Quality of Work Life of Cement Industry Essay

Abstract Quality of work life is an important indicator and yardstick for any organization to measure its overall performance and overall satisfaction of its stakeholder‟s .Quality of work life comprises of several factors which are influencing the quality of work life in different dimensions. Quality of work life of this industry is concerned the safety, healthy work environment, adequate and fair compensation and social relevance are undedicated by the internal stakeholders (Employees).Also the lower level workers don‟t have ,that much amount of quality of work life that is why they don‟t have that much level of involvement in their company. Hence to bring-up the expected level of involvement of the employees they must be provided enough amount of training and they must be given on –par treatment while compare with the rest of the level of employees of their organization. Key words: Quality of work life – Total life space, social relevance – Quality of work life feeling stakeholders. Introduction Historically, cultural values about work have shifted greatly over the years. In ancient time work was performed only by slaves, The Renaissance and Reformation brought great changes in prevailing attitude towards work. Work acquired a moral dignity of its own. Work serves many purposes. The economic function of work for producing goods and services is its most obvious value. In return form of production the work is paid wages that enable the purchase of good, shelter, plus other needs and luxuries of life. But work serves other values as well. As part of social needs people are supplied at the work place, were they meet, and converse and share experiences. One‟s job connotes a certain social status both for the worker and his or her family. Work also contributes to an employee‟s self-esteem by reflecting a contribution to the work group, department and company. If a person is competent and meets his own personal and the boss‟ satisfaction expectations, this contributes to a sense of personal worth. Quality of Work Life (QWL) is a relatively new concept. It refers to the favorableness or unfavrableness of a job environment for people (Davis and Newstrom, 1985). Evolution of quality of work life Walton attributes the evolution of QWL to various phases in history. Legislation enacted in early 20th century to protect employees from job-injury and to eliminate hazardous working conditions, followed by the unionization movement in the 1930s and 1940s were the initial steps. Emphasis was given to „job security‟, due process at the work place and economic gains for the worker‟. The 1950s and the 1960s saw the development of different theories by psychologists proposing a „positive relationship between morale and productivity‟, and the possibility that improved human relations would lead to the enhancement of both. Attempts to reform and to acquire equal employment opportunities and job enrichment schemes also were introduced. Finally, in the 1970s the idea of QWL was conceived which according to Walton, is broader than these earlier developments and is something that must include „ the values that were at the heart of these earlier reform movements‟ and „human needs and aspirations‟(Walton, 1973). The modern interest in the quality of work life was stimulated through efforts to change the scope of people satisfaction job in attempting to motivate them (Tyagi 1997). The jobs should seek to employ higher skills of workers, improve their skills, and contribute to general Social advancement as well as programs that offer employees, the opportunity to purchase equity in their firms or programs that provide protection against arbitrary action for their supervisors (Robins, S. 1997). Criteria for quality of work life: It has been pointed out by Ted Mills that one of the problems with the tern is that â€Å"quality of work life† is not a single, specific notion. Rather, it subsumes a whole pass of terms and notions, all of which he feels really belong under the umbrella â€Å"quality of work life†: 1. Industrial Effectiveness 2. Human Resource Development 3. Organizational Effectiveness 4. Works Restructure 5. Job Enrichment 6. Organizational Restructure 7. Socio- Technical Systems 8. Work Humanization 9. Group work concept 10. Labour – management cooperation 11. Working together; work involvement; and worker participation 12. Cooperation work restructures Importance of Quality of Work Life: Quality work life is essentially the concept of favorable situation of a work environment. It is imperative in any type of organizations to ensure high productivity and involvement of employees in generation of goods and services of better quality. The global economy presents the organization with new challenges to be faced by the employees. To make it more imperative employee‟s involvement and commitment are required in achieving organizational goals. Such involvements and commitments could be secured only through improved quality of work life. Furthermore working life is regarded as a larger ecological complex of human resource. So ultimately the quality of working life of employees should be made better and pave the way for satisfied working conditions and make them involved in the growth of the organization. Review of Literature: Cohen. D.S (1979) Quality of work is a process of joint decision making, collaboration and building mutual respect between management and employee, which seems to cause a change in how people feel about labour their work and each other. It is this change in the human climate that quality advocated, maintains, increases satisfaction and facilitates better solution to management and production. Ekramul Hoque, M. and Alinoor Rahman (1999) They attempted to compare the QWL of industrial workers according to the nature of the organizations and to measure whether there is any significant relationship among quality of work life, job behaviour and demographic variables of the workers. The result revealed workers of private sector textile mills perceived significantly higher QWL than in the public sector; QWL has significant negative correlation with absenteeism and accident and QWL has significant positive correlation with performance. 3 Tambe M.R. (2000) In a broad sense QWL includes job enrichment group work concept, labour management cooperation, workers involvement, co-operative work environment and organizational industrial effectiveness. In a narrow sense it is a conductive and encouraging job and physical environment. Mentz (2001) conducted a study to determine the quality of work life of teachers in farm schools in South Africa. The sample consists of 60 teachers in 15 farm schools. Findings indicate that teachers in rural schools are generally satisfied with circumstances and enjoy teaching; they are satisfied with classroom size, physical facilities and teacher student relations. Topper (2008) The literature reviews of psychological and sociological studies of job satisfaction in general and specifically for library workers were under taken by Topper(2008). The investigation was primarily intended to measure the job satisfaction among library workers. It revealed that the library workers are very satisfied in their job. It also underlined the fa ct that job satisfaction should be the key factor for recruitment of the next generation library workers. Edwards, J.,Van laar ,D.L &Easton ,S.(2009).Regular assessment of quality of work life can potentially provide organization with important information about the welfare of their employees, such as job satisfaction, general well-being, work related stress and the home-work interface. Objective To find out the existing level of Quality of Work Life perceived by the employees in cement industry Research methodology: Research Design The research design is an important yardstick and it is describing the properties of the proposed research with related to a particular domine. This article is concerned; the research design is descriptive in nature. This article is going to evaluate the existing level of quality of work life which is prevailing in cement industry at Ariyalur District. Survey and sampling method: The researcher is decided to deploy the primary data from the concerned indust ry [respondents] with the help of the data collection tool [questionnaire]. Apart from the primary data the required data‟s to enhance the quality of the article is to be collected from the secondary sources such as books, magazines and annual reports of the companies. The data which is to be collected from the respondents on random basis [simple random sampling]. The companies which are included in this survey are TANCEM, BIRLA and RAMCO. The sample size which is a determined for the study is 300 from all three companies. Statistical tool used: The collected data which is analyzed with the help of ANOVA. Analysis and Interpretation: Quality of Work Life (QWL) includes a host of issues ranging from occupational safety and health, job training, retraining, educational opportunities to society recreational facilities and childcare. QWL is a process of work organizations, which enables its members at all levels to participate actively and efficiency in shaping the organizations environment, methods and outcomes.