‘Quality of Work Life’ is the part of overall quality of life that is influenced by work

ABSTRACT

             ‘Quality of Work Life’ is the part of overall quality of life that is influenced by work. Quality of Life is the product of the interplay among social, health, economic and environmental conditions which affect human and social development. Quality of Work Life (QWL) – management activities that promote such values as fairness, meaningful work, employee empowerment, and balance between family and work life.

              Work is an integral part of our everyday life, as it is our livelihood or career or business. On an average we spend around twelve hours daily in the work place, that is one third of our entire life; it does not influence the overall quality of our life. It should yield job satisfaction, give peace of mind, a fulfillment of having done a task, as it is expected, without any flaw and having spent the time fruitfully, constructively and purposefully. Even if it is a small step towards our lifetime goal, at the end of the day it gives satisfaction and eagerness to look forward to the next day.

              The factors that influence and decide the Quality of Work Life are: Attitude, Environment, Nature of job, Opportunities, People, Stress Level, Career prospects, Challenges, Growth and development and Risk and Reward.

              QWL illustrates the “relationship between employees and the total working environment”. QWL is a process by which an organization responds to employee needs for developing mechanisms to allow them to share fully in making the decisions that design their lives at work.

              QWL programs can be evaluated on the basis of following points:

• Fair compensation and Job security
• Health is Wealth
• Provide personal and career growth opportunities
• Participative management style and recognition
• Work-life balance
• Fun at work place

              The aim of QWL is to identify and implement alternative programs to improve the quality of professional as well as personal life of an organization’s employees.

INTRODUCTION

INDUSTRY PROFILE

             In the growing global competition, the productivity is the key for the survival of any business organization. Among different functions in an organization, production/operations function is a vital function which does the job value addition to products/services, respectively.

            An organization consists of mainly four functional subsystems, viz. Marketing, Finance, Production and Personnel.

                           Functional subsystem of an organization

• The Marketing function of an organization aims to promote its products among customers, which helps it to obtain substantial sales order. This in turn, is communicated to the production subsystems which are concerned with the management of physical resources for the production of an item or provision of a service.
• To manufacture the products as per the specifications, the production function needs to organize its resources (raw materials, equipments, labour and working capital) according to the predetermined production plans.
• The Finance function provides authorization and control to all other subsystems to utilize money more effectively through a well designed mechanism.
• The Personnel function is a supporting function which plans and provides manpower to all other subsystems of the organization and to itself by formulating proper recruitment and training programmes. It also monitors the performance of the employees for better direction, promotions and results.

          Production/operations management is the process which combines and transforms various resources used in the production/operations subsystem of the organization into value added products/services in a controlled manner as per the policies of the organization.

         The set of interrelated management activities which are involved in manufacturing certain products is called as production management. If the same concept is extended towards services management, then the corresponding set of management activities is called as operations management.

  The inputs to the system are materials, Labour, equipments and capital. These inputs are combined and converted into goods/services by a suitable technology. In product manufacturing, the major inputs are capital, machines, equipments and tools, and Labour is required to operate and maintain the materials requirement planning

a)      Capacity planning

b)      Scheduling and control

c)      Line balancing

d)     Line of balance

e)      Single machine scheduling

f)       Flow shop scheduling

g)      Job shop scheduling

2.      Maintenance management

3.      Feedback and control techniques

a)      Quality control

b)      Inventory control

Various authors and researchers have proposed models of Quality of Working Life which include a wide range of factors. Selected models are reviewed below.

ü  Hackman and Oldham drew attention to what they described as psychological growth needs as relevant growth to the consideration of Quality of Working. Several such needs were identified; Skill variety, Task significance, Task identity, Autonomy and Feedback. They suggested that such needs have to addresses if employees are to experience high quality of working life.

ü  Taylor more pragmatically identified the essential components of Quality of Working Life as: basic extrinsic job factors of wages, hours and working conditions, and the intrinsic job notions of the nature of the work itself. He suggested that a number of other aspects could be added, including ; individual power,  employee participation in the management, fairness and equity, social support, use of one’s present skills, self development, a meaningful future at work, social relevance of the work or product, effect on extra work activities. Taylor suggested that relevant quality of working life concepts may vary according to organizations and employee group.

ü  Mirvis and Lawler suggested that Quality of Working Life was associated with satisfaction with wages, hours and working conditions, describing the “basic elements of a good quality of work life” as; safe work environment, equitable wages, equal employment opportunities and opportunities for advancement.

ü  Baba and Jamal listed what they described as typical indicators of Quality of Working Life, including: job satisfaction, job involvement, work role ambiguity, work role conflict, work role overload, job stress, organizational commitment and turn-over intentions.

ü  Sirgy et al suggested that the key factors in quality of working life are: Need satisfaction based on job requirements, Need satisfaction based on work requirements, Need satisfaction based on supervisory behavior, Need satisfaction based on Ancillary programmes, organizational commitment. They defined quality of work life as satisfaction of these key needs through resources, activities, and outcomes stemming from participation in the work place.

ü  Sangeetha Jain’s concept, QWL is defined as a “whole parcel of terms and conditions of which really belong to the Quality of Working Life umbrella”. They include industrial effectiveness, human resource development, Organizational effectiveness, Work restructure, Job enrichment, Socio-technical systems, Working humanization, Group-work concepts, Labour management, Co-operation, Working  together, Workers involvement, Workers participation and Co-operative work structures.

ü  The International Labour Organization (ILO) lists the following areas as concerns of QWL:

§  Hours of Work and arrangement of working time.

§  Work organization and Job contents.

§  Impact of new technologies on working conditions.

§  Working conditions of women, young workers and others special categories.

§  Work related welfare services and facilities.

Research Gap

             Quality of work life (QWL) is a comprehensive program designed to enhance service to the public by improving employee satisfaction. Work place strength can be achieved by providing training and helping employees to manage change and transition.

               QWL can be in form of a participatory management, in most cases the initiative for implementing the QWL programs is up to the employees at the floor level. Nevertheless, strong management support and leadership, usually in the form of joint council is the first step to success. In most firms annual QWL plans were developed and implemented at the department levels. Each department would have a QWL coordinator who is responsible for coordinating QWL activities.

                Measurement of QWL is a difficult task as the intention is to enhance the employees work life qualitatively and not quantitatively. The result would be reflected in better productivity. Morale and Job satisfaction leads to overall organizational effectiveness.

  

                The theories of motivation and leadership would provide a sound base for the concept of QWL. Maslow depicted the complexity of human nature by describing various levels of human needs and satisfaction for the high order needs.

               Herzberg went a step further and distinguished hygiene factors, which maintain a reasonable level of motivation and the motivational factors which can improve employee performance. McGregor in his “Theory Y” assumed that under proper conditions, employees have the potential to work with responsibility.

              An annual employee survey would give a snap shot of employee views about the quality of their work life and helps to surface employee issues that require attention. Continuous research and experiments have been undertaken to understand human beings at work and the ways to improve their job satisfaction, balanced with the aim of the organizations to combine better productivity with job and employee satisfaction which gives rise to QWL.