Using the below article provide an example of a case report template based on TSG Franchise Management to critically evaluate its strategic HRM by examining its policies, practices and procedures against the sustainable HRM approaches that have been discussed in the prescribed article below (Richards 2022).

Based on the article and your understanding of sustainable HRM, HRM theories, concepts and principles that you have learned in this subject, your task is to:

• Critically evaluate your organisation's strategic HRM approach (or any organisation you are familiar with) by examining its policies, practices and procedures. Focus on the employee-centred sustainable HRM practices as discussed by Richards (2022) that you believe to be the most important and/or relevant for your organisation.
• Recommend improvements to existing human resource management strategies. Your recommendation must provide tangible actions that your chosen organisation can adopt to help it achieve its employee-centred sustainable HRM outcomes. You must also explain how your recommendations will help the organisation achieve its strategic goals and objectives.
• Please include an introduction to the TSG Franchise Management which is: TSG Franchise Management (TSG) operates in the tobacco industry - facing challenges from multiple fronts. Using the Thompson et al. (2022) study of the macro-environment using the PESTEL analysis, two key legal/regulatory and sociocultural factors highlight the key dynamics influencing TSG's competitive environment.

TSG's position as a leader in the specialist tobacco channel underscores the current threats of declining tobacco consumption, cultural stigmas, and government legislation. Illicit tobacco products also present a substitute threat. An analysis using Porter's Five Forces Framework and SWOT analysis (Thompson et al. 2022) represents these concerns compounded by threats from supermarkets, convenience stores, and illicit tobacco operators.

To address these challenges TSG must consider several strategic actions to understand future opportunities and current threats.I have identified product diversification and re-branding as one strategic action required using a best-cost hybrid strategy to implement new product categories. Two complementary strategies using an offensive approach and consideration of horizontal acquisition of a competitor may serve to strengthen TSG's competitiveness.

Strategically diversifying our offerings will require a cultural shift with a transformational leadership approach to motivate, and engage, franchisees and employees.

These objectives are necessary to counter the declining tobacco industry and reliance on profits generated from these sales..

Sustainability in work organisations consists of employers playing their part in fixing ecological, social and economic problems, with evidence suggesting employers are increasingly willing to make their organisations more sustainable (Ehnert et al., 2016). Sustainability in work organisations has increasingly become a feature of academic research. The trend is evident with the rise of literature on sustainable (e.g., Ehnert, 2009; Jabbour and Santos, 2008), green (e.g., Guerci et al., 2016; Renwick et al., 2013) and socially responsible (e.g., Shen, 2011; Voegtlin and Greenwood, 2016) forms of HRM.

This article, however, focuses on one aspect of the wider organisational sustainability agendasustainable HRM, broadly defined as practices designed to make employees more able and more willing to remain in employment at present and in the future (Van Vuuren and Van Dam, 2013). Such practices emphasise employers fostering, rather than exploiting, their workforces (Docherty et al., 2009). Key to sustainable HRM is mutual benefit for employers and employees, as well as creating wider social benefit, including lower unemployment (Zwicki et al., 2016), demand for out-of-work and in-work benefits (House of Commons, 2008) and demand for healthcare related to work-related illness and disability (Koolhaas et al., 2011).

A key aim of the article is to address a range of problems associated with the current and dominant take on sustainable HRMan approach that is employer- rather than employee-centred. A significant problem with the current literature concerns how the interests of two key parties to sustainable HRMthe employer and recent governmentsare privileged over that of employees, creating a problematic vision of sustainable HRM based on employer and governmental interests, rather than on employee interests, and the capabilities of trade unions and collective bargaining. This crop of literature adds greatly to understandings, particularly in terms of demonstrating gains for organisations (e.g., Jerome, 2013; App et al., 2012), yet these contributions represent an incomplete image of sustainable HRM. As such, it is critical to revisit sustainable HRM, mainly because current understandings are remiss in terms of acknowledging wider aspects of what makes employment sustainable for employees. For instance, trade unions have a long history of winning better working conditions for employees (Tuckman, 2018), and even in workplaces without trade unions, self-organised employees have a similar history of shaping unsustainable HRM practices (Ackroyd and Thompson, 1999).

The danger is future understandings of sustainable HRM, without a revisionary agenda, are likely to continue to reinforce a corporate profitability and corporate survival agenda (Wilkinson et al., 2001), which in all probability will only serve to undermine attempts to make organisations truly sustainable. As implied already, a second key problem is the extant literature that neglects and underplays key parties to the employment relationship, such as trade unions. Put another way, current understandings neglect literature based on industrial relations and labour process traditions. Indeed, without engaging with such literature, a meaningful vision of sustainable HRM seems unlikely. As such, the article aims to answer the following questions. First, what are the many constituent features of sustainable HRM? Second, how do the parties to the employment relationship feed into sustainable HRM? Third, what does an employee-centred approach to sustainable HRM look like? Fourth, in the light of key findings to come from this article, what are the priorities for further research on sustainable HRM?

By addressing these questions, the article contributes to understandings of sustainable HRM as follows. First, sustainable HRM will now be conceptualised in terms of being of greater mutual benefit for employers and employees. Second, the new means to conceptualise sustainable HRM recognises all parties to such practices, creating space in particular for collectivised, self-organised and individualised labour. A further contribution comes in terms of generating an extensive research agenda for sustainable HRM.

