The Quality of Work Life

INTRODUCTION

Quality of work Life is referred to as humanizing the working life and emphasizing the human factor. It mostly refers to favorableness’ or un-favorableness of a job environment for the people involved in it. The basic objective is to develop jobs that are excellent for people as well as for production. What is Quality? “Quality is the ability of a product or service to consistently meet or exceed customer expectations. What is work? Work can be defined as the application of discretion within limits in order to produce a result. What is work life? Work life does not merely means the facilities provided to the employees during office hours. It comprises of all the collusive feelings, which reside in the mind of the employee while he works in the organization, he is in the office

The Quality of Work Life (QWL) is a multi-faceted concept, having multi-dimensional constructs brought about by the variation of interest of the researchers and/or its users. The issue of QWL has become critical due to the increasing demands of today’s business environment and of the family structure. This gave rise to an increased interest in QWL not only in business but also for many professions and fields. Determining QWL always involves the interplay between and among the worker, job content, and job context. Furthermore, the determination of the extent of QWL in an organization is a perceptual undertaking. As such, QWL is greatly influenced by the personal characteristics of those who determine it. Measuring the extent by which QWL in an organization is usually done through the level of satisfaction employees experience using a given set of variables that are appropriate and useful in their situation. (Bagtasos, 2011). Studies of the quality of work life include many of the most central concepts in human resource management research. Various authors and researchers have proposed models of quality of working life which include a wide range of factors. 

Hackman and Oldham in 1976 drew attention to what they described as psychological growth needs as relevant to the consideration of Quality of working life. Several such needs were identified : skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback. They suggested that such needs have to be addressed if employees are to experience high quality of working life. In contrast to such theory based models, Taylor in 1979 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 and effect on extra work activities. Taylor suggested that relevant quality of working life concepts may vary according to organization and employee group. ( http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki)

Several studies emphasized that an employee’s lifestyle affects his or her work output. How employees feel about their jobs, their supervisor, their peers, their salary and benefits, their feeling of security and other factors affect their individual productivity, and collectively the ability of the organization to achieve its objectives. When the quality of work goes down, chances are, your job will be affected. Poor quality of work will only result in poor output and this will affect everyone, be it your employees or your customers (Agana, 2015).

Without a formal process, finding out implications of employee attitudes usually relies on the manager’s instincts or the employees’ willingness to communicate upward. But managerial instinct rarely provides the kind of hard data needed and most employees are hesitant to communicate anything but positive information to their supervisors or to the top management. This information gap must be filled in if the organization wants to seek stronger employer-employee ties and greater organizational performance. Quality of Work Life (QWL) has been well recognized as a multi-dimensional construct and it may not be universal or eternal. The key concepts captured and discussed in the existing literature include job security, better reward system, higher pay and opportunity for growth, participative groups, and increased organizational productivity among others. Regular assessment of Quality of Work Life can potentially provide organizations with important information about the welfare of their employees, such as job satisfaction, general well-being, work-related stress and the home-work interface.

This study is conceptualized to determine the factors that affect or reinforce the quality of work life of the employees, for both teaching and the non-teaching staff. It attempts to establish a causal relationship between the Quality of Work Life and the profile of the employees.

Mats College of Technology as a dynamic, private non-sectarian institution continues its mission to develop professionals who are God-loving, people-oriented and globally competitive. Being ISO Certified by the Det Norske Veritas, it has adopted and developed systems for effectiveness and efficiency of services to continue its lead especially in the fields of Maritime and Aviation education in the region.