Green employee sourcing and environmental sustainability at capital fish limited in Homa Bay town, Kenya

This study was designed to establish the effect of green employee sourcing on environmental sustainability at Capital Fish Limited, Homa-bay town, Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive design, specifically a case study at Capital Fish Limited. Both primary and secondary methods of data collection were applied. The target population for the study comprised of 255 permanent employees, from which a sample size of 156 employees was selected. Questionnaires were used in the data collection. The data was then analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics and presented inform of tables .From the findings, it was concluded that Green employee sourcing had a statistically significant effect on environmental sustainability at Capital Fish Limited .The study thus recommended that Capital Fish Limited should strengthen its green employee sourcing activities through green recruitment, green selection and green employee socialization so as to ensure environmental sustainability

programmes that have a significant impact on the sustainable competitiveness of the firms (Callenbach et al., 1993). In this respect, the implementation of rigorous recruitment and selection. of employees, performance-based appraisal system, the introduction of training programmes aimed at increasing the employees' environmental awareness and courses addressed to the development of new technical and management competencies have a basic importance for fostering environmental innovations (Renwick et al., 2008). According Goodland (1995) Sustainable development is concerned with meeting the needs of people today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Companies now realize that they have to develop a powerful social conscience and green sense of responsibility where corporate responsibility is not an altruistic nice to have. The HR function will become the driver of environmental sustainability within the organization by aligning its practices and policies with sustainability goals reflecting an eco-focus (Esty, 2005). The HR strategy must reflect and inspire the ambitions of the HR team and other employees, aligning with the company's strategy, values and culture, deliver sustainable returns to investors, address customer needs, identify and respond to emerging societal trends, respond to governmental and regulatory expectations, and influence the public policy agenda. In a nutshell creating a green World where consumers and employees force change. Some of the successes of environmental sustainability are cost saving. Being green not only saves money, it also creates new revenue by attracting customers who care about a company's environmental footprint, risk mitigation. As stated by Esty (2005), companies adopted sustainability strategies in order to comply with government regulations and avoid fines. Now leading-edge corporations are embracing the concept of sustainability in order to be a part of the conversation on environmental policy, says Eliot Metzger, a senior associate at the World Resources Institute, tax incentives.

a. Statement of the problem
Companies are also expected to develop environmental management systems for identifying, measuring and controlling environmental impacts. They aim at increasing production thus exploiting resources in form of raw materials unsustainably, use a lot of fuel as source of manufacturing energy resulting to increased amount of wastes informs of toxic gases and biodegradable solids and poisonous liquids. These wastes end up polluting the environment and wasting resources, hence the operations costly and unsustainable. It is the mandate of HR being the custodian of all employees to initiate best practices to bring everybody on board. Integration between human resource management and environmental sustainability issues should focus on pollution reduction, cost effectiveness, waste reduction, reduced energy consumption, recycling as well as corporate image. However, many organizations are not resource efficient; neither do they establish safety measures in their operations in an environmental sensitive manner. New staff members are recruited based on their production capability competence with little or no focus on the organizational green goals. Despite human resource and environmental studies worldwide, few studies have been done in Kenya on Green employee sourcing and how they influence environmental sustainability. It is against this back drop that the current study berthed. The study was therefore intended to establish the influence of Green employee sourcing on environmental sustainability Capital fish limited in Homa-Bay, Kenya.

b. Objectives
The broad aim of the study was to establish the effect of green employee sourcing on environmental sustainability at capital fish limited in Hama-bay County, Kenya. Ho3: Green employee socialization has no significant effect on environmental sustainability at Capita fish limited, Kenya.

