QUALITY OF WORK LIFE

QWL is a prescriptive concept: it attempts to design work environment so

as to maximize concern for human welfare. It a goal as well as a process.
The goal is the creation of more involving,satisfying and effective jobs
and work environment for people at all levels of the organization. As a
process QWL invol\ves efforts to realize this goal through active
participation. The whole essence of QWL may be stated as thus:

“ The QWL is cooperative rather than authoritarian: evolutionary and

open rather than static and rigid; informal rather than rule bound;
impersonal rather than mechanistic; mutual respect and trust rather than
hatred against each other.”

Thus, from the above explanation of QWL we can see that it focuses
mainly on the positive aspects of a healthy work environment and tries to
infuse cooperation, evolution, informality, and mutual respect and trust
among the workers of an orgainsation. It also involves steps related to
removing the negative aspects like authoritarian, staticity, rigidity, rule
bounded ness, hatred from the working environment. It tries to develop
harmony and provide the best and safest working conditions to all its
workers and also makes efforts to treat all its employees with equality.

QWL refers to the level of satisfaction, motivation, involvement and

commitment individuals experience with respect to their lives at work.

According to Lloyd Suttle, “Qwality of Working life is the degree to

which the members of a work organization are able to satisfy important
personal needs through their experiences in the organization”. It focuses
on the problem of creating a human working environment where
employees work cooperatively and achieve results collectively.
QWL, includes the following four essential elements:
 Programme seeks to promote human dignity and growth.
 Employees work collaboratively.
 They determine work changes participatively.
 The programmes assume compatibility of people and organizational
goals.

QWL, efforts generally tries to instill in employees the feelings of security,

equity, pride, ownership, autonomy, responsibility and flexibility. It provides
the following benefits to the people of the organization:

Overall, QWL is related to :

a) job satisfaction, humanizing work or individualizing the organization;
b) organizational development programmes.

QWL is determined by the interaction of personal and situational factors.

It implies that the strategy for improving the QWL is first to identify and
then try to satisfy people’s important needs through their experience in
their work-realted rewards, work-experiences and work-environment.

BENEFITS OF QWL:
In general, the benefits of QWL include:
a) healthier, satisfied and productive employees;
b) efficient, adaptive and profitable organizations.

Specifically the benefits are as follows:

Benefits of QWL:
 Healthy environment
 Productive workforce
 Opportunities for learning and professional growth
 Employee participation in decision-making
 Better communication between labor and management
 Fair compensation and security for workers
 It builds mutual trust among the members of the organization
 More positive feelings towards one’s self
 More positive feelings towards one’s job
 More positive feelings towards the organization
 Improved physical and psychological health
 Greater growth and development of the individual
 Decreased absenteeism and turnover
 Higher quality and quantity of output
 Increase organizational effectiveness
 High employee satisfaction
 High morale
 High employee involvement
 Peaceful industrial relation

POTENTIAL DIFFICULTIES IN QWL:

QWL programmes in their collaborative forms(involving joint union-

management activities)are fought with difficulties. At leasr potentially, both
union and management open themselves to substantial risks. The union may
perceive joint activities,(undertaken at the initiative of the management) as a
means by which it intends to ‘do them in’. likewise, the management may
perceive joint activities(initiated at the instance of the union) as an intention
of diluting its ability to manage and a means by which the union will acquire
more power. Particularly, the middle management may find it hard to believe
the benefits of QWL and may perceive that the management is ‘becominh oft
and giving in to union dominance’.

In short, if QWL initiatives are collaboratively launched by the management

and the union
•Management feels it might result in loss of managerial control over the
union
•Union fears it might be overpowered by the management

The conditions which help in overcoming the above are as follows:

 Acknowledgement by both parties of ‘mutuality of concerns’ and
specific indentification of these concerns.
 An understanding that joint activities will, in fact, be joint and
supportive of the continuing integrity of both parties.
 Acceptance of QWL concepts as the norm by the top management, by
union leadership and by middle management and supervision.
 An administrative structure to provide guidance for the QWL project
activities.
 An established charter for the QWL committee and project activities,
specifying ground rules, responsibilities, authorities,etc.
 A clear-cut understanding that joint ownership of the entire QWL is a
reality and open acknowledgement of what each party expects to
receive as benefits.
 A mechanism for involvement; handling substancive issues;
worthwhile participation in personal terms and in influencing affairs of
the organization and a provision for knowledge and skills to deal with
such problems effectively.