Green Employee Empowerment? Driving and Inhibiting Factors for Green Employee Performance

Abstract

Being able to survive during the Covid19 pandemic is a big task for a company, as such, empowerment of employees is a must. The sample in this study was 300 employees who worked in Spas throughout Bali. The sampling technique was purposive sampling. Data analysis was using SEM and SMARTS as data processing. The results showed that green communication, namely communication that occurs between employees, superiors, and the environment, has a very good influence on the sustainability of employee performance. To become green management, a green organizational commitment that cares about the safety of employee health and the environment is an important factor as motivation in green dedication or positive employee productivity, but communication between work actors and justice is also a motivating factor. Work safety and job security for employees empower employees (which is a green line), especially for freelance work organizations so that further research in subsequent studies can make samples in a more varied industrial sector.

1. Introduction

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic had a significant impact on the spa and wellness industry worldwide as many establishments were forced to close to avoid gatherings of people in public areas Nowadays all aspects of life are required to be able to adapt to various changes that have a significant impact on all fields, including the organization. The advantages of an organization are determined by the advantages of its resources and how to manage these resources. This relates to how to improve the capabilities of human resources to be able to respond quickly and accurately to changes that occur and how to efficiently and effectively use financial, physical, and technology and information for the benefit of the organization (Witschel et al., 2020). Substantial evidence now exists which indicates that more successful organizations are those in which people or human resources form the central focus of management. It has been widely acknowledged, in literature and practice, that human resources are the most important assets of every organization (Masri & Jaaron, 2017). The spa industry depends on its human resources; dedicated employees will make customers feel at home and do not want to move to other places. Empowering employees is important in creating employee green performance (productive) (Ahmad & Manzoor, 2017). Things that make employees always dedicated and loyal to the company are the company’s commitment to employees and the environment, sustainable business justice for the environment and workforce, and commitment to green organizations (Stahl et al., 2020).

Research conducted by Ingsih et al. (2020) found that communication simultaneously has a positive and significant effect on employee performance. Ibrahim et al. (2020) and Aflah et al. (2020) proved that organizational justice and organizational commitment have a significant effect on employee performance. Communication within an organization improves efficiency and ultimately the job performance of employees. When employers, directors, and managers can regularly provide effective communication this, in turn, will lead to an increase in efficiency within the workplace (Woodrow & Guest, 2014; Kim (2020). Green organizational culture states that the workforce at different management levels must pay attention to the importance of the green environment in organizational performance so that organizations need to communicate green initiatives, practices, and goals (Ghouri et al., 2020; Ahmad, 2015). Green organizational commitment means organizations that care about health, safety, job security for employees and organizations that care about the environment (Khaskheli et al., 2020). Justice does not always make a positive value to motivate the empowerment of green employee performance (Aggarwal et al., 2020).

Sarido and Soliha (2016) showed that motivation variables mediate the influence of communication on performance. Also, the results of a study conducted by Zameer et al. (2014) showed that performance is significantly influenced by motivation. Research conducted by Zhang et al. (2019) showed that motivation has a significant influence on the empowerment of the green employee variable. Commitment and justice do not always improve employee performance, nor are they always make employees dedicated (Teo et al., 2020). Motivation is a positive factor in improving employee performance, thus, making employees more productive (Paais & Pattiruhu, 2020). Motivation serves as mediation in presenting the variables of communication, justice, and commitment to green organizations and can create productive employees.

The high performance of an employee will improve overall company performance (Nguyen, 2020). For companies that provide services to their customers, employees are required to have a strong commitment. Research with a model like this examines the variables of communication, justice, and commitment to green organizations with mediation to performance has not been carried out. Based on this, the purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of communication, justice, and organizational commitment on motivation, as well as to analyze the influence of communication, justice, organizational commitment, and motivation on the performance of the spa business employees in Bali in one framework.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Green Employee Empowerment (GEE)

