Sustainability is Dead,Long Live Sustainability! Paving the Way to Include ‘The People’ in Sustainability

In today’s world, organisations face an ongoing paradox: relying on (near) slave labour in South-East Asia to satisfy clients’ desire for cheap clothing, or producing locally and thus charging a premium price? Sometimes these paradoxes have no ‘better alternative’ (making a choice between the plague or cholera); continuing to rely on fossil fuels such as oil and gas to keep our cars running or relying on children in sub-Saharan Africa to mine the necessary cobalt minerals to create our electric cars? Debate on such topics is present in the sustainability literature. Sustainability refers to a paradigm involving strategic long-term thinking on environmental, social and economic dimensions in order to meet the companies’ current needs ‘without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, p. 43). In other words, sustainability is traditionally defined as integrating reasonable economic, environmental and social growth opportunities into business strategies (following the same logic as the famous triple-p bottom line that refers to planet, profit and people and which is widely used in CSR; Gallagher et al., 2018). Once just a passing fad, ‘sustainability’ can now be found everywhere and has arguably become a major focal point driving changes in business across markets. Several Western organisational gurus have claimed that corporate greed and monetary incentives have been replaced by climate and sustainability achievements as the key drivers of decision-making among stake- and shareholders (Nidumolu et al., 2009; Whelan & Fink, 2016). We are led to believe that sustainability is all around us. Is this reality or have we just hollowed out its meaning?

While we would like to believe that sustainability is indeed everywhere and that society has become more sustainable, we will argue that ‘we’ – scientists, educators, politicians, media, corporations and society at large – have misused and abused the term ‘sustainability’. That is, it appears that while we have focused extensively on the planet (e.g. recycling, energy reduction and use of natural resources; Ones & Dilchert, 2012) and profit (e.g. green management and corporate social responsibility; Aguinis & Glavas, 2012) side of sustainability, we have largely left the people to fend for themselves (e.g. Bal & Brookes, 2022; Bissing-Olson et al., 2013; Gallagher et al., 2018). Indeed, much of the sustainability research to date has either excluded or has not explicitly included a focus on the well-being and sustainable employment of employees (Dahlsrud, 2008; Gallagher et al., 2018) despite the fact that, for over two decades, there has been a push to ensure that ‘the needs, potential and aspirations of individuals … take centre stage in the workplace’ (Wilkinson et al., 2001, p. 1497). These employees have rather been ignored in favour of sustainable organisational practices related solely to ecological and/or economic concerns (Linnenluecke & Griffiths, 2010). In this essay, we outline a series of opportunities centred around the ethical, democratic and dignified treatment of employees, bringing the employee part back into the sustainability equation!

Sustainability is Dead!

A sustainability focus is often (mis)used to build a stronger brand image, attract more customers and make the organisation appear more attractive to current employees, as well as prospective employees (e.g. Dögl & Holtbrügge, 2014; Puncheva-Michelotti et al., 2018). Mainstream HRM talk and research (e.g. Matthews et al., 2016; Van de Voorde et al., 2012) continue to preach to the choir – and in some cases, their preaching might be based on some objective reality – that most organisations both promote the dignity of their employees and simultaneously maximise organisational performance over time. Traditionally, these scholars reference Big Tech, Big Pharma and Big Oil (also known by their much less hip name; the dirty trio) as exemplary organisations in which enormous amounts of profit are generated and employees are treated well. This conclusion might be true, but only if you agree that being treated well largely equates to being paid well.

In addition to these three big industries, there is evidence of the lack of caring for the people part of sustainability in contemporary organisations on a daily basis. A quick visit to the employment section of the Ikea website, a stroll alongside Amazon’s ‘best company in the universe’ statement, a look at Kronebourg (part of the Carlsberg group) breweries’ website that stresses the collective engagements towards employees and stakeholders, or a visit to the ticket-booking system of Air France-KLM, they all have one thing in common: their diverse workforce is actively contributing to a better and greener tomorrow while working in an open and inclusive environment that aims to continuously improve and increase sustainability for all [insert soft piano music and a child skipping through a field of colourful flowers about here]. However, if this is the case, then why are the above-mentioned organisations suffering from serious backlash from their employees? One of the major issues here is that although organisations rely on these sustainability-related statements to the outside world, they are often not representative of the quality of the social dimension in general or, more specifically, the employment relationship that their current and future employees (will) experience.

Let’s start with the dirty trio. Big Tech companies largely make profit by exploiting users’ privacy and agency (Zuboff, 2019), Big Pharma companies earn money on the back of global pandemics, health crises and people who are unable to afford lifesaving treatment (Boland, 2022), and, turning to employment, Big Oil companies make the big bucks on the broken backs of roughnecks and oilrig workers (Hunnes, 2019).