The article is structured as follows. First, the methodology is described and discussed. Second, the extant literature on sustainable HRM is discussed. This discussion includes attempts to variously define sustainable HRM, identify key features of sustainable HRM and identify key features of this specific body of literature. Third, the discussion of sustainable HRM is extended to include literature on industrial relations and labour process traditions. A final section discusses key findings, represented mostly in the form of a new map of sustainable HRM and an extensive associated research agenda.

Methodology

The methodology is broadly based on a systematic review/meta-analysis. Such an approach requires an analysis of as many already existing studies as relevant (Thorpe et al., 2005). The approach taken is suited to the aims of this study, as it is based on a reliable knowledge base accumulated from a range of studies (Tranfield et al., 2003). Further, the approach adopted allows the generation of new research ideas (Borenstein et al., 2009).

The article was approached in the following way. First, a literature search was conducted using the following databases: Web of Knowledge, EbscoHost, Emerald, Wiley, JSTOR and Cambridge Journals Online. The searches used the key terms 'sustainability' and 'sustainable' and were accompanied with further search terms: 'employee', 'work', 'employment' and 'HRM'. Preliminary searches revealed literature from the year 2000 onwards. From then on, further refined and advanced searches concentrated on literature. Searches for literature captured approximately 100 research items. After sifting, a range of literature was discarded, principally as it was based on environmental or green issues, matters outwith the scope of the study. Eventually, 64 specialised accounts of sustainable HRM were identified: journal articles (n=41), books and edited book chapters (n=18) and reports (n=5).

Subsequently, the literature was analysed for key sustainable HRM themes. The analysis was guided by two broad questions: what is meant by 'sustainable'? What leads to 'sustainability'? The analysis allowed the literature to be divided into three broad areas: sustainable HRM related to built environment and ergonomics traditions, HRM and employee engagement, and 'sustainable working lives'. The three broad strands of literature were analysed in terms of extracting key information based on definitions, main research findings, type of article, as well as, where applicable, geographical location of study, employee group, methodological approach and theoretical framing (see Figure 1).

Key themes to emerge from this stage of analysis (see Figure 1) were employee well-being, quality of working life and equality. Such themes were used to inform further searches, using the databases as previously detailed, and aimed at literature on industrial relations and labour process traditions. The themes were used because they related to benefits for employees (e.g., a better working life), employers (e.g., higher levels of productivity) and governments (e.g., lowered demands for public welfare and healthcare systems). To be consistent with the earlier approach, the second stage of the search also focused on literature from the year 2000 onwards. The search resulted in the identification of research articles indirectly related to sustainable HRM. The search was based on two approaches. First, given the association of trade unions with the field of industrial relations, the term 'trade union' and key themes identified above were used to search for further relevant literature. Second, there was a search for literature using the term 'labour process' and the same key sustainable HRM themes. The second stage of the literature search resulted in the collection of a further 48 research items (all journal articles), or a wider total of 112 research items specifically selected to further explore and map out sustainable HRM. The second crop of literature was divided between industrial relations and studies of the labour process and analysed to identify similar and further means by which sustainable HRM could be understood. Further key themes to emerge included, for example, outcomes from collective employee representation and many other ways to regulate the employment relationship.

Sustainable HRM: definitions, key findings and characteristics of extant literature

This section follows the three broad strands of sustainable HRM literature identified in the previous section. First, sustainable HRM is defined in a range of ways, with an emphasis on establishing the nature of how such practice is defined. Second, key findings are discussed, including problems associated with sustainable HRM. The emphasis is on highlighting the many ways by which HRM is distinguishable from regular HRM practice. The second part further highlights not only key strengths but also limitations to this body of knowledge. Third, the discussion shifts to consider a wide range of defining features of the literature. The aim here is to further and specifically identify gaps in the literature on sustainable HRM.

Defining sustainable HRM

The built environment and ergonomics literature principally defines sustainable HRM in terms of raising employee productivity, although consideration is given to employee interests in such situations. For example, employers can increase productivity by creating 'intelligent buildings' (Clements-Croome, 2005), which boosts employee 'happiness', leading to a more efficient interaction between the employee and the built environment (Smith and Pitt, 2009). Sustainable HRM is defined in terms of employees accessing a more natural environment, with employers better meeting the needs of the workforce (Gould, 2009). Employee needs are met through comfortable spaces to work in, which inspire employees to be creative and take less time off through sickness absence (Clements-Croome, 2005). Such practices also lead to improved air quality with the use of plants (Smith and Pitt, 2009). By investing in an environment of this kind, employers can reap the benefit of employees having their needs satisfied on work time (Zink, 2014) and increased perceptions of well-being (Martin et al., 2013; Smith and Pitt, 2009). Taken together, the outcome is a 'win-win-situation', based on the strategic management of interdependencies and interrelations between employee activities and the surrounding environment (Zink, 2014).

