Quality of Work Life free essay sample

Walton(1974) lists adequate and fair compensation, safe and healthy environment, jobs which are aimed at development using employee’s skills and abilities, growth and security, an environment in which employees develop self-esteem and a sense of identity, protection and respect for employees’ right to privacy, dissent, equity etc, a sensible integration of job career family life and leisure time as the important aspects of QWL Robbins (1989) defined QWL as a process by which an organization responds to employees needs by developing mechanisms to allow them to share fully in making the decisions their design their lives at work. Jerome M Rosow (1975) President of the Work in American Institute has identified seven critical factors which will affect the quality of work life during the years ahead. These are pay, employee benefits, job security, alternative work schedules, occupational stress, participation and democracy in the workplace FACTORS RELATED TO QWL According to Roopali Johri (2005) causes affecting QWL are economic adversity/employment difficulties, management practices (ways of treating employees and giving them opportunities to use their abilities) and job nature (work load, work hours and pay). We will write a custom essay sample on Quality of Work Life or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The results of the study by Sinha (1980), indicate that higher QWL leads to greater job satisfaction. QWL is positively related to performance and negatively correlated to absenteeism. But no relationship exists between perceived QWL and workers’ age, education and job experience (Guna Seelan Rethinam, Maimunah Ismail, 2008). According to a study by Waheeda Khan, Meena Osmany M. Waseem, Jamia Millia Islamia (2002), QWL was significantly higher among the private sector women employees than their counterparts in the public sector. It also showed that younger group and higher experienced groups had significantly higher perception of QWL than the older and the lower experienced groups. Quality of work life carries different interpretations for different employees in an organization. The relationship between working time (fewer working hours) and job satisfaction is ambiguous, though job satisfaction is positively related to working time flexibility for maintaining a reasonable work-life balance (Robbins, 2005). QWL dimensions are broadly divided into: Classical dimensions and Contemporary dimensions. Classical dimensions include physical working conditions, employees welfare, employee assistance, job factors and financial factors whereas, Contemporary dimensions include collective bargaining, industrial safety and health, grievance redressal procedure, quality circles, work-life balance, workers participation in management etc(Padala, Shanmukha Rao Dr. N. V. S. Suryanarayan,2011). The quality of work that Canadians want rests on four pillars