Quality of Work Life (QWL) & Employee Satisfaction

Index

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

3. Research Methodology

4. Company Profile

5. Data Analysis & Interpretation

6. Findings of the Study

7. Suggestions

8. Limitations of the Study

9. Summary & Conclusion

10. Bibliography

11. Appendix - Questionnaire

Introduction

The world is moving with very high speed and managing an organization has become more complex than ever before. There is a competition going on between companies to attract and retain quality human resource in order to be ahead of its competitors in a particular industry. At this backdrop, Quality of Work Life (QWL) has emerged as one of the most important aspect of Job that ensures long term association of the employees with the organization.

Quality of work life and employee satisfaction at Max New York Life Insurance Company is considered to be the most critical aspect. It is found that there are few facilities which are unsatisfactory, and few facilities are to be provided by the organization in order to maintain, retain the employees as well the high productivity of the organization. Hence the management has to look upon the facilities that are not available and is the points where employees are dissatisfied with unavailability of the facility.

Because of the facilities that are unavailable will lead for low productivity, stress, unsatisfaction, etc. At the same time it is observed that when the employees are provided with internal, personal, physical, spiritual working environments, will lead for higher productivity of the organization.

This study is attempted to understand the impact of QWL on employee satisfaction and organizational productivity with special reference to Max New York Life Insurance Company Ltd. at Hyderabad.

Importance of the Study

There is a much about the quality every aspect viz. quality product, quality of material and inputs there in, quality of packing, quality of product development and quality of service. The quality of work life and quality of life, which is pivotal aspects in everyone’s work life. This also bring employee satisfaction

You can obtain man’s physical presence at a given place, and a measured number of skilled muscular motions per hour or day. But the enthusiasm, initiative, joy, loyalty, you can’t obtain by devotion of hearts, mind and souls. Apart from this if the employee is provided with other extrinsic and intrinsic benefits then this will lead for high productivity and results in employee satisfaction too.

To introduce the hard practices in to the organization it is the important to have encouraging atmosphere. QWL is one of the most important factors, which leads to such favorable atmosphere. It produces more humanized jobs. It attempts to serve the higher order needs of employees are human resources that are to be developed rather than simply used

QWL leads to an atmosphere that encourages than to improve their skill. It also leads to have good interpersonal relations and highly motivated employees who strive for their development. QWL will ensure enthusiasm work environment with opportunities for every one to give is best. Such job will provide job satisfaction and pride to the company.

Objective of the Study

- To understand the relationship between QWL and employee satisfaction.
- To know the level of employee satisfaction
- To know the measure taken by the organization to improve the quality of work life of the employee in the organization.
- To know whether QWL leads to improved productivity of the organization.
- To study whether quality of work life motivates the employees to learn further for present and future roles.

Scope of the study

The world today is a world of revolutionary changes. It gives us a change to scan the 20th century and foresee the 21st century new challenges in various field are being accepted. The advantage of the information technology along with the industrialization in India demands a highly motivated, skilled and goal oriented work force.

Quality of work life has become the watchword in today’s industrial scene, because when there is proper quality of work life for the employees it will lead to the satisfaction of the employees, and hence the scope of the study was to analyze quality of work life and employee satisfaction in Max new York Life Insurance Company, Secunderabad, and study its effecting developing the Human Resource and increase in productivity.

This study is attempted to explore various dimensions of Quality of Work Life (QWL) and factors affecting QWL.

Concept of Quality of Work Life (QWL)

The term quality of work life appeared in Research journals and press in USA only in 1970s. It refers to the favorable or unfavorable aspect of a job environment for people working in the organization.

J. Richard and J.Joy defined QWL as the degree to which members of a work organization are able to satisfy personnel needs through their experience in the organizations. Richard E. Walton explained QWL in term of following eight conditions;

1. Adequate and fair compensation: The committee on fair wages defines wages as the wage which is above the living age.
2. Safe and healthy working conditions: Most of the organizations provide safe and healthy working conditions.
3. Opportunity to use and develop human capacities: The worker can exercise more control over his or her work, QWL provides for opportunities like autonomy in work and participation in planning in order to use human capabilities.
4. Opportunity for career growth: Opportunities for promotions are limited for the employees due to either educational barriers or due to limited opening at the higher level. QWL provides opportunity for continued growth and security and by expanding employs knowledge and qualifications.
5. Social integration in the work place: it can be established by creating freedom from prejudice, supporting primary work groups, a sense of community and inter personal open legalitarianism and upward mobility.
6. Constitutionalism in the work organizations: constitutionalism protection is provided to employees on such matters as privacy, free speech, equity and due process.
7. Work and quality of life: QWL provides for the balanced relationship among work, non work and family life should not be strained by working hours, including business travel, transfers, vacations etc.
8. Social Relevance of work: QWL is concerned about the establishment of social relevance to work in a socially beneficial banner.

Specific Issues in QWL

Besides normal wages, salaries, fringe benefits etc.., the specific issues are being identified by the human resource managers on regular basis. Following issues are highly relevant and determine the Quality of Work Life in any organization;

1. Pay and stability of employment: Good pay dominates most of the factors in employee satisfaction. Alternative means of providing wages should be developed to increase the cost of living index, profession tax etc..,
2. Occupational stress: It’s a condition of strain on employee emotions. Stress is caused due to irritability, hyper excitation or depression, unstable behavior, fatigue, stirring heavy smoking and drug abuse has to be identified.
3. Organizational health Programmes: Its helps to aim at educating about health Programmes, means of maintaining and improving of health.
4. Alternative work schedules: Includes flexi times, work at home, staggered hours, reduce work hours, part time employment.
5. Participative management and control of work: The trade unions and workers believe that workers participation in management and decision - making improves QWL.
6. Recognition: Rewarding system, congratulating the employees for their achievement, job enrichment, offering membership in clubs or association, vehicles, etc recognizes the employees.
7. Congenial worker-supervisor relations: This gives the worker a sense of social association, belongingness, achievement of work results etc.
8. Grievance procedure: Employees will have a fair treatment when the company gives them the opportunity to ventilate their grievances and present their case sincerely rather than settling the problem arbitrarily.
9. Adequacy of resources: Resources should match with states objectives; otherwise employees will not be able to attain the objectives.
10. Seniority and meriting promotions: Seniority is considered as basis for promotion. Merit is considered as the basis for advancement for managerial people.
11. Employment on permanent basis: It gives security and leads to higher order QWL.