d. Theoretical review
The ISO 14001 Environmental Management System Model: According to the international standard, ISO 14001, an Environmental Management System (EMS) is the part of the overall management system that includes organizational structure, planning activities, responsibilities, practices, procedures, processes, and resources for developing, implementing, achieving, reviewing and maintaining the environmental policy." The ISO 14001 EMS standard consists of five sections, Environmental Policy, Planning, Implementation & Operations, Checking and Corrective Action, and Management Review. The social concern about environment has led companies to adopt environmental management practices at an increasing rate. Companies voluntarily implement environmental management system (EMS) for this purpose. Environmental Management System is the most used tool of environmental management in companies. An EMS is a set of management processes that requires firms to identify, measure and control their environmental impacts (Bansal and Hunter, 2003). It provides a management framework for achieving environmental objectives. Companies implementing environmental management systems conduct environmental activities to better control the company's environmental impacts. It helps the company in preventing pollution and saving company's money by reducing wastes, reducing energy consumption, carrying recycling activities and overall enhancing the corporate image. It contributes to environmental and economic benefits to the organizations. One of the major area that have gained prominence as target for environmental management in literature is human resources. Human resource is the key resource of any organization and can have a significant impact on how the organization operates. Thus the support of human resource management practices is considered fundamental for adopting environmental management practices (Daily, 2004). It can manage the behaviors of people and can contribute to the green movement. It can provide a guiding platform to engage employees in environmentally sustainable ways at work to reduce their carbon footprint and embed an ecofriendly culture within the organization. Very few studies exist in literature to guide managers in considering the human resource factors in order to maximize their efforts in successful implementation of EMS (Daily and Huang, 2001; Govindarajulu and Daily, 2004). The current study examined the role of EMS in ensuring environmental sustainability at capita fish limited.

e. Empirical review
Induction for new recruits is seen to be needed to ensure they understand and approach their corporate environmental culture in a serious way (Anthony, 1993). Therefore sustainable development issues must be integrated into the recruitment process. This involves monitoring the long-term competency requirements for the company, providing new employees with information about sustainable development policies and commitments, using recruitment procedures which support the equitable representation of applicants and recruits in terms of gender, age, racial and ethnic groups, sexual orientation, disabled people and other relevant groups (Brio et al., 2007). For this the company's job descriptions should reflect the sustainability agenda and the company's website and other research tools available for candidate access clearly outline its greening endeavors.
Finally the interview questions should be tailored to flesh out potential compatibility with the company's green goals. Phillips (2007) reported that the common sections of job descriptions can be used to specify a number of environmental aspects. The job title and chain of command must include environmental reporting roles and health and safety tasks, which staff are exposed to harmful substances, Job purpose must contain a reference to sustainability, the functions of the job list the primary duties associated with the position and highlight the specific eco-aspects of the job and matching personal attributes to needed environmental competencies, i.e. buying-in specialist competencies via new hires or investing in training. These then should be explained in the company's want ads reflecting the company's commitment to sustainable development and ask that all resumes contain evidence that the prospects have contributed to triple-bottom-line enhancement in prior positions (Beechinor, 2007).
In general, environment concerned companies have their own environmental policy framework. In materializing the established environmental policies, companies need environmentally oriented workforce. In creating environmental oriented workforce, companies have two options: First is focusing on green recruitment. Second is providing required environmental protection related awareness, education, training and development to the existing workforce (Clarke, 2006). The first option is more proactive and cost effective than the second option. Hence, searching best green recruitment practices is important to organizations. In the recruitment context, what some companies are doing is that they integrate corporate environmental policy and strategies with the recruitment policy of the company (Clarke, 2006). On the other hand, potential employees also search and want to work in the environmental concerned organizations. Attracting environmentally aware talent might be facilitated by proactive branding of the organization as a high-quality "green employer of choice" (Renwick et al., 2008) Increasingly, firms are beginning to recognize that gaining a reputation as a green employer is an effective way to attract new talent (Phillips, 2007;Stringer, 2009).
In the selection context, when making selection for the job vacancies some companies consider candidates' environmental concern and interest as selection criteria. When interviewing candidates or evaluating them for selection, environmental-related questions are asked by those companies (Wehrmeyer, 1996). Really, these are some of the good green selection practices any organization can adopt to select environmental friendly people in addition to the normal selection criteria relating to the specific duties of the job being concerned. Induction for new employees seems to be needed to ensure they understand and approach their corporate environmental culture in a serious way (Wehrmeyer, 1996). Companies can adopt two approaches in respect of green induction. They are general green induction and job specific green induction. Some companies practice general green induction. After selecting the candidates for the posts, these companies provide necessary basic information about the corporate environmental management policy, system and practices. In some instances, certain organizations do specific green induction as well to their new recruits. They induct new employees about environmental orientation programs specific to their jobs. In general, these two green induction practices are important for any organization nowadays.
Organizations should ensure that new recruits understand their environmental responsibilities, become familiar with health and safety arrangements, appreciate the corporate environmental culture, adopt the company's environmental policy and practices, and know given relevant contact persons within the organization (Wehrmeyer, 1996;Renwick et al., 2013). Attracting high quality staff is a key HR challenge in the "war for talent" (Renwick et al., 2013). A study on turnover and retention of employees argue that the most important benefit dimensions of HR and sustainability are retention/recruitment and satisfaction. Firms are now beginning to recognize the fact that gaining reputation as a green employer is an effective way to attract new talent (Phillips, 2007;Stringer, 2009).
Green recruiting is a system where the focus is given on importance of the environment and making it a major element within the organization. Complementing this, the recruits are also enthusiastic, and to some extent, passionate about working for an environment friendly "green" company. Recruiting candidates with green bend of mind make it easy for firms to induct professionals who are aware with sustainable processes and are already familiar with basics like recycling, conservation, and creating a more logical world. Grolleau et al. (2012) in their study on impact of environmental standards of a company on recruitment of an employee found that environmental commitment of the company adds to profile of a company. In their primary survey, they found that professionals were more concerned with respect to the environmental strategy of a company.

