Quality of Work Life

Source: Human Resource Management Shashi K Gupta and Rosy Joshi

Definition
Lau, Wong, Chan and Law (2001) operationalised QWL as the favourable working environment that supports and promotes satisfaction by providing employees with rewards, job security and career growth opportunities. Quality of work life (QWL) is a general concept that refers to several aspects of the job, including: Management and supervisory style Freedom and autonomy to make decisions on the job Satisfactory physical surroundings Job safety Satisfactory working hours Meaningful tasks

A high quality of work life is one that offers the individual worker such things as: (1) Fair pay. (2) Safe working conditions. (3) Opportunities to learn and use new skills. (4) Room to grow and progress in a career. (5) Protection of individual rights. (6) Pride in the work itself and in the organisation.

Factors influencing quality of work life

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Attitude (Skills, experience, energy, job involvement, etc) Environment (awareness of working conditions) Opportunities (for learning, self-development, recognition) Nature of job (being alert) People (boss, peers, subordinates, customers, etc) Stress level Career prospects Challenges (job related and creates interest) Growth and Development Risk involved and reward

Role of the supervisor

I. Consideration: Supervisors activities in providing a satisfactory working environment Creating a feeling of approval Developing personal relations Providing fair treatment Facilitation: Those things which the supervisor can do to make it easier for the worker to do the job Establishing work standards Work redesign Participative management

II.

QWL efforts include the following: 1) Employees involvement: Here employee is given the opportunity to participate in the decisions that affect them and their relationship with the company. 2) Quality circles: These are small groups of employees who meet regularly to find, analyze and solve quality and other work related problems of a particular department / section/ area. 3) Socio technical systems: These are interventions in the work situation that redesign the work, the work groups and the relationship between workers and the technologies they use to perform their jobs. 4) Co determination: in this method, representatives of workers meet management in a formal way to discuss and vote on important decisions that affect the lives of workers.

5) Self managed work teams: These are employee groups (also called autonomous workgroups) with a high degree of decision making, responsibility and behavioral control for completing their work. The team is usually given the responsibility for producing an entire product or service. 6) Suggestion programs: It is a formal method for generating evaluating and implementing employees ideas. 7) Open door policies: Where open door policies exist employees are free to walk into any managers office with their problems and seek solutions to such problems.