Care for the environment has been embedded in a broader human resource development model and framework (Lüdeke- Freund, 2020). The empowerment of green employees is all activities involved in the development, implementation, and continuous system maintenance aimed at making the employees of an organization go green (Amrutha & Geetha, 2020). Green Human Resources Management (GHRM) refers to using Human Resources Management (HRM) practices to reinforce environmental sustainable practices and increase employee’s commitment to the issues of environmental sustainability. It embraces considering concerns and values of Environmental Management (EM) in applying Human Resources (HR) initiatives generating greater efficiencies and better Environmental Performance (EP) necessary for reducing employees’ carbon footprints (Asih et al., 2020; Masri & Jaaron, 2017). Proposed GEE practices can help organizations achieve green performance goals by encouraging green behavior employees. Meanwhile, green organizational performance (Kawiana et al., 2020) is the final result that is accumulated from all processes and work activities of the organization. It is stated that the indicators of Empowerment of green employees include: (1) Accuracy in Completion of Tasks, (2) Suitability of Working Hours, (3) Accuracy of work entry/return time and attendance, (4) Attendance level, (5) Cooperation between employees and (6) Job satisfaction. Strategic skills and organizational human resources professional competence is a prerequisite for promoting environmentally friendly practices (Anwar et al., 2020).

2.2. Green Organizational Commitment, Communication, and Justice

The concept of organizational commitment relates to the level of involvement of people with the organization where they work and are interested in staying in the organization. Cesário and Chambel (2017) explained that organizational commitment is a level where individuals identify and engage with their organization and do not want to leave the organization. Li et al. (2021) and Cao et al. (2020) stated that there are three pillars of commitment, namely: (1) a sense of belonging, (2) passion for their work, and (3) ownership of the organization. Pierce and Camiré, (2017) defined communication as a process of transferring and understanding meaning. In perfect communication, a thought is sent, so that the recipient can understand with the same mental image the sender intended (Oswald et al., 2020).

Suh et al. (2018) stated that organizational communication indicators include (1) Ease of obtaining information, (2) Communication Intensity, (3) Communication Effectiveness, (4) Message Understanding Level, and (5) Attitude Change. Organizational justice describes individual perceptions of the treatment received from an organization and behavioral reactions to these perceptions. Organizational justice can also be defined as a study of equality in the workplace (Nazir et al., 2019). Indicators of organizational justice include (1) Fair promotion opportunities, (2) Recognition of hard work, (3) Good job appraisal procedures, and (4) Fair attitudes of superiors.

2.3. The Mediating Effect of Motivation

Wilson (2018) argued that motivation is a condition that encourages other people to carry out tasks by their functions in the organization. There are four indicators of motivation, namely: (1) drive to achieve goals, (2) moral, (3) initiative and creativity, and (4) sense of responsibility. If workers have the motivation to achieve personal goals, then they must increase productivity. Increasing worker motivation will increase organizational productivity (Islami et al., 2018; Tomasello, 2020). Human behavior is essentially goal-oriented in other words, a person’s behavior is generally stimulated by the desire to achieve several goals (Donmez- Turan & Kiliclar, 2021; Maulana et al., 2020).

2.4. Research Model Framework

The research model framework aims to provide direction for the research process and form the same perceptions between researchers and others on the lines of thinking of researchers. Guided by literature review, the model framework in this research illustrates that empowerment of green employees can be influenced by communication, justice, and organizational commitment directly or indirectly through motivation. For clarity, it is shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Model Framework

So that from the variable relationship it can be concluded the hypothesis as below:

H1, H2, and H3: Communication, justice, and green organizational commitment is positively correlated with personal Motivation.

H4, H5, and H6: Communication, justice, and green organizational commitment is positively correlated with the empowerment of green employees.

H7: Motivation is positively correlated with the empowerment of green employees.

H8, H9, and H10: Motivation plays a mediating role between communication, justice, green organizational commitment, and empowerment of green employees.

3. Methods

This study is a quantitative study that links exogenous, mediating, and endogenous variables, to examine the causal relationship between communication, justice, and organizational green commitment variables and empowering green empowerment of green employees by mediating self- motivation. This research was conducted in the beauty spa business sector in Bali.

The sample size taken was 300 respondents, who were employees who worked at the spa for at least one year, with a purposive sampling technique. Data collection was carried out by distributing questionnaires as a research instrument which tested the validity and reliability of a sample of 30 respondents, the results of which are presented in Table 1. After the data was collected, all 300 respondents used analysis tools, namely Path Analysis using SEM-PLS.

Table 1: Descriptive Data

The sampling stage is a distribution to all spa employees in Bali. The research instruments were distributed randomly. The sampling stage was divided into two criteria, first filling out the personal data form, with the criteria that he/she has been working for more than a year, and second, understanding about environmentally friendly products. The criteria for the sample taken were those that met the first requirement and 300 sample data was feasible to be processed for further processing.

4. Results and Discussion

4.1. Respondent Characteristics

Based on the results of the research, the characteristics of the respondents in terms of gender, age, education level, and type of business are obtained as shown in Table 1.