Next, let’s focus on Ikea. Despite the lauding description of the great sustainable environment and workforce, the company was condemned twice in the past few years for (1) illegally surveilling its own employees (e.g. Arama, 2021) and (2) actively trying to bury sexual harassment allegations (e.g. Leplongeon, 2019). Similarly, Amazon has been plagued by class-action lawsuits for their poor working conditions across Europe and North America. Moreover, they routinely pay wages which are barely above the U.S. poverty line, use intrusive surveillance systems to monitor their employees, actively engage in union-busting which allowed them to keep the percentage of unionised employees at around 1% and impose inhumane back-breaking working conditions (Kellogg et al., 2020; Pfeffer, 2016).

Kronenbourg, one of the largest breweries in France, stresses in their corporate communication how important the collective is, but was sued by a former employee who was paid five euros an hour less than colleagues with similar tenure because he did not get a permanent contract. He instead received no less than 177 short-term contracts over a 30-year period and was let go when he attempted to obtain a permanent position (Guibert, 2022). Finally, Air France-KLM faced numerous strikes among pilots, cabin crew and ground staff in the face of yet another controversial ‘restructuring plan’ involving thousands of redundancies (aka getting rid of employees) in times when the organisation was still paying bonuses and dividends to their shareholders (Schechner, 2018).

However, the most comprehensive example of just how bad the employment deal is for some at an industry level took place in the spring of 2022. Multiple airlines and airports found themselves in similar situations (e.g. Dutheil, 2022 for France; Euronews, 2022 for Germany; Penza, 2022 for Spain; Middleton, 2022 for the United Kingdom) but it is Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam and the Royal Dutch Airlines who became the subject of international press coverage concerning the bad employment conditions (e.g. bad working conditions, high workload, low wages and long working hours due to understaffed teams; Hansen & Vugts, 2022, April; NOS 2022a, 2022b; Stroobants, 2022a) that operational staff members such as baggage handlers, cleaners and security personnel were suffering. The consequences were seemingly endless queues at the airport, hundreds of cancelled flights, thousands of claims from disgruntled passengers as well as airlines and travel organisations, aggressive behaviour from passengers at the airport (e.g. Algemeen Dagblad, 2022; Het Parool, 2022; Stil, 2022; Stroobants, 2022b) and an employer image that was even more tarnished than before, which does not invite potential employees to apply for a job.

The organisational examples we are highlighting here are definitely not the only organisations for which there is a blatant discrepancy between the company’s talk and its walk. Indeed, the above-presented examples are part of a much bigger story; an ever-growing group of employees (i.e. up to 25% of all working adults) are paid minimum or near-minimum wages and are considered ‘the working poor’ (Kalleberg, 2011), employment is becoming less secure, the labour market is becoming increasingly exploitative, social inequality is on the rise and levels of employee well-being and health are in free fall (Benach et al., 2014; Gunn et al., 2021). In other words, the current employment conditions are far from sustainable for most employees. Richards (2019) wrote a razor-sharp opinion stating that the term ‘sustainability’, as we currently use it, is primarily employer/stakeholder-driven and aimed at increasing productivity and revenue (i.e. once more corporate greed trumps all; Pfeffer, 2016). The extent to which both maximised profits and high employee well-being and dignity can be realised simultaneously remains a question; perhaps this is more of a utopia. Hence, we would like to declare the term ‘sustainability’ dead and reintroduce the overlooked people part of sustainability.

Long Live Sustainability – Introducing the People

Now that we have called the time of death, how do we crown the new ‘sustainability’? Prior to making any suggestions regarding how to improve ethical, democratic and dignified treatment of employees (the people part of sustainability), we deem it important to recognise that people form the backbone of any organisation that aims to be more sustainable in terms of profit and/or planet; all sustainability initiatives require the motivation and persistence of employees at one point in time or throughout a longer period of time.

When introducing the people – in addition to the environmental and economic dimensions – to the sustainability equation, we believe that a lot can be gained from reading important policy work such as the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG, 2015), and the International Labour Organization’s Decent Work Agenda and The Future of Work Statement. Together, these international agencies have explicitly called for the provision of quality jobs, dignity, equality, fair incomes and safe working conditions for all employees. Specifically, SDG8 calls for the promotion of sustained and inclusive economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work. They combine the profit and people part of sustainability by arguing that an important part of economic growth, entrepreneurship and maintaining a free economy is that people have jobs that pay enough to support themselves and their families. Another example concerns the SDG10 call for the reduction of inequality in which they state that we should adopt policies that create opportunity for everyone, regardless of who they are or where they come from, by regulating financial markets and ensuring decent work for everyone. As a final example, SDG17 calls for more collaboration at the human level to create and uphold global partnerships for sustainable development. Similarly, the International Labour Organization (2011, 2015) advocates for a ‘floor of minimum protection’ for everyone (i.e. paying employees above the legal minimum requirements); this concept calls on employers to provide decent work and pay their employees above the legal minimum requirements so that employees can better provide for their basic needs (for an excellent example please see the Glasgow Living Wage Initiative at www.glasgowlivingwage.co.uk).

