environment. It is also a key element in enabling different organizations to integrate the objectives of HRM with the organization’s environmental management, so it works to improve green empowerment that contributes to increasing employee participation as it pertains to work areas. Accordingly, SHRM includes multiple activities, such as analysis and description of sustainable jobs, sustainable HR planning, sustainable recruitment, sustainable selection, sustainable training, other performance evaluation, and sustainable benefits .

It could be concluded that SHRM practices are generally considered traditional, and there can be a variety of sustainable functions under each. SHRM practices include: appointing staff with a concern for sustainable initiatives appraising, providing directed training for raising awareness and skills needed for employees’ behavioural changes, evaluating the socially responsible performance of employees, rewarding employees who contribute to the environmental initiatives, and giving priority of employment to persons from the local community . Currently, hotels are increasingly adopting SHRM practices due to external stakeholders’ pressure.

.The following practices are a simplified explanation of SHRM practices based on our hypothesized framework (see the following figure).

2.2.1. Sustainable Job Design (SJD)

          The sustainable design of any job expresses the process that aims to determine the content of the responsible position tasks and the qualifications of its occupants. It leads to the environmental goals achievement of the hotel organization on the one hand and to fulfilling the desires of the responsible employee, on the other hand, taking into account the type of technology used to achieve sustainable environmental performance. In addition, there are decent jobs that contribute to preserving or restoring the quality of the environment, whether these jobs are industrial, service, commercial, agricultural, or administrative [24]. These jobs have a role in reducing emissions and pollution, protecting the ecosystem, and finally enabling communities and organizations to adapt to environmental changes [25]. Recently, it was confirmed that SHRM enhances the hotel's capability for innovation and then impacts its reputation and customer satisfaction [14].

In sum, sustainable job design is considered the first SHRM practice to employ a suitable job candidate with sufficient knowledge and awareness of sustainability dimensions.

2.2.2. Sustainable Recruitment and Selection (SRS)

          Recruitment activities are prepared to work within hotels to provide as much information as possible about the requirements of the vacant job, the nature and type of the job, and encourage a proper selection and appointment of job-seeking individuals who have experience, skills, methods, and behaviours. The hotel organization can rely on individuals concerned with the environment and the usual employment standards related to the specific duties of the related job [8].

Owing to constructing a sustainability-oriented workforce, hotels have two ways: depending on sustainable recruitment or providing critical related awareness, learning, training, and development to the existing employees. However, focusing on sustainable recruitment is more cost-effective than giving sustainable knowledge and training to employees. Therefore, searching best sustainable recruitment practices is essential to any sustainable concerned hotel. Some hotels integrate social responsibility schemes with the recruitment strategy in the recruitment context as well as a potential employee is also committed to working in a sustainability-oriented company [6].

It has been well noted that becoming a socially responsible employer improves employer branding, organization image and is a valuable way to attract potential employees who have a social responsibility concern [12]. Some hotels are starting to recognize that image acquisition as a sustainable firm is an effective way to attract new talents [26]. Certainly, socially responsible employers can attract talented staff that they require to implement corporate sustainable management advantages, and ultimately, it contributes to achieving the hotel's sustainability goals [27,28].^{[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][36][37][38][39]}

Some hotels consider candidates' social orientation as a primary criterion for job vacancies regarding the sustainable selection practice. Hoteliers' socially responsible-related queries are often practised in the selection pool interviews [29]. Hiring staff with outstanding capabilities, skills, orientations, and green preparations contributes to achieving the organization's goals, including environmental sustainability. Therefore, SRS integrates environmental dimensions into employment policies and strategies. Job interviews should be consistent to assess the potential fit of candidates with the organization's sustainable programs.

2.2.3. Sustainable Training and Development (STD)

      The sustainable training process is mainly settled by transferring the proper knowledge and skills about improving sustainability [1]. Appraisal systems should support training to integrate with the hotel's sustainability goals. The sustainability perspective emphasizes the added value of the training practice to hotel employees. The sustainable training provides environmental preparations for employees and managers to develop their ecological patterns, skills and knowledge. Some cases represent the sustainable training nature, such as providing training to learn the best environmentally-friendly methods or adapting to such green activities and applying job rotation as a tool for future leadership development for green environment managers. As a result,  corporate sustainable management programs implementation will be followed [12].

Providing sustainable training for new staff encourages employees to participate in volunteer projects. These projects enhance employees' knowledge skills and extend comprehensive development programmes to prepare employees for future responsibilities [4]. Sustainable education culture that will change employee attitude and behaviour is required for the hotel's success [6]. For example, every staff member goes through eco-awareness training concerning environmental sustainability programs in some hotel chains. The hotel staff receives education on the green aspects of their products/services. Some hotels celebrate their annual sustainable or green day by organizing many competitive programs. Teaching certain vital eco-principles between staff and management members is an excellent practice.