Table 1 explains that there were more male respondents than female respondents where male respondents were 70 percent, namely 90 people out of 300 informants, while female respondents were 30 percent, namely 210 of the total sample. Judging by age, the majority of respondents were in the age group of 30–42 years (45 percent), then 42–54 years (35 percent), then 18–30 years, and 54–56 years (10 percent). Based on the level of education 50 percent had completed high school, 25 percent completed courses in Spa, 10 percent each had completed junior high school and diploma levels, and 5 percent were undergraduate.

4.2. Assessment of the Measurement Model

The outer Model evaluation includes construct validity test and construct reliability test. For the needs of the Outer Model evaluation, Algorithm processing is carried out in PLS-SEM. The results of the SEM PLS Algorithm sub- menu processing are presented in Figure 2 and the following tables. From the Algorithm output display above, an Outer Model (Measurement Model) analysis can be carried out which includes the loading factor test, the Fornell-Larcker test, the cross-loading test, and the construct reliability test.

Figure 2: Bootstrapping Model Statistics Coefficient

The Loading Factor test is carried out to test the validity of construct data which shows the suitability level of the use of a measurement with the theories used to define a construct. In this study, communication (X1), justice (X2) green organizational commitment (X3), and motivation personal (Z), and empowerment of green employees (Y) are the first-order constructs. Next, the outer loading coefficient is displayed in tabular form.

In Table 2, it can be seen that the value of Cronbach’s Alpha, rho_A, Composite Reliability for each construct is greater than 0.70 and the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) of each construct is all greater than 0.50. Thus all measurements used in this study are reliable (Hair et al., 2017).

Table 2: Results for the Measurement Model

Thus it can be stated that all valid indicators reflect their respective constructs. The difference between one construct and another construct is discriminant validity (Hair et al., 2017). Comparison of constructs in shared variance (quadratic correlation) is performed via the AVE of each construct, also called the Fornell-Larcker criterion (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).

Table 3: Correlation and Average Variance Extracted

4.3. Assessment of the Structural Model

Based on the Path Coefficients in Table 4, a structural equation of the influence of communication, justice, and green organizational commitment can be made on the following personal motivation:

Table 4: Path Coefficients

\(\begin{array}{l} Z=\beta_{1} X_{1}+\beta_{2} X_{2}+\beta_{3} X_{3}+\varepsilon_{1} \\ Z=0.104 X_{1}+0.210 X_{2}+0.344 X_{3}+\varepsilon_{1} \end{array}\)       (1)

Thus it can be stated that communication, justice, and green organizational commitment have a positive influence on motivation. This means that if communication, justice, and green organizational commitment are improved, motivation will also increase. Vice versa, if communication, justice, and green organizational commitment decrease, motivation will also decrease. Taking into account the path coefficient on motivation (Z), it turns out that the most dominant influence is green organizational commitment (X3), and then followed by organizational justice (X2) and organizational communication (X1), which is equal to 0.344 / 0.210 = 1.64 time’s organizational justice (X2) and 0.344 / 0.104 = 3.31 time’s green organizational communication (X1). From Table 6, a structural equation of the effect of communication, justice, green organizational commitment, and personal motivation can be made on the following employee performance:

Table 6: Path Coefficients, T-Statistics, P-Values

\(\begin{array}{l} Y=\beta_{4} X_{1}+\beta_{5} X_{2}+\beta_{6} X_{3}+\beta_{7} Z+\varepsilon_{2} \\ Y=0.230 X_{1}+0.134 X_{2}+0.030 X_{3}+0.460 Z+\varepsilon_{2} \end{array}\)       (2)

Taking into account the structural equation (2) it can be stated that communication, justice, green organizational commitment, and personal motivation have a positive influence on employee performance. This means that if communication, justice, green organizational commitment, and personal motivation are improved, it will result in increased empowerment of green employees and if communication, justice, green organizational commitment, and personal motivation decrease, empowerment of green employees will also decrease. Noting the path coefficient on the empowerment of green employees (Y), it turns out that the most dominant influence is, personal motivation (Z), followed by organizational communication (X1), organizational justice (X2), and green organizational commitment (X3), which is equal to 0.460 / 0.230 = 2.00 times organizational communication (X1), 0.460 / 0.134 = 3.43 times organizational justice (X2) and 0.460 / 0.030 = 15.33 times green organizational commitment (X3).