A second means to define sustainable HRM links with broader HRM practices and the notion of employee engagement employers finding ways of harnessing employees to their work roles (Kumar and Kumar Sia, 2012). The employee engagement approach is also based on the notion of both parties to the employment relationship benefitting from the practice of sustainable HRM. However, the literature suggests such practices are problematic, as they are principally aimed at raising employee productivity. In this instance, organisations foster sustainable HRM largely through a range of increasingly common HRM practices, as well as the critical input of HRM practitioners. As line managers are increasingly seen as the 'guardians' of human resources (Ehnert, 2009), such employees are increasingly more responsible for implementing sustainable HRM policy (Jrlstrm et al., 2018; Kramar, 2014). In this instance, sustainable HRM concerns making workplaces inclusive through work-life balance initiatives (Hirsch, 2009), flexible working practices (Atkinson and Sandiford, 2016), regulating working time to promote gender equality (Zbyszewska, 2013) and referral of employees, where necessary, to occupational health (OH) services (Koolhaas et al., 2011). Sustainable HRM is defined principally in terms of practices allowing employees to balance wider commitments through flexible working arrangements (FWAs), based on varying where and when employees work (Atkinson and Sandiford, 2016). A key aim is to make sustainable HRM practices the norm, with, as noted above, line managers playing a key enabling role in this process (Kramar, 2014). However, a further aim is to better understand employees' lives so that FWAs deliver for both employers and employees (Blake-Beard et al., 2010). Sustainability is defined in terms of attempts to understand how working time is often gendered, resulting in women, more than men, disengaged by long or inflexible working arrangements (Zbyszewska, 2013). According to Bichard (2008), sustainable HRM practices are, in effect, incorporating corporate social responsibility into everyday HRM practice related to, for instance, training, performance review, recruitment, selection and job design.

A third competing definition relates the principles of social justice to HRM practice (Parkes and Davis, 2013). Although also aimed at raising employee productivity, the third approach aims to do so in a more humanistic and sustainable manner. A further key difference is drawing on the input and expertise of a range of social partners, including governments, to deliver benefits for both organisations and wider society (e.g., Van de Ven et al., 2014). This approach could be compared to some sort of corporatist system of employment relations, denoted by close cooperation between trade unions, employers and governments (Jrlstrm et al., 2018), leading to, for instance, better prepared new entrants and re-entrants to employment markets (e.g., Akkermans et al., 2015), older employees willing to remain in employment markets (Atkinson and Sandiford, 2016) and better treatment for disabled and chronically ill employees (e.g., Williams et al., 2010). This third perspective is based on attempts not only to solve organisational problems, but also to tackle wider societal problems including, for example, in-work poverty (Richards and Sang, 2019) and the exclusion of disabled employees from the workplace (Sang et al., 2016). More specifically, sustainable HRM in this instance involves, for example, employers working with civil society organisations to better manage an ageing workforce (Zientara, 2009), prevent premature retirements (Ahonen, 2015) and extend working lives (Koolhaas et al., 2011, 2013). Indeed, at the heart of such practices is workplace healthcare promotion (Eriksson et al., 2017) and healthcare based on joining up employer and government provisions (Hansen et al., 2013). A further angle on this approach to sustainable HRM involves employers engaging with social policy initiatives (McBride and Mustchin, 2013) to make workplaces disability friendly (Burdof and Schuring, 2015) and more inclusive for career entrants and career re-entrants (Wiese and Knecht, 2015) and, wherever possible, all other non-mainstream groups (McCollum, 2012; Flude, 2000). In brief, this perspective of sustainable HRM centres on a belief of causing no harm to employees, with employees of all descriptions engaged, thriving and flourishing at work.

Key findings from studies on sustainable HRM

While sustainable HRM is defined in a range of ways, key findings reveal much more about such practice. Findings from the field of the built environment and ergonomics include, for example, how employees working in intelligent buildings mentioned liking their workplace, feeling pride in their workplace surroundings, experiencing increased job satisfaction and reporting fewer ailments (Gould, 2009). As with Gould's study, Smith and Pitt (2009) found smart buildings lift the mood of employees, leading to a positive mood and sense of well-being. Further studies (e.g., Smith and Pitt, 2011) realised intelligent buildings decreased the risks associated with sick building syndrome and lowered the sense of pressures at work (Gould, 2009; Smith and Pitt, 2009). Overall, research of this kind points towards increased employee productivity, yet it also indicates how employees appreciate working in a better designed work environment.

However, a key issue raised in such literature is the limited influence of built environment and ergonomics specialists in work settings. A key outcome, for example, is a low uptake of a particular type of sustainable HRM practice (Martin et al., 2013). Zink (2014) believes, for instance, the low status of built environment and ergonomics specialists relates to organisational ignorance of the benefits of building and equipment design, coupled with limited interest in adopting the principles of corporate social responsibility. The result is that only the most progressive of employers seem to invest in such practices.

Studies from an HRM perspective clearly indicate how sustainable HRM is critical to employer competitive advantage (App et al., 2012). App et al., for example, found sustainable HRM to be key to attracting and retaining high-quality employees. In more specific terms, employees, particularly those from non-mainstream groups, reported being treated more equitably (Blake-Beard et al., 2010) and experienced less discrimination (Zientara, 2009). Sustainable HRM has also been linked to reports of better treatment for a growing casualised work force, with such practices helping to mitigate against global-wide trends in labour market deregulation (Zhang et al., 2015). Further, multinational corporations have been linked to such good practice, with organisations of this type influential in setting sustainable HRM agendas in a wide range of international settings (Aust et al., 2019). Further benefits include employees experiencing high levels of respect from line managers (Jrlstrm et al., 2018), resulting in an improved social and productive climate between employees and managers (Jerome, 2013). In a more general sense, Ehnert et al. (2016) identified how sustainable HRM leads to increased levels of health and safety, access to training to develop new and existing skills, improved prospects in terms of work-family balance and access to high-quality jobs. In effect, further supporting the view of HRM practitioners, of how the everyday work of line managers (Ehnert, 2009), is central to achieving the goals of sustainable HRM. Overall, sustainable HRM reflects a commitment to going beyond regular HRM practice.