f. Conceptual frame work
The conceptual framework diagram shows the interplay between the major variables of the study that is independent and dependent variables. The conceptual framework diagram is shown in figure 01.

a. Research design and population:
This study adopted descriptive research design that utilized quantitative approach. It was a case study of Capital fish limited in Homa-bay Kenya. The researcher settled for a case study because of the wide distribution of the study population that would make data collection difficult, especially with the limited time available for the research. A population can be defined as the total collection of elements about which inference is made and refers to all possible cases which are of interest for the study or the entire group of individuals under consideration in any field of inquiry and have common attributes (Mugenda and Mugenda, 2003). The target population constituted all permanent employees working in capital fish limited homa-bay town which constituted 255 employees. Sampling frame is the list of all elements from which the sample is to be drawn (Mugenda & Mugenda, 2003). All the 255 employees were drawn from different department including production, human resource, finance, purchasing and supplies and marketing departments. The following formula developed by Yamane (1967) was used to determine the sample size for the study; n = N/ (1+N (e 2 )) Where; n = the desired sample size, e = probability of error (i.e., the desired precision, e.g., 0.05 for 95% confidence level) N=the estimate of the population size. Employees were subdivided categorically according to the departments using stratified sampling. The number of employees sampled in every stratum (department) was determined proportionally. The sampled employees were then selected using simple random sampling to get representatives from every stratum.
b. Data collection: Data collection instruments as the techniques and tools that are used for the purpose of data collection (Mbwesa, 2006). Primary data was collected using structured questionnaires. Structured research questionnaires were developed so as to collect data on each research indicator in line with specific research objectives. The questionnaires were administered by the researcher to all the respondents. The respondents were given one week to fill the questionnaires after which they were collected for analysis. A pilot test was conducted in the production department capital fish limited among 10 employee to determine the reliability of the research instruments. The information generated during pilot study was used for Testing reliability and Validity of research instrument used in the study. Reliability is the extent to which results of a study are consistent over time and there is an accurate representation of the total population under study and aims at establishing the ability of the research instruments to produce similar results over time. Cronbach alpha coefficient was computed and compared with the threshold of 0.7 to ensure there is reliability. The calculated Cronbach alpha coefficient was 0.8 which is above the threshold of 0.7 hence the research instrument was reliable enough. According to Kothari (2004), content validity is a function of whether the dimensions or elements of a concept have been captured. Validity test was conducted to ensure all indicators measured are adequately represented through brainstorming with colleagues in human resource management discipline as well as consulting research experts and experienced scholars from the university.