4.4. Model Fit Testing (Evaluation of the Goodness of Fit Inner Model)

To validate the overall model, the R-Square (R²) and Q² predictive relevance coefficients were used. From the results of Algorithm processing, the R² value is obtained as in the following table.

Table 5 shows the R-square value of 0.366 for the per- sonal motivation variable (Z) and 0.541 for the empowerment of the green employee’s variable (Y). This means that the variation of changes in the personal motivation variable (Z) can be explained by the variables organizational communication, organizational justice, and green organizational commitment together at 36.6 percent. Meanwhile, the empowerment of green employees’ variable (Y) can be explained by the variable organizational communication, organizational justice, organizational commitment, and personal motivation amounting to 54.1 percent. Seeing that the percentage of this influence is between 25 percent and 75 percent, the effect can be categorized as moderate (Hair et al., 2017).

Table 5: The R-Square Value of Personal Motivation Variables and Empowerment of Green Employees Variables

Besides looking at the size of the R² value, the PLS model can be evaluated by looking at the Q² predictive relevance value used to measure how well the observed value is generated by the model and also its parameter estimation.

Q² = 1 – (1 – R12) (1 – R22)

Q² = 1 – (1 – 0.366) (1 – 0.541)

Q² = 1 – (0.634) (0.459)

Q² = 1 – 0.291 = 0.709

Q-Square predictive relevance is 0.709, and according to Stone-Geisser’s criteria, it’s above 0.35. Thus it can be stated that this model has a strong predictive prevalence. It means that the variation in the dependent variable is so large or strong, it can be explained by the constructs included in this research model. This means that the predictive power of this model has been classified as strong.

4.5. Hypothesis Testing

The output display of Bootstrapping processing results in Figure 3 is used for hypothesis testing. In Figure 3, there are three exogenous variables, namely communication (X1), organizational justice (X2), and green organizational commitment (X3), one intervening variable, namely personal motivation (Z), and one endogenous variable, namely empowerment of green employees (Y). Thus it can be stated, the endogenous variable empowerment of green employees (Y) has four predictors including communication (X1), organizational justice (X2), green organizational commitment (X3), and personal motivation (Z). Meanwhile, the personal motivation intervening variable (Z) has three predictors including communication (X1), organizational justice (X2), and green organizational commitment (X3).

In addition to Figure 2, Table 6 can also be displayed which shows the coefficient of T statistics and P-values for hypothesis testing.

5. Discussion

This study examines the relationship between communication, justice, and organizational green commitment, and empowerment of environmentally friendly resources driven by personal motivation. The results showed that communication and justice in the organization did not play a big role in motivating personalities in the organization. This means that however high communication and justice may be, it will not provide personal motivation to the organization. But organizational green commitment has a positive effect on the empowerment of green resources and good communication within the organization provides a boost of personal motivation so that employee performance and empowerment can be realized (Sapta et al., 2021; Paais et al., 2020; Zameer et al., 2014). Furthermore, it will provide work empowerment to employees (Aggarwal et al., 2020; Ahmad & Manzoor, 2017).

Good communication can empower employee performance, make them care about the environment around them so that the work ethic can be realized (Maan et al., 2020). The green commitment of the organization does not have a positive impact on empowering environmentally friendly employees (Udod et al., 2020). Personal motivation does not have a positive impact on empowering environmentally friendly employees (Ansari et al., 2020). This means that the intense enthusiasm that is sometimes carried out with a personal approach is not able to create or foster employee motivation so that this does not have a positive impact on employee empowerment.

6. Conclusion

The existence of communication, organizational justice, and green organizational commitment can each increase personal motivation, but, only organizational commitment has a significant effect. And personal motivation is not able to mediate the effect of commitment and organizational commitment on employee performance. Motivation can only mediate the effect of organizational commitment on employee performance.

Since the influence of organizational commitment has had a significant influence on employee personal motivation, it is advisable to maintain organizational commitment or increase it so that employee personal motivation can increase. Meanwhile, for communication and organizational justice, it is still necessary to find other strategies to increase personal motivation. Since the influence of communication and personal motivation has had a significant influence on the Empowerment of green employees, it is advisable to maintain communication and personal motivation or increase it to increase the empowerment of green employees. Meanwhile, for organizational justice, it is still necessary to find other strategies to improve the empowerment of green employees. The presence of personal motivation in this relationship model needs to be maintained because it has been able to mediate the effect of green organizational commitment on the empowerment of green employees.