Partnership, high performance work systems and quality of working life

The paper measures the effects of workplace partnership and selected high performance work practices on four different dimensions of employee experience. Whilst the partnership-high performance work systems nexus seems to have little impact on employees' job satisfaction or sense of attachment, it does, however, have a negative impact on both workplace stress and employee evaluations of union performance. The analysis thus questions common assumptions about the inevitability of 'mutual gain' and the necessity of employer/unionpartnership. Introduction and researc

Quality of Working Life and Employee Outcomes: A Literature Review

Quality of working life (QWL) is a research field studied since the 1970s, which has grown considerably since then (Grote & Guest, 2017). QWL covers an employee’s feelings about various dimensions of his or her work (Mosadeghrad, Ferlie & Rosenberg, 2011) and includes dimensions related with home-work interface, working condition, job and career satisfaction, control at work, stress at work, employee commitment and general well-being (Fontinha, Van Laar & Easton, 2016). At an individual level, positive outcomes of QWL include reduced absenteeism, lower turnover, improved job satisfaction, improved individual productivity (Mosadeghrad, Ferlie & Rosenberg, 2011), but studies that analyze, in a systematic way, all the employee outcomes associated to QWL are scarce. Following the systematic literature review (SLR) methodology, this article aims to identify the employee outcomes associated to the QWL construct. This article specifically explores research studies that have examined the QWL and consequences of it to individuals in a given organizational setting. Since our focus was to gain insight on the empirical investigation about QWL, we exclude studies with a primary focus on model development or testing measurement instruments. Extensive research has been performed at PROQUEST and EBSCO databases. The terms included the following on the title of the document: quality of life at work, work-related quality of life, quality of working life, working-life quality. Only the work-related consequences of QWL have been considered. The search has been limited to peer reviewed articles, theses, and conference papers published in the English language, between 1970 and 2017. The results show how a higher level of quality of life at work can improve several and relevant employee outcomes at work.CIEQV- Centro de Investigação em Qualidade de Vidainfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Performance and Quality of Working Life

An examination of the deep structure of the discourse on the organization of work shows that the most successful texts share a common structure: they construct an ideal model in which performance and quality go hand in hand. They provide explanations for the self-constructed gap between the model and reality, and recipes for change. This type of discourse has widespread appeal, but there are shortcomings attached to it: an inevitable neglect of the employment relation (and accordingly inadequate analysis of resistance to organizational change) and undue optimism about the quality of working life (thereby de-legitimizing efforts, such as in Scandinavian and Dutch working conditions legislation, to establish the quality of working life as a value in its own right). Critical and empirical evaluative alternative approaches seem unable to capture substantial mind share

Sleep quality in nurses working in different shifts

The nursing staff who are working at hospitals with a shift-work scheduling might confront with sleep disorders related to the characteristics of nursing profession. The results of studies have ruled out the close relationship between life quality and health. It must be mentioned that the quality of life is affected by sleep pattern. The aim of this study was investigating sleep quality in nurses working in different shifts at hospitals affiliated to Zahedan University of Medical Sciences. A cross sectional study was conducted on 299 nurses who were working at general hospitals of Zahedan University of Medical Sciences in 2008. Pittsburgh sleep quality index was utilized to collect data. The data were analyzