The Circular HRM project’s purpose is developing a Circular HRM model that will support the transition of European SMEs of the eco-industry sector from a traditional, linear HRM model, to a circular HRM model.
The process has already started. On 14th and 15th of July 2021 an online event that accounted for 29 participants was held on the online platform “Zoom”. The event included many presentations from the participants, various discussions, workshops, and training programs that provided crucial feedback, as well as experts’ views on circular economy and the applicability of its principles to human resources management, which will help further develop the project.
If an HR Manager were to decide to lay off workers rendered “obsolete” by a certain technological evolution, to hire others who already have the required skills, without considering re-qualifying the existing employees or to develop their employability, wouldn’t it be a waste of resources?
People should also be considered a crucial step on the way to complete Circular HRM application. Ultimately, it is the people who determine the means of production and consumption. On occasion, companies do try to help their workers adapt, by providing them the means – training or outplacement, for example: to be re-employed. However, that practice is very far from the norm. Most companies do not plan ahead for their human resource management. It is a path that requires humility, flexibility, consultation, and inclusion. It requires breaking down the silos, and as such of course, HR would benefit from being involved. Including the HR departments can open up new spaces of improbable exchanges!
The goal of the Circular HRM project is creating change at a personal and organizational level through the 7 principles of circular management of human resources.
- Principle 1: Eco-conception: The design of ‘work practices’ and ‘work spaces’, and emphasizing maximum positive impact on a worker during their employment are considered core components of Circular HRM practices.
- Principle 2: Recycle: Processes of understanding and responding to the needs of workers to optimize redeployment within the same company are considered a core component of Circular HRM practices.
- Principle3: Repair: Supporting the reintegration of a worker so they, following a period of leave, be it long or short term, can continue to be employed in their original function or in a new role within the same company is considered a core component of Circular HRM practices.
- Principle 4: Reuse: The mentorship of a worker who is considering leaving the company (e.g. due to retirement, or the completion of a project) to apply their skill-set in a different role within the company (e.g. proactive use of skill set prior to retirement, or reorient skill set to a new project) is considered a core component of Circular HRM practices.
- Principle 5: Industrial Ecology: Categorizing the skill set of workers with a view to planning and implementation of worker-centered strategies that optimize the categorized skills sets within a company ecosystem is considered a core component of Circular HRM practices.
- Principle 6: Functionality Economy: The prioritization of human centered optimization over contractual obligation is considered a core component of Circular HRM practices.
- Principle 7: Second-Hand and Sharing Economy: Supporting the transition of a worker into the external job market where a worker is no longer meeting the requirements of their current contractual obligations is considered a core component of Circular HRM practices.
The benefits from this project are: job satisfaction, worker motivation and performance as the primary goals of the Circular Human Resource Management. The introduction of the Circular principles revitalizes the promise of the psychological contract by assigning an active role to the employee in the process, by recognizing that organizations are artificial forms which serve people, not forms to be served by the people and enabling the movement from company-centered to people-centered management approach.
Circularity strengths the job satisfaction and revitalizes the psychological contract by providing employees with efficient professional and career development which is not always linear. Improved work-life balance by way of working from home, hybrid workspaces and the advantages of digital technology is what the project is counting on.
