Quality of Work Life
“If yourself is a pie, how big of a bite does your work take out of it?” – Lieke ten Brummelhuis and Nancy P. Rothbard in “HBR Guide to work-life balance”
Life is all about creating balance, and work takes a large bite of life’s pie! If a hiccup in personal life can affect employees at work, the stress at the workplace can hinder relationships, health, well-being, and much more of the employees. The well-being of employees at the workplace will ensure a good Quality of Work Life and mental well-being.
So, how can organizations ensure good QWL? Research over the years has indicated that the following dimensions defined by Walton in 1973 positively correlate with QWL:
- Fair and adequate compensation
- Safety and health in working conditions
- Opportunity for use and capacity development
- Career opportunities and security
- Social integration at work
- Constitutionalism in the organization of work
- Work and total living space
- The social relevance of life at work
Each of these dimensions can have specific policies, procedures, and action plans associated with them. For example:
- Employee-friendly practices and policies– like employee participation in decision-making, management by objective, proper grievance redressal, merit-based reward, and recognition, leave policies, diversity and inclusion, psychological safety, etc.
- Transformational Leadership– where leaders are inspiring role models engage in employee development through mentoring, coaching, and supporting employees; and make employees feel valued and engage in open communications and feedback and create a culture of continuous improvement
- Healthy team interactions– that are marked by cooperation and collaboration within and between teams, where team members can effectively handle conflicts, there is an absence of unhealthy competition, and there is camaraderie among team members
- Job design and content– where employees are engaged in challenging work that allows them to be creative, explore and develop their capabilities and find career advancement opportunities in the workplace. Making available learning and development resources, and implementing competency frameworks for current and future jobs that provide developmental opportunities and job security can form the basis of QWL programs.
- Workflows that ensure good work–life balance– and help employees prioritize personal and work goals by being flexible and agile. In the post-pandemic world where work from home and integration of work life has become a new normal, this is a critical dimension of QWL.
- Meaningfulness of work– Provide opportunities for employees to find meaning in their work beyond their own needs and help employees fulfill their higher-order needs of creativity, actualization, and transcendence. This can also take the form of CSR policies where employees are given time off for engaging in socially relevant and meaningful projects.
Quality of Work Life ultimately is associated with an organizational culture that makes employee well-being central to its operations.
As organizations re-examine their post-pandemic action plans, they need to consider Quality of Work Life as an important determinant of mental health and formulate their business plans and strategies accordingly for employees to achieve a true sense of happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment in their work and personal life.