Z3310122 Ying Liu (Serena) Mgmt 2718
The QWL (Quality of Work Life) originates from the mining industry of England in the 1960s. It emphasises the importance of the role of humans in production and was developed alongside the human capital theory[1]. QWL has a sole aim[2] "to improve organization efficiency via satisfying the employee's psychological and social needs". The American society of training and development (ASTD) [3] emphasises the employee's needs are one with organization efficiency. They cannot be separated. QWL has many aspects for improvement, examples include adequate labour remuneration, safe and healthy work environment, the employee career growth, the amount of participation in decision making of the firm, e.t.c. Maslow has developed the Maslow’s Hierarchy of human needs that human being at the beginning strives for security and basic necessities for survival (Poston 2009). When this is the case, he explained that the amount of remuneration and the security nature of the job are possibly the primary factors in job selection. As a result, QWL can be used in organization to retain employees in this level by the improvement of its aspects of job security and adequate remuneration. Moreover, as society and life quality progresses, human needs progressively changes to strive for higher levels of social exchange, maintaining respect and achieving levels of self-fulfillment (Sanyal and Singh 1982). Aspects of QWL can be applied from this notion to retain employees of an organization. By involving the employees in the organisation's decision making processes and also employee career growth opportunities, satisfy the employee's higher need of gaining trust, prestige and also help individuals reach levels of self-fulfillment as they will believe they have achieved something at work (Sanyal and Singh 1982). Considine and Callus (2001) conducted a nationally survey on the overall satisfactory of Australian workforce (regardless of rural or metro, gender, age and state of residence) in their work. The results show that there are around thirty percent dissatisfied workers. It also points out that the combination of adequate pay, interest in a job, trust with management, balance between family and work, level of stress were determinant concerns of the employees. In order to reduce the level of dissatisfaction of employees and retain them in their respective organization, improvements in aspects of QWL may be necessary according to Rafferty and Yu (2010). He also mentions that those employees who are dissatisfied with stress has to deal with harassment and discrimination at the workplace and also the poor balance between work and family/social commitments. Improvements in the QWL aspect of adequate remuneration will surely decrease the amount of employees dissatisfied with their paid. The lack of interest in a job is a two sided problem, did the candidate choose the wrong job and hence is dissatisfied with anything the organization, or did management change an interesting career to a dull and boring one? If it is the latter, improving the QWL aspect of involving employees in decision making can reduce the dissatisfaction experienced as it engages the employees substituting the boredom with involvement (Rafferty & Yu 2010). Furthermore, involving employees also builds trust between employees and management further decreasing those employees who feels like they are not trusted by management. Improvements in QWL aspects of creating good working relationships within the organization can reduce the amount of harassment and discrimination and improvements in QWL aspect of the family and work will reduce dissatisfaction experienced by workers who has to work at home (Rafferty & Yu 2010). This shows that QWL is an extremely powerful tool in retaining employees by eliminating their dissatisfactions and fulfilling their needs. Generation Y is the