Green Selection Environmental Sustainability
Green employee socialization c. Data processing and analysis: Collected data was first checked for completeness and comprehensibility. The data was then coded and analyzed using the SPSS. Both descriptive analysis (mean, frequencies and standard deviation) and inferential analysis (Pearson correlation and multi regression) were carried out. The research findings were then presented using frequencies; percentages displayed in tables whose interpretation facilitates conclusions and recommendations.

III. Results and Discussion a. Descriptive analysis
Response rate and background information: Out of the 156 questionnaires that were issued among the various respondents at the fish manufacturing firms, 110 were returned and were useable for the study accounting for 70 % response rate. The results on back ground information in iindicated that majority (66.3% ) of the respondents had worked in the organization for between 2 and 5 years indicating that there is high staff turnover in the organization as most of them have been with the company for just over a year. The results also indicate that most (48.2%) of the respondents were Diploma holders. It is also clear from the results that majority (60.5%) of the respondents were male while 39.5 % were female implying that the organization human resource department has met the one third gender rule stipulated in the constitution.
Green employee sourcing: Study sought to determine the extent to which Green Employee Sourcing was being used in the company to improve environmental sustainability. All the measures were on a five point Likert Scale where; 1=strongly disagree, 2= Disagree, 3=Not sure, 4=Agree, 5=strongly agree. These results are as summarized in Table 01. Table 01 indicate ways Capital fish limited practices green employee sourcing. Generally it is evident that the company has implemented green employee sourcing as evidenced by larger proportions of responses that either strongly agreed or agreed with the statements posed by the researcher in the questionnaires.

Environmental sustainability:
The study also sought to establish achievements towards environmental sustainability of the company as contributed by green employee sourcing practices. Statements on sustainability was to be rated by respondents on a likert scale. The responses are presented in  Job adverts of the company shows which staff are exposed to harmful substances in work environment From table 02, generally the company is performing exemplarily as regards to environmental sustainability as shown by high proportions of respondents who supported most statement concerning environmental sustainability in the likert scale by agreeing or strongly agreeing. Table 03 shows the results on the level of correlation between the independent and dependent variable. Bivariate Pearson correlation coefficient was used for the study. The independent variables were green recruitment, green selection and green employee socialization while the dependent variable was environmental sustainability. Table 03 show the bivariate parsons correlation between green employee sourcing variables and environmental sustainability of at Capital Fish limited Kenya. Green selection was moderately positively and significantly correlated with environmental sustainability < 0.05 (r=0.471, p= 0.009, α = 0.01) , green selection was moderately positively and significantly correlated with environmental sustainability (r= 0.373, p= 0.007, α = 0.01) and finally green employee socialization was significant and strongly positively correlated with environmental sustainability (r = 0.735,p =0.001, α =0.01)

IV. Conclusion
The study was carried out to establish the effect of green employee sourcing on environmental sustainability at capital fish limited Kenya. The study concluded that green employee sourcing had a statistically significant effect on environmental sustainability at capital fish limited Kenya. When Management of Capital Fish Limited Kenya, insisted on recruiting and selecting employees who are eco-concerned, the company was able to improve its environmental sustainability. This is evidenced by positive correlation between green employee sourcing and environmental sustainability which was statistically significant and the acceptance of the first and second null hypothesis. The study therefore recommend to management of Capital Fish Limited Kenya as follows: Green recruitment and green employee socialization needs to be emphasized at every Human resource process in order to have better environmental sustainability at Capital Fish Limited although the issue of green selection should not be over emphasized. The current study was a case study with limited usability of findings at Capital Fish Limited, Homa-Bay town, Kenya. Future researches should be a survey covering all manufacturing firms in homa-bay Kenya if possible the whole of Kenya to generate a report that has relevance across all manufacturing firms. Additionally, future studies should look into other Green human resource practices like green employee communication, green punishment, green staff separation etc., were not in the scope of this study. This will enable total study on all green human resource practices possible.