Sustainable training and development practices require an adequate understanding of the market, governmental, and society requirements. It generates a sustainable advantage by focusing on green innovations, hotels providing new technologies, providing the market with more efficient and effective products, and provoking changes in their business models [29].

STD practices involve social analysis of workplace workshops, job rotations, socially responsible management models, staff welfare training, job-related health and safety measures, work regulations, equality, and employee rights [30].

Without proper training and development, materializing a hotel's sustainable image is challenging. Therefore, specific hotels have learned the importance of socially responsible education, training, and growth in their organizational context. Notably, some hotels seriously started to analyze their sustainable training needs to make them more socially accountable and concerned workforce. Based on sustainable training needs analysis, these hotels conduct serious and systematic education, training, and development programs given to the employee to provide needed knowledge, skills, and attitudes for good sustainable management [31].

2.2.4. Sustainable Performance Appraisals (SPA)

         The sustainable management is keen to urge and strengthen the hotel employees that their needs are compatible and consistent with the hotel's orientation towards preserving the environment [32]. Evaluating the staff performance in fulfilling their responsibilities involves spreading the knowledge of environmental learning. The measurement criteria of employee socially responsible performance must be carefully aligned with the hotel's sustainable performance standards [33].

Incorporating corporate sustainable management objectives and aims with the performance appraisal system is a must for hotels to ensure a positive image among rivals. Hotels should include sustainability issues and socially responsible incidents, take-up of social responsibilities, and the success of communicating sustainability concerns and policy within the performance evaluation system [34].

Installing sustainable performance standards or KPIs into the performance management system is inadequate. Communication of sustainable schemes, KPIs, and benchmarks to the hotel employees through regular performance evaluations are also needed to materialize targeted sustainable performance[35,36].

Hotel managers should put sustainable targets, goals, and procedures for their staff. They should assess tolerable incidents, practice social responsibility, and successfully communicate the hotel sustainability strategy within the scope of their daily operations [25,37].

2.2.5. Sustainable Rewards (SR)

The sustainable reward is a crucial function of the SHRM. Sustainable reward management contributes to corporate sustainable management initiatives by motivating employees. Hotels use monetary (e.g., salary bonus, extra incentives, tipping) and non-financial rewards (e.g., recognition, motivation, social incentives, and honours), impacting corporate performance [29]. 

Some organizations have recently rewarded extraordinary performance by including the sustainability criteria in their salary appraisals. The non-financial rewards of sustainable performance are used instead of the financial compensations. The success of the non-financial rewards depends on the prominence of organization-comprehensive labelling, which increases employees' awareness of sustainability achievements [27].

There are many types of sustainable reward and compensation practices (e.g., customized packages to reward sustainable skills achievement, financial/ non-financial sustainable management rewards, personal reward plan to gain sustainable social responsibility, linking staff partnerships in sustainability plans with the reward system [31,33].

Penetrating rewards for innovative sustainable performance is highly recommended to promote staff innovation. Therefore, some hotels started to offer spurs to motivate waste and recycling management, supporting flexible work schedules and other sustainability matters [12].

2.2.6. Sustainable Promotion

Motivation or incentives are among the essential HRM practices through which hotel employees are rewarded for their performance. This practice is the most potent and optimal way to link employees and the organization's interests and is also relevant in supporting environmental management to develop services and innovations.

The critical role of sustainable motivation and promotion practices is to ensure a socially responsible workplace. It means that a workplace is environmentally sensitive, resource-efficient, and socially accountable [24]. There are some hotels where traditional motivation and promotion purpose was extended to include socially responsible management. These hotels have continually created various socially responsible initiatives to reduce employee stress caused by harmful work environments. Future advancements are necessary to ensure further employee motivation feelings. Since most new hotel employees are career-minded, ambitious, and looking for fast growth, their career advancement is the prime motivating factor for their managers [30]. New hotel staff wants to know where their occupations will be going. Thus, career management importance has gained growing recognition [28]. The sustainable development viewpoint is that employees perform better when they feel trusted. Corporate growth plans should be highlighted to all staff to increase their understanding and commitment. Sustainable promotion essentially means helping the employees plan their careers in their capabilities within sustainable organizational needs. It implies that after capabilities awareness, career opportunities, and development opportunities, the employee chooses to develop himself in a direction that improves his ability to handle new tasks [38]. Several hotels have worked out career paths and linked promotion programs to career planning development to enhance their SHRM practices [12].