CURRENT ISSUE

MGM 4136

SEMESTER 2010/2011 (2)

QUALITY OF WORK LIFE

GROUP 15

PROF. NOOR AZMAN BIN ALI

ANAS SYAZWAN BIN MOHD SAH 145988

MOHAMAD KHAIRUL NIZAM 149100

MOHAMAD NOR AZRI BIN TUKIMAN 146947

MOHAMMAD FIRDAUS BIN IBRAHIM 147608

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Definition Of Quality of Work Life (QWL)

Robbins (1989) defined QWL as "a process by which an organization responds to employee needs by developing mechanisms to allow them to share fully in making the decisions that design their lives at work". According to the business dictionary, quality of work life is the extent to which employees can enhance their personal life through their work and their environment.

Generally, Quality of Work Life is a term that had been used to describe the broader job-related experience an individual has.

Factors That Influence And Decide The QWL

Attitude is the person who is entrusted with a particular job needs to have sufficient knowledge, required skill and expertise, enough experience, energy level and willingness to learn new things.

Environment is the job may involve dealing with customers who have varied tolerance level, behavioral pattern, level of understanding; or it may involve working with dangerous machines like drilling pipes, welding and soldering machines, or even with animals where maximum safety precautions have to be observed which needs lot of concentration.

Opportunities means some jobs offer opportunities for learning, research, discovery, self-development, enhancement of skills, room for innovation, public recognition, exploration, celebrity-status and loads and loads of fame.

Nature of job, for example, a fire-fighter and traffic policeman, have to do dangerous jobs and have to be more alert in order to avoid any loss of life which is irreparable. Some jobs need skills and abilities to train and extract work from others; other jobs need forethought, vision and yet other jobs need motor skills, perfection and extreme carefulness.

Stress level need not be directly proportional to the compensation. Stress is of different types – mental stress/physical stress and psychological or emotional stress. A Managing Director of a company will have mental stress, a laborer will have physical stress, a psychiatrist will have emotional stress. Mental stress and Emotional stress cause more damage than physical stress.

Challenges means the job should offer some challenges at least to make it interesting; that enables an employee to upgrade his knowledge and skill and capabilities. A well-accomplished challenging job yields greater satisfaction than a monetary perk; it boosts the self-confidence also.

Growth and development, if an organization does not give chance for growth and personal development it is very difficult to retain the talented personnel and also to find new talent with experience and skill.

Risk involved and reward, generally reward or compensation is directly proportional to the quantum of work, man-hours, nature and extent of responsibility, accountability, delegated powers, authority of position in the organization chart, risk involved level of expected commitment, deadlines and targets, industry, country, demand and supply of skilled manpower and even political stability and

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economic policies of a nation. Reward is a key criterion to lure a prospective worker to accept the offer.

Way To Create High QWL

QWL deals with the relationship between every employee and work organization. This relationship is formal in sometimes less formal. This contract is psychological contract. “Psychological contract” is the set of expectations held be the individual specifying what the individual and the organization expect to give and receive from each other in the course of their working relationship. This contract represents the expected exchange of values that encourages the individual to work for the organization and motivates the organization to employ that person, (i.e) Contribution and Inducements.

A healthy psychological contract means that inducements and contributions are balance.

INDUCEMENTS = CONTRIBUTIONS

(organization to employees) = (employee to organization)

This is the way for organization to create healthy psychological contract and Jobs satisfaction for their members is to provide them with High QWL environment.

Issue Related To QWL

Pay and Stability of Employment. Good pay still dominates most of the other factors in employee satisfaction. Various alternative means for providing wages should be developed in view of increase in cost of living index, increase in levels and rates of income tax and profession tax. Stability to a greater extent can be provided by enhancing the facilities for human resource development.

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Occupational Stress. Stress is a condition of strain on emotions, thought process and physical condition, Stress is determined by the nature of work, working conditions, working hours, pause in the work schedule, work abilities and nature and match with the job requirements. Stress is caused due to irritability, hyper-excitation or depression, unstable behavior, fatigue, stuttering, trembling, psychosomatic pains, heavy smoking and drug abuse. Stress adversely affects employee productivity.

Alternative Work Schedules. Including work at home, flexible working hours, staggered hours, reduced work week, part-time employment which may be introduced for the convenience and comfort of the workers as the work schedule which offers the individual the leisure time, flexible hours of work is preferred.

Adequacy of Resources. Resources should match with stated objectives otherwise, employees will not be able to attain the objectives. This results in employee dissatisfaction and lower QWL.

Seniority and Merit in Promotions. Seniority is generally taken as the basis for promotion in case of operating employees. Merit is considered as the basis for advancement for managerial people whereas seniority cum-merit is preferred for promotion of ministerial employees. The promotional policies and activities should be fair and just in order to ensure higher QWL.

Importance of QWL

Helps to increase productivity of employees. With quality of work life such as giving employees chance to be part of decision making which making them feel important, employees are more motivated and satisfied.

Job satisfaction increment. Employees will be satisfied with their job and the company when they feel they are really part of the company. This is essential as to avoid employees from being unhappy or distress working in the company which will affect their performance in completing tasks given.

Reduction of absenteeism and labor turnover are possible. Most of the causes of absenteeism and labour turnover are due to the companies’ lack of attention towards the employees. This ignorance hence contributes to the problem.

Increase the quality of life of the employees.

Conclusion

A happy and healthy employee will give better turnover, make good decisions positively contribute to the organizational goal. An assured good quality of work life will not only attract young and new talent but also retain the existing experienced talent.

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References

Subaashnii Suppramaniam, Fitriya Abdul Rahim and Thilageswary Arumugam (2009) “Quality of Work Life : A Look at the Factors Affecting”

http://www.citeman.com/1126-issues-in-qwl/

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/quality-of-worklife.html

http://www.chrmglobal.com/Articles/183/1/Quality-of-Work-Life.html

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/7195919/MBA-Project-Quality-of-work-life

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