Nevertheless, a range of downsides is associated with this version of sustainable HRM. For example, Lund (2004) found sustainable HRM, as per regular HRM, is characterised by 'hidden' forms of scientific management, typically resulting in collective bargaining problems for trade unions. In contrast to the work of Zhang et al. (2015), Blake-Beard et al.'s (2010) research found sustainable HRM to be more commonly associated with attempts to motivate highly skilled and better-paid employees, rather than making working life better for lower skilled and low-paid occupational groups. On the whole, this form of sustainable HRM represents a mixed bag and in particular highlights how a lack of employee representation is likely to result in uneven outcomes in most work settings.

In the domain reflecting practices born out of organisational knowledge and the input of corporatist or pseudo-corporatist arrangements (Van de Ven et al., 2014), there comes an important range of findings. First of all, this form of sustainable HRM is significantly different in nature from the previous two. For example, sustainable HRM is achieved through employers engaging with welfare programmes aimed at reducing cycling between employment and welfare (McCollum, 2012) and buying into interventions designed by social partners to overcome the wider life traumas of the long-term unemployed (Flude, 2000). However, other key findings reveal governments have the potential to undermine sustainable HRM. For instance, some governments show a lack of willingness to intervene in problematic employment markets (Vanroelen, 2017) and putting little pressure on employers to consider long-term workforce development plans (McBride and Mustchin, 2013). Three further key issues arose from these studies. Indeed, the management of well-being figured prominently in such literature. Examples include employers developing healthcare initiatives, often involving OH practitioners, to suit different types of employees, especially older employees (Koolhaas et al., 2011; Hirsch, 2009), and health interventions designed with older employees in mind, being made available for younger employees (Koolhaas et al., 2013). Key to the success of these initiatives, however, is involving employees in the planning of health interventions (Hgglund et al., 2010), ideally with a supportive, responsive and inspiring line manager (Shift, 2009), as well as recognising the wider importance of management leadership in health promotion (Eriksson et al., 2017). A further key issue is the role of work and job design in relation to sustainable HRM. Notable examples include the criticality of teamworking (Hansen et al., 2013), reducing instances of work intensification (Vanroelen, 2017), work crafting (Kira et al., 2010) and attempts to evenly distribute how work is shared out across not just the organisation, but also based on gender and wider employee characteristics (Zwicki et al., 2016). The importance of recognising organisational culture in sustainable HRM also figured in a small range of studies. Organisational culture is seen to be an important factor in sustainable HRM because positive attitudes by colleagues towards employees from marginal groups make sustainable HRM policies far more effective (Van Dam et al., 2017; Nelissen et al., 2016), and attempts to nurture an inclusive culture can help reduce negative stereotypes of groups least likely to achieve sustainable levels of employment (Zientara, 2009). A further issue concerns how employer reluctance to train employees has a negative impact on sustainable HRM (Hansen et al., 2013), especially in relation to employee groups with the lowest levels of skills (House of Commons, 2008). Overall, the literature suggests employers tend to put limits on the activities of social partners, with governments often reluctant to intervene except in extreme circumstances. The outcome is this approach to sustainable HRM is unlikely to achieve its full potential.

The many approaches to researching sustainable HRM

As can be observed by consulting Figure 1, only about 40 per cent of sustainable HRM articles are based on an empirical approach (e.g., Salmela-Aro and Vuori, 2015; McBride and Mustchin, 2013; Williams et al., 2012). As such, the majority of articles are based on desk-based research (e.g., Cleary et al., 2016; Berglund, 2015). In a broader sense, only a small amount of such literature is based on systematic reviews (e.g., Martin et al., 2013; Jabbour and Santos, 2008) or conceptual pieces (e.g., European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 2015; Kira et al., 2010).

The research on sustainable HRM is evidently defined by geographical location, with some clusters around certain parts of the world (see Figure 1). For instance, the majority of studies were conducted in Europe more generally or specifically (e.g., Akkermans et al., 2015; Docherty et al., 2009). However, a good range of studies has been conducted on an international scale (e.g., Price, 2015; Smith and Pitt, 2011) in Scandinavian countries (e.g., Eriksson et al., 2017; Jrlstrm et al., 2018) and North America (e.g., Blake-Beard et al., 2010; Gould, 2009). Specific countries feature commonly in the literature, including the Netherlands (e.g., Van Dam et al., 2017; Koolhaas et al., 2013), the UK (e.g., Atkinson and Sandiford, 2016; McCollum, 2012) and Australia (e.g., Hansen et al., 2013; Williams et al., 2010). A much smaller number of studies centre on, for example, Poland (Zientara, 2009), Belgium and Spain (Vanroelen, 2017). However, only one study (Mannila, 2015) relates sustainable HRM to developing countries, with no studies of such practices associated with India or Africa (Aust et al., 2019). The geographical spread of studies suggests sustainable HRM is principally practiced in countries with a history of corporatism, but variants on such practices can also be found in countries that have moved away from corporatism.