In a nutshell, both the UN Sustainable Development Goals and ILO’s ‘floor of minimum protection’ mention elements such as improved health and safety at work, universal social protection, respect for employee rights, improved integration of differently abled people and minority groups, increased employee control over working hours and opportunities for lifelong learning, all of which can be summarised as the ethical, democratic and fair treatment of employees, which is at the heart of the people part of sustainability. We believe that the time to put the policy work of the United Nations and the International Labour Organization into practice is NOW! However, how do we go about this and make such radical changes?

Anchoring the People Part of Sustainability in Practice

In order for organisations to be sustainable, an increased focus on the people component of sustainability is much needed. In this respect, we draw from the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG, 2015) and the work by, among others, Bal and Brookes (2022), Bal and De Jong (2017), Gallagher and colleagues (2018), Gollan (2005), Kraak and Griep (2022) and Stankevičiūtė and Savanevičienė (2018) when making a few suggestions as to how companies could create a more ethical and democratic sustainability work for people. While some of these suggestions – especially when the goal of an organisation is to ‘maximize profits for shareholders’ – require a shift from short-term to long-term thinking and carry a financial cost in terms of resources, time and expertise (see for example suggestion 1 through 3), many (larger) organisations make profits which far outstrip the costs of decent wages and appropriate benefits. Moreover, we are aware that it might not always be viable to implement all of our suggestions at once. But even for those organisations for which it is not financially possible or viable to implement all of our suggestions at once, we would like to draw attention to suggestion 4, which emphasises the development of a more relational culture by building a ‘social contract’ with employees, which includes (nearly) cost-free initiatives such as providing adequate training to keep employees employable, allowing more working from home and giving employees more voice in decisions around their work. With this note in mind, let’s have a look at our suggestions to increase our focus on the people component of sustainability.

First, we should adopt a long-term perspective rather than a narrow focus upon financial gains (see also Sels et al., 2004; Wilkinson et al., 2001), by designing work in ways that support – rather than exploit – employees and provide better and more stable income (e.g. retirement safety nets; collective protection schemes against income loss through layoffs, precarious employment and illness; in line with SDG8) and improved representation and security (e.g. strengthening of worker voice, and unionisation; in line with SDG10). In doing so, both employees and employers are more likely to view their working relationships as a potentially long-term endeavour characterised by mutual high investments (see also Cavanaugh & Noe, 1999).

In some places, local and national governments are now stepping in to enforce the ‘floor of minimum protection’ such as the Living Wage Initiative in Glasgow with over 89,000 employees, employed by 400 employers, benefitting from better working conditions so that they can better provide for their basic needs. There are also more and more examples from business owners that are opting for a living wage instead of a minimum wage, and hire people fulltime instead of part-time, including more comprehensive benefits (e.g. Dodds, 2021). But even for those who only want to focus on current economic realities, there is no denying that recent developments across the globe have shown what happens to companies who do not choose a sustainable people path. The French hospitality sector, the companies responsible for baggage handling and security at the big European airports and fast-food chains in the United States all face the same issues with attracting and retaining personnel. Turnover rates of 144% are not uncommon in the fast-food industry (Dodds, 2021).

These astronomic percentages have pushed companies like McDonalds to start offering employee benefit such as emergency childcare and paid time off and have increased average wages by 10% (Fuller & Kerr, 2022). Even though opting for living wages results in reduced costs related to turnover and having a smaller workforce (e.g. Dodds, 2021) companies generally oppose this type of initiative, arguing it comes at additional costs that they do not want to charge their customers. However, the same companies do not shy away to opt for shrinkflation in response to the current inflation hike (Bhattarai, 2022). It would therefore seem that living wages are possible but that management has to be convinced of their long-term advantages. This includes calculating costs at a more macro level to include the costs of high turnover rates, such as paid overtime, lost productivity due to understaffed teams, and replacements costs related to turnover such as advertising, recruitment and selection, additional administrative costs, lead-in time for new employees, etc.

