The importance and advantages of improving the quality of worklife

Type :

Research papers

Pages :

36 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

04/20/2009

Category :

Business & market

Sub category :

Management

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Summary :

Introduction to quality of work life
Definition and concept of quality of work life
Methods to improve QWL
1. Flex time
2. Alternative work schedules
3. Part time employment
4. Compressed workweek
5. Job enrichment
6. Job rotation
7. Job enlargement
8. Autonomous work groups/self managed teams
9. Socio technical systems
Benefits of QWL programs
Challenges in implementing QWL programs
The role of the supervisor in QWL
Key supervisory role
1. Consideration
2. Facilitation
HR focus: Private sector
Employee participation in management
Empowerment
1. Merits of empowerment
2. Demerits of empowerment
3. Requisites for the success of empowerment
Autonomous work teams
Flexible organisation structure
Socio-technical systems
Quality of Work Life (QWL) measurement
Data analysis and interpretation
Findings of the study
Limitations
Suggestions and recommendations
Conclusion
Questionnaire

Abstract

It was around 1900 that F.W. Taylor developed what are commonly known as the Principles of Scientific Management which till today form the basis for designing jobs in most organizations. The traditional job design of scientific management focuses mostly on division of labor, hierarchy, close supervision and the one best way of doing work. This, no doubt, has brought several benefits to society but its disadvantage has been its high human cost. The highly specialized jobs have made workers socially isolated from their fellow workers, weakened their community of interest in the whole product and deskilled them to such an extent that workers have lost pride in their work. The system of hierarchy has made workers totally dependent upon their superiors. It is always the superior and not his subordinates who initiates actions and controls the working environment. Close supervision further accentuates workers dependence on their superiors. The result is high turnover and absenteeism. quality declines and workers become alienated.

Workers are becoming more and more educated; skilled, affluent and unionized the above dysfunctional consequences of work are becoming less and less acceptable. It is no longer possible to design jobs solely according to the needs of technology completely overlooking the needs of workers. The jobs need to be excellent both from the point of view of technology and human needs. The traditional job design needs to be replaced by enriched job design. This demand for redesigning of jobs has come to be known as quality of work life. It enjoins management to treat workers as human resources that are to be developed rather than simply used.

The scope of QWL movement which originally included only job redesign efforts based on the socio-technical systems approach has gradually widened very much so as the include a wide variety of interventions such as quality circles, suggestion schemes, employee participation, empowerment, autonomous work teams etc. Interventions vary in each case the common elements in all these interventions seem to be as under.