No type or group of employees dominates the literature (see Figure 1). However, the most common group reflected in the literature is older employees (e.g., Fuertes et al., 2013; Hirsch, 2009), representing approximately 15 per cent of all studies. Further groups attracting research include young employees (e.g., Hanvold et al., 2016; Hrm, 2015), returners to employment markets (e.g., Vanroelen, 2017; Wiese and Knecht, 2015), white collar managers and employees of large organisations (e.g., Fuertes et al., 2013; Ehnert, 2009; Clements-Croome, 2005), women (e.g., Zbyszewska, 2013; Blake-Beard et al., 2010), disabled and chronically ill employees (e.g., Nelissen et al., 2016; Koolhaas et al., 2011), workers employed in precarious employment (e.g., Berglund, 2015; De Witte et al., 2015) and employees caught in cycles of unemployment and employment (e.g., McCollum, 2012; Flude, 2000). A further range of literature draws attention to specific types and groups of employees. This research relates sustainable HRM to healthcare employees (Hgglund et al., 2010), shift workers (Van de Ven et al., 2014), low-skilled employees (House of Commons, 2008), low-paid employees (Devlin and Gold, 2014) and agency employees (Zhang et al., 2015). Overall, there is a sense that sustainable HRM is principally used by some employers to plug gaps in labour markets, rather than a means to improve the quality of working life more generally.

No one methodological approach dominates empirical studies (see Figure 1). For example, nine adopt a quantitative approach (e.g., Van Dam et al., 2017; Nelissen et al., 2016), seven a mixed methods/case study approach (e.g., Smith and Pitt, 2009; Lund, 2004) and six are defined by qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews (e.g., Williams et al., 2010; Zientara, 2009). A further and smaller range of articles is based on secondary data, typically governmental data (e.g., Ahonen, 2015; Van de Ven et al., 2014), and content analysis of employer documentation (e.g., Ehnert et al., 2016; Ehnert, 2009). Of note, however, is a range of studies based on experimentation, concentrating specifically on preparing school leavers for employment markets (Akkermans et al., 2015; Salmela-Aro and Vuori, 2015). On the whole, it seems a lack of empirical research suggests there is plenty more to find out about sustainable HRM, especially in terms of how employees experience and shape such practices.

How sustainable HRM is conceptualised varies considerably, although organisational behaviour (OB) and medical/health-based/OH scholarly traditions are disproportionately represented in the literature (see Figure 1). Indeed, articles of this kind represent more than 60 per cent of studies on sustainable HRM. Within this literature, OB approaches include the application of reasoned action approach (Nelissen et al., 2016), integrative person approach (Flude, 2000) and uncertainty navigation model (Sweeny and Ghane, 2015). Medical/health-based/OH approaches applied include, for instance, theories based on inequalities in health (Burdof and Schuring, 2015), work environment impact scale (Williams et al., 2010) and hazard analysis (Van de Ven et al., 2014). An emphasis on OB and medical approaches seems to further confirm how current understandings of sustainable HRM are principally based on post-corporatist employment relations, where individualistic employment relations command vastly more attention than their collective equivalents.

That said, wider theoretical frameworks are used to conceptualise sustainable HRM (see Figure 1). Sociological theories, such as work systems (Docherty et al., 2009) and human capital development (McBride and Mustchin, 2013), have been used to conceptualise sustainable HRM. Economic approaches, on the other hand, appear strongly influenced by theories related to labour markets (e.g., Mannila, 2015; Devlin and Gold, 2014). Further approaches distinguishable from the wider crop of literature explore the political discourse of sustainable HRM (Zbyszewska, 2013) and notions of the built environment (Gould, 2009; Clements-Croome, 2005). Overall, it seems reasonable to suggest a wider range of theories should be used to study sustainable HRM.

Widening the net: making employee interests the focus of sustainable HRM

Discussions so far reveal employer interests, often supported by governments, dominate the extant sustainable HRM literature. If anything, the majority of the extant sustainable HRM literature reflects the abandonment of corporatism from the early 1980s, whereby collective bargaining was undermined in favour of individualistic work arrangements, particularly in countries such as the USA and the UK (Bamber et al., 2011). The attention now shifts to exploring sustainable HRM themes in relation to scholarly fields where employee interests are privileged over employer agendas. Therefore, this section of the article considers trade unions as key and under-recognised parties to sustainable HRM. Trade unions are included in this part of the article for three reasons. First, the extant literature is remiss in terms of recognising how contemporary HRM practice reflects gains made over many decades by labour movements. Second, the extant literature does not reflect the nature and role of contemporary trade unions. Third, even when many advanced industrial nations have abandoned or heavily diluted corporatist traditions, trade unions remain an important means by which employee interests are brought to the attention of employers and governments. This section also proposes employee self-organisation, typically through a variety of acts of coping and micro-resistance, as a further key and under-recognised aspect of sustainable HRM. The emphasis on self-organisation reflects, in part, the decline and marginalisation of corporatism and trade unions and how self-organised practices represent further, yet informal, means by which employers are reminded of employee interests in the modern era.

Industrial relations and sustainable HRM

A key feature of industrial relations literature is the unique contribution of trade unions in supporting many groups of disadvantaged or non-core workers. Such support typically comes via collective bargaining, including works councils and wider voice mechanisms. Many contemporary employers may not see the activities of trade unions as beneficial, but there seems little doubt that trade unions can play a central part in delivering sustainable HRM outcomes. For instance, recent research reveals trade unions as facilitators of employment for disabled employees (Richards and Sang, 2016) and having a positive influence on employer disability practices (Bacon and Hoque, 2015). In terms of gender, trade unions play a key role in narrowing gender pay gaps (McGuinness et al., 2011), lowering wage discrimination (Triventi, 2013), leading on equal pay litigation (Guillaume, 2015) and supporting employees facing domestic violence (Wibberley et al., 2018). Research further indicates how trade unions question employer practices concerning the imposition of compulsory retirement ages (Byford and Wong, 2016). Trade unions increasingly represent and organise EU migrant workers (James and Karmowska, 2012), hyper-mobile migrants (Bernsten and Lillie, 2014) and contingent employees (MacKenzie, 2010), all of which are widely recognised as unsustainable forms of employment, yet typically off the radar of mainstream HRM practice. It is also the case that embryonic trade unionism is an increasing feature of sex work (Gall, 2007), with attempts to make employment more sustainable for employees typically marginal or completely off the agenda of HRM practitioners.

The literature indicates a range of further ways trade unions can work with employers to support sustainable HRM agendas. A key forum for such activity is works council, often firm-level complements to national or sectoral bargaining arrangements (Grund and Schmitt, 2011). In such situations, trade unions use works council to increase levels of trust and organisational justice for employees (Kougiannou et al., 2015), critical in terms of fostering good, respectful and mutually productive employment relationships. It has been demonstrated, moreover, how works council can contribute to job satisfaction, by directly and indirectly affecting changes in work processes, the working environment and job context (Grund and Schmitt, 2011).

In more general terms, employer-trade union partnership agreements have been linked to lower employee turnover (Pohler and Luchak, 2015) and sickness absence (Goerke and Pannenberg, 2015). Such arrangements lead to mutual positive outcomes when employers seek to introduce new and notoriously difficult-to-manage annualised working (Ryan and Wallace, 2016) and wider working time arrangements (Fagan and Walthery, 2011). Further advantages of working in partnership come in terms of making corporate social responsibility initiatives more effective (Harvey et al., 2017), supporting organisations expanding into growing markets (e.g., green economy) and increasing opportunities for employment levels and high-quality and highly paid jobs (Antonioli and Mazzanti, 2017). Further, it has been demonstrated how trade unions can be drivers in organisational productivity (Vernon and Rogers, 2013), global economic growth (Lia, 2013) and addressing insufficient economic demand (Kelly, 2015), all of which map neatly on to notions of sustainable HRM.

There is a wider role for trade unions to play in sustainable HRM, particularly in terms of decreasing the impact of employment on social benefits and public health systems. For instance, trade unions are leaders in terms of influencing employers' decisions related to paying the 'living wage' (Prowse and Fells, 2016). Trade unions are also key actors in terms of campaigning against low pay and wage stagnation (Kelly, 2015). Despite many changes in how employers and governments make provisions for employees in retirement, trade unions remain key in the protection of pension rights (Flynn et al., 2013) and the development of occupational pension systems (Kuene, 2018). Further, employers, employees and wider society stand to benefit from trade union practices designed to lead to learning partnerships (Cassell and Lee, 2009) and an equalisation of training opportunities in organisations (Hoque and Bacon, 2008). Taken together, it can be seen how trade unions represent a unique means to lead, as well as directly and indirectly shape, sustainable HRM agendas.

Sustainable HRM and studies of the labour process

Much of contemporary labour process research is defined by accounts of self-organised attempts to resist problematic people management practices. In other words, largely non-unionised employees act as understated yet key parties to subverting unsustainable HRM practices. A range of themes emerge in terms of analysing labour process research in relation to sustainable HRM. First, there are studies based on how self-organised employees cope with unsustainable expectations from employers. Examples of employees coping in difficult circumstances include deflecting the pressures of work by taking selective absence and mentally reframing key parts of jobs (Clark and Thompson, 2015). In a further study, line managers colluded with subordinates, offering employees 'alternative' leave options when given strict procedures to manage sickness absence (Hadjisolomou, 2015). Further studies reveal a range of mostly individualised forms of employee coping. Examples include mental distancing (Sandiford and Seymour, 2011), fiddling with fixed times to make certain aspects of the job tolerable (Lundberg and Karlsson, 2011) and the deployment of anti-burnout tactics, including retreating to the bathroom to cry, talk to oneself, chat with friends, talk on the phone, surf the Internet, stretching and simply doing nothing (Lindqvist and Olsson, 2017).

Many studies of the labour process, however, provide accounts of employees resisting HRM practices. Call centres feature prominently in such studies, with many studies considering how tightly controlled labour processes and unsustainable forms of HRM present a range of opportunities for employee resistance (McFadden, 2014). Further studies consider front-line employee experiences of tightly controlled labour processes and how experiences of this kind generate humour and minor acts of defiance, with such acts helping to galvanise an autonomous shopfloor or team culture (Crowley et al., 2014; Korczynski, 2011; Richards and Kosmala, 2013; Taylor and Bain, 2003). Such is the impact of self-organised forms of resistance, and even in the most difficult of working environments, research suggests management regimes come to accommodate employee attributes and practices into their labour processes (Hastings and MacKinnon, 2017), thus making employment sustainable. A wide range of other forms of self-organised employee resistance, designed to take the harsher edges off difficult working conditions, is reflected in this type of literature, for example, employees mirroring employer problematic behaviour (Laaser, 2016), spreading a lack of goodwill within and between teams (Ellway, 2013), slowing down and moderating the pace expected in many aspects of production and service provisions (Carey and Foster, 2011; Harris and Ogbonna, 2004) and foot-dragging as a means to cope with the pace of work (Ybema and Horvers, 2017). The key issue is acts of this kind may be branded as 'employee misbehaviour', but, in another sense, may represent a range of key practices many employees take to make employment sustainable. Practices of this kind seem to emerge in situations where HRM practitioners or line managers have little control or concern over practices designed to unfairly stretch worker capacity to perform.