QWL and Employees Satisfaction

Employee satisfaction is very importa]nt aspect for any organization in order to ensure its effective functioning. In today’s competitive world we see organizations are spending lot of time and money on employee satisfaction in an effort to improve productivity, increase customer satisfaction, and also to help the organization needs. Executive should maintain a satisfied work forces, hence the employee satisfaction and QWL directly effects the company ability to properly serve its customers and if it is not measured. It cannot be effectively improved and maintained.

If the company which does not measured and improved the employees satisfaction may face increasing turnover, declining productivity from the people that remain, and limited ability to attract and retain qualified replacements. Dissatisfaction with working life is a problem, which affects all workers at one time or another. Hence the sustained vitality and profitability of the organization is clearly linked to the satisfaction of its work force.

All the employees mostly feel they are working harder, faster and longer hours than even before and hence employees are attempting to determine what kind of investments in staff really payoff, and if there is no balance the stress of the employee leads to lack of commitment to the corporation, poor productivity and even leaving the company. The problem of the employees can be solved by many methods employer should try to address the employee turnover and job satisfaction issues. The issue must be first determined in order to take effective action plan towards employees’ satisfaction. Some companies take or implement by convinced focus groups and conducted employee satisfaction survey to find out their employees feel to determine what they can do to make their employee happy. Employers have found beneficial to allow work assignment for their employees. This is another way to improve employee productivity and morale.

If we see the other alternative assignment even they are widely used today-they are telecommuting, flexi time, and alternative work schedule. Four types of flexi time include

1. Flexitor
2. Gliding time
3. Variable day
4. Manifex

QWL to improve and eliminate job stress, employers can also make efforts to the aware of the workload and job demands, employer need to examine employee training, communication, reward system, coworker relationship and work environment.

If the employees are given freedom to choose their own work schedules; quality and productivity of the work increases. Because of this opportunity given to the employee will also bring to the responsibility for finishing work within specified time.

Non- financial rewards often have more impact than finance reorganization in attaining job satisfaction rewarding the employees is important. Job satisfaction can be improved by the recognizing the employees’ performance through providing other works, benefits, and non-financial rewards. Job satisfaction is a motivator in work endeavors, and QWL is a key indicator of the overall quality of human experience in the work place. QWL expresses a clear way of thinking about people, their work, and other organization in which their career are fulfilled. QWL establishes a clear objective that high performance can be achieved with high job satisfaction. Unclear targets and objectives and poor communications can contribute to dissatisfaction and eventually lead to poor work performance.

QWL and Organizational Productivity

The term productivity must not be confused with production. Productivity is a ratio while production relates to a volume. Increased production does not necessarily mean increase in productivity. Input of resources goes up in direct proportion to the increase in output; the productivity will remain the same.

Peoples are the important assets of any organization because only through people all other resources are converted into utilities. Productivity consciousness has acquired world wide momentum. Higher productivity is very important for any firm for the survival of any nation, and its stands for proper utilization of available resources to check the best results with minimum costs .The only path to national prosperity is to improve the productivity in the industrial sphere.

Not only the firm’s survival, the productivity denotes the efficiency of the various input’s which are converted in to different goods and services. It’s a multifaceted concept it also signifies the ratio between inputs and output.

All organizations regard work life benefits as an investment designed, among other things, to attract, and retain talent. Such benefits recognizes the growing demands on the lives of people, particularly at times when jobs are The impact of HRM practices and policies on firm performance is an important aspect in the fields of HRM, industrial and organizational psychology. All the organizations do expect higher productivity with less resources and investment.

The survey made by the Association of executive search consultant (AESC) have revealed a sea change in the attitude of corporate high flyers, with a growing number rejecting organization hours and scramble the corporate leader in favor of better QWL. Mostly in such (AESC) survey it is found that they have not achieved a satisfactory work-life balance and a similar proportion felt that their work life balance had changed for the worse over the past five years. It should be recognized that the long term productivity improvement can be achieved by the human factor through positive and innovative attitudes. There’s an argument that high performance work practice, including comprehensive employee recruitment and selection procedures, incentive compensation and performance management systems and extensive employee involvement and training, firms current potential employees, increase their motivation, and enhance retention of quality employees while encouraging non-performance to leave the firm.

Among human resource professionals there is a growing consensus that organizational human resource policies can, if properly configured provide a direct and economically significant contribution to firms’ performance. Both intermediate employment out comes and firm-level measures of finance performance are dependent variables.

Today work organization is continually changing to meet new demands, including the use of new technologies and work place innovation. Among its main finding, technology and working conditions status. Jobs can be divided into four categories depending upon different work organization contexts viz. Active, Passive, High and Low strain jobs.

Work autonomy and work intensity are important factors within these contexts. The cause of stress can be the intensification of work. In the manufacturing sector industry it is commonly stated that quality drives productivity is a source of grater revenue work organizations is continually changing to meet new demands, including the use of new technologies and work place innovations.

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