Second, we should care about employee skills and broader employability (in line with SDG4). Rather than providing the absolute minimum training required, often just enough for them to do their current jobs, we should invest in employee development of proximal skills and competencies as well as more distal skills and competencies, which will enable employees to not only meet their current but also their potential future needs and thus boost their internal and external employability (see also Forrier et al., 2018). Such a proposition is realistic for several reasons. Due to the ageing workforce, organisations are finding it increasingly difficult to find employees to fill their vacancies (Zacher & Frese, 2009). Simultaneously, we see a trend of organisations requesting relevant work experience for starter positions and offering unpaid internships (Owens & Stewart, 2016). Due to temporary contracts being the new norm rather than the exception organisations seem to become hesitant to invest in their employees, the underlying thought being ‘why invest in an employee who will put their new skills to use elsewhere’? (Fouarge et al., 2012). However, investing in the attraction, retention and sustainable employability of employees can be done precisely by providing paid internships for new talents, investing in training on the job and providing personal development budgets for employees that they can (partially) spend on education of their own choice (De Grip & Sauermann, 2013). Additionally, the embedding in organisational policies of structural two-sided performance reviews that have no negative repercussions for employees voicing their possible complaints, as well as having constructive two-sided exit interviews will allow organisations to be aware of the reasons for their employees’ discontent and provide them with the means they need to improve their performance and increase satisfaction in their work (Anstey et al., 2017; Mokibelo, 2020).

Third, we should stop – from time to time – to think in monetary value, not everything can be instantly expressed in dollars (despite what management research would have us believe). Instead, we should think more about supporting the well-being and health of our employees. Truly caring for employees implies providing appropriate workplace health and safety measures, and supporting and encouraging employees to achieve work–life balance, even when this comes at an initial financial cost for the organisation (in line with SDG3; see also Dundon & Rafferty, 2018). Although we understand that this is only accessible to a portion of the working population, we believe that Airbnb is a good example focussing on work–life balance. Due to the pandemic, their staff – like everyone else – had to work from home. However, when the pandemic was less impactful in the spring of 2022, the company announced that, instead of wanting everybody back in the office, their employees could basically work from anywhere. In a series of tweets, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky stated that one of the reasons for this decision was that the company had never been as productive as in the two previous years ‘all while working remotely’. Another reason, according to a press report (BBC, 2022), was that Airbnb wants to make sure to attract the right talent. Airbnb is not the only company going down the route of working from elsewhere, either full- or part-time; Google, Microsoft and Twitter, among others, have made similar announcements (Kelly, 2022). And if productivity and attracting talent aren’t enough reasons, what to think about the real estate that becomes available and can be rented out once people start working from home more (Dwoskin, 2020). For people that do have to be physically at work for a minimum number of days, there are possibilities for part-time remote work, more freedom in planning you working hours (e.g. more flexibility so that parents can drop off/pick up kids at school) and having more ownership of planning holidays and days off.

Fourth, we should be building a social contract rather than just enforcing policy or solely listening to shareholders. We should create social dialogue, provide opportunities for employee participation, reinstate a sense of ownership and pride and surpass the minimum requirements imposed by laws to create a workforce that can sustain itself over time. Moreover, based on the work of Sels et al., (2004), these social contracts should also include elements such as mutual respect, low power distance between employees and employers, informal interactions, open communication, flat organisational structures and respect for achievement rather than status or hierarchy.

In times where many companies are understaffed, employers should not be afraid to invest in the engagement of those who are actually working for them by asking employees for help, giving them agency to solve problems, and listening to their ideas (Cohen & Roeske-Zummer, 2021). Managers should return to the coffee machine and engage in informal conversations to have a good feel of what is going on, what is bothering employees. They can hold weekly or monthly meetings where people are encouraged to speak up, to come up with solutions. Companies can develop different ways of bottom-up communications regarding the realities of the work floor. This can be by means of the old-fashioned idea box in the canteen, a more sophisticated version on the company’s intranet, or for instance coaches or independent professionals, who are assigned to act as an intermediary and who can communicate sensitive information anonymously to management, much like the communication lines that exist in safety-related professions. Companies could even allocate time to let employees work on projects of their choosing to help fix issues that they are confronted with on a daily basis as companies such as Google have done in the past and which lead to famous products such as Gmail (Schrage, 2013).

Some Parting Words of Wisdom

Now that we have pronounced sustainability as we knew it dead and have revived it with the necessary inclusion of sustainable employability and have developed a set of concrete suggestions for organisations to ensure that decisions around the people component of sustainability are embedded in our systems and structures (i.e. designed to reflect, support and facilitate a more holistic and dignity-oriented approach to the term ‘sustainability’), we hope that management of the future continues to think about sustainable employability when the next management fad comes around!