A further key development involves employees increasingly taking to the Internet, most specifically in terms of the use of social media and smart phones, to explore new and creative forms of coping and new ways to express conflict and resistance (Richards, 2008). In the most general sense, an evolving Internet brings a wide range of new advantages to sustain employment for employees in an age of declining trade union influence (Richards, 2011). More precisely, labour process research establishes the importance of social media platforms in creating online coping communities, or spaces, making employment sustainable, which extend far beyond any community organised in relation to the work-setting (Ellis and Richards, 2009; Sayers and Fachira, 2015). In these situations, employees often self-organise on an international basis, share details of work, share how they experience work and provide and seek advice on work matters from each other (Cohen and Richards, 2015). Further research highlights how taking to social media can lead to employees regaining a sense of control and attachment to their occupational group or professional identity (Richards and Kosmala, 2013). Some researchers go as far as to say such activities are more akin to 'communities of resistance', where employees of anti-trade union organisations create or appropriate discussion forums to share frustrations and expose inner workings of outwardly reputable multinational corporations (Bancarzewski and Hardy, 2017). Indeed, research based on the activities of employee bloggers reveals how activities of this kind act as counter-hegemonic forces against corporate rhetoric (Schoneboom, 2007), effectively serving as a new and emergent labour organising function (Schoneboom, 2011). The full range of ways employees can self-organise appears to represent an important and emergent, yet neglected, facet of sustainable HRM. What is more, acts seemingly based on employee defiance, combined with traditional and emergent activities of trade unions, represent further means to achieve the goals of sustainable HRM, a contribution rarely acknowledged by employers or governments.

Discussion and conclusions: towards a map and research agenda for employee-centred sustainable HRM

The aim of the article was to develop extant notions of sustainable HRM to better reflect employee interests. As noted above, in one sense understanding sustainable HRM appears straightforwardit concerns a way and means by which HRM practice develops and oversees attempts to make sure employees are willing and able to stay in employment now and for as long as reasonably possible (Van Vuuren and Van Dam, 2013) and foster, but not exploit, workforces (Docherty et al., 2009) (see Figure 2). What is more, how employment can be made more sustainable may well represent contested terrain, yet it seems attempts to make employment more sustainable lead to benefits for all parties to the employment relationship. Taken together, if HRM practice can create settings where employees are paid well, line managers treat employees with respect and employees can expect good quality jobs and benefit from some level of employer-led healthcare, then there will probably be a neutral-to-minimal impact of HRM practice on public benefits and healthcare schemes (see Figure 2). However, in another sense, it seems these assumptions represent only a surface or partial understanding, with sustainable HRM, as evidenced in the first part of the review, far from being a straightforward matter for HRM practitioners and line managers to contemplate, suggesting sustainable HRM remains an aspiration for many employers and, in some instances, a cynical and short-term attempt to engage employees. Such literature, moreover, is very much influenced by ideological undertones of a post-corporatist era, where notions of collective and centralised industrial relations systems and social partnership arrangements have been abandoned or 'airbrushed' out of contemporary practice, representing in itself a barrier to employee-centred sustainable HRM.

In specific terms, the literature linked to the built environment revealed the following. The findings from this facet of the article highlighted, for example, how built environment and ergonomics specialistsvia their expertise related to intelligent and smart buildings (Clements-Croome, 2005), managing and monitoring air quality (Smith and Pitt, 2009), building perceptions of well-being (Martin et al., 2013) and design of comfortable workspaces (Clements-Croome, 2005)make work pleasant, more productive and therefore more sustainable (see Figure 2). Indeed, the built environment literature represents a distinct facet to sustainable HRM. Such literature highlights a key role for built environment and ergonomics specialists and concepts in sustainable HRM, but at the same time reveals a range of important barriers to achieving the goals of sustainable HRM. One barrier is the low or marginal status of built environment and ergonomics specialists in work settings (Zink, 2014). To overcome a barrier of this kind, it seems reasonable to say more research highlighting the positive impact of built environment and ergonomics specialists is required, but, in doing so, more needs to be done in terms of effectively feeding the findings back to employers.

A second facet reveals how HRM practice and practitioners, increasingly including line managers, hold a key and central status in the execution of effective sustainable HRM practice. For instance (see Figure 2), the research clearly indicates how HRM practitioners and line managers can play a key part in sustainable HRM via the introduction and effective management of flexible working practices (Atkinson and Sandiford, 2016), equality practices (Zbyszewska, 2013), nurturing of respectful employer-employee relations (Jrlstrm et al., 2018) and creation and design of high-quality jobs (Ehnert et al., 2016). However, the review revealed a range of barriers to this aspect of sustainable HRM, including hidden and alienating forms of work organisation (Lund, 2004) and discrimination against all but core employees (Blake-Beard et al., 2010). Indeed, the findings indicate a need for more research to explore how HRM practitioners and line managers work with trade unions and local staff representatives, as well as non-union staff representatives, to execute effective forms of sustainable HRM. It seems more research is also required in terms of how HRM practice can be adapted to make employment sustainable for employees with low and marginal organisational status.

The extant literature identified a range of further third parties, key to achieving the central aims of sustainable HRM (see Figure 2). In this instance, while there is a clear emphasis on the role of corporate social responsibility (Shen, 2011) in relation to these practices, research revealed OH and wider health specialists (Eriksson et al., 2017; Koolhaas et al., 2011), civil society organisations (Zientara, 2009) and governments (House of Commons, 2008) to represent important parties to sustainable HRM. It seems there is some overlap in the input of parties to this facet of sustainable HRM, but what sets this facet aside is the criticality of a range of third parties to achieving sustainable HRM. This type of research reveals how employers can work in partnership with various external organisations, or under the legislative guidance of governments, to create workplaces capable of reflecting the core characteristics of sustainable HRM (see Figure 2). However, despite a range of research reflecting this facet of sustainable HRM, there appears to be scope for more research contemplating the role of the employer in such practices, as research revealed a further range of barriers to sustainable HRM in the form of employer reluctance to engage with wider parties to the employment relationship (e.g., Hansen et al., 2013). Further research should aim to better explain why employers hold contradictory views towards sustainable HRM.

Trade unions represent a further and largely unrecognised party to sustainable HRM. Principally centring on a more contemporary role for trade unions in the workplace, research reveals sustainable HRM to be achievable through, for example, influencing disability and wider equality practices (Bacon and Hoque, 2015), supporting vulnerable employees (James and Karmowska, 2012), putting pressure on employers to close gender pay gaps (McGuinness et al., 2011) and generally working with employers through partnership agreements to deliver many of the objectives of sustainable HRM (Pohler and Luchak, 2015) (see Figure 2). Largely as a result of the decline of corporatism, the influence of trade unions in the workplace and beyond has diminished on an international scale in recent times, and although trade unions face a far from certain future, which is in itself a key barrier to sustainable HRM, it seems trade unions retain a capacity to shape sustainable HRM practices beyond the organisations they are recognised by. There appears to be a good range of research on such matters, but more research should be undertaken to explore trade unions working in partnership with employers to facilitate sustainable HRM. Doing so could help make a case for a return to a wider use of collective bargaining arrangements and the rebuilding of corporatism.

A final emergent facet to sustainable HRM involved individual and self-organised employees, as evidently noted in studies aligned to labour process traditions. In this instance, employees act outwith the jurisdiction of employers, governments, OH and wider healthcare practitioners, civil society organisations and, increasingly, trade unions. Indeed, what we see here is research (see Figure 2) suggesting sustainable HRM can be achieved through micro-resistance (McFadden, 2014), attempts to create an autonomous shopfloor culture (Korczynski, 2011), organic forms of labour organising (Schoneboom, 2011), coping practices (Cohen and Richards, 2015) and the appropriation of social media platforms (Schoneboom, 2007). While these activities are unlikely to be viewed by many HRM practitioners and line managers in the same light, acts of this kind have not historically been researched in terms of contributing to sustainable HRM. This appears an oversight, as these practices appear to fill or relate to gaps previously identified in the article, particularly in terms of the rhetorical side of sustainable HRM practice (Wilkinson et al., 2001) and how the best features of sustainable HRM are typically reserved for core employees (Blake-Beard et al., 2010). It is also evident how there is not a short supply of research indirectly looking at sustainable HRM aspects of the labour process. However, it is fair to say more research could be directed towards a better integration of labour process theories into how sustainable HRM is both understood and practised. Specifically, more research, as stated above, should aim to explore how self-organised employees could be a keyyet, until now, under-explored meansto achieve an employee-centred model of sustainable HRM.

As noted in Figure 2, employee-centred sustainable HRM seems only achievable if the many direct and indirect parties to the employment relationship work together, ideally as social partners (see Figure 2). Indeed, to be truly effective, sustainable HRM requires, at the very least, some form of micro-level corporatism. For many HRM practitioners and line managers, particularly in countries such as the UK or the USA, such a perspective is unlikely to be accepted without a significant change in attitude towards how the employment relationship is managed on a day-to-day basis. That is, there is likely to be resistance to ceding a degree of power in the day-to-day management of employees, but in return, there is likely to be sustainable gains in terms of employee commitment, engagement and productivity. However, without a wider political compulsion to engage in at least micro-forms of corporatism, it seems many employers will need to lead on such matters, effectively inviting a range of parties to the employment relationship, to work on making employment sustainable. As such, a final specific research gap concerns researching micro-corporatist contexts, ideally using participatory and democratic forms of action research, to develop practical knowledge in the pursuit of worthwhile human purposes (Reason and Bradbury, 2008).

In broader and general terms, the review reveals a wide range of further research priorities (see Figure 1), not least because of the many mutual benefits achievable via sustainable forms of HRM. First, there is scope for more empirical and/or conceptual research on sustainable HRM. Second, extant research is dominated by advanced industrial settings, suggesting far more research needs to be conducted on sustainable HRM in relation to industrialising contexts (Aust et al., 2019). Third, research is required on a wider range of occupational and professional employee groups than at present. Fourth, extant research, specifically on sustainable HRM, seems biased towards quantitative methods and aligned positivist paradigms, suggesting future research should involve more use of qualitative methods and wider research paradigms. Fifth, as much of the sustainable HRM research seems dominated by OB and OH perspectives, more should be done in terms of designing future research based on key industrial relations and labour process themes, including works councils, collective bargaining and employee coping mechanisms and acts of micro-resistance.

Overall, sustainable HRM is a well-researched topic across the many sub-fields of HRM and employment-related studies. However, on closer inspection, it is evident how there is clear scope for more research based on further conceptualising and exploring the many finer, hidden, interlinked, yet key facets to achieving employee-centred sustainable HRM.