Recently, I seem to keep hearing(and saying myself) the word S-U-S-T-A-I-N-A-B-I-L-T-Y in the context of HR and talent. Looking for an actual definition of the word, I stumbled across multiple jokes and puns, such as:
“It is very hard to be against sustainability. In fact, the less you know about it, the better it sounds.” Robert M. Solow, Sustainability: An Economist’s Perspective [1]
What really is sustainability?
I am striving for a simple definition, something that I could use to explain it to a young child (because then, I am sure I can understand it…). To me, something can be considered sustainable if the resources required to produce it can be continuously replaced. The Webster dictionary is somewhat aligned: using a resource so that the resource itself is not depleted or permanently damaged.
Sustainability can mean different things inside and outside an organization. In the HR internal context, it means taking a good, hard look at employees as an asset (or a commodity?). As we see more and more companies defining themselves as “knowledge companies” and their employees “Knowledge workers”, storing and exchanging experiences, knowledge and networks, being sustainable means being able to replace human resources in an economical and non-disruptive way – and the more specialized a company is, the more complex this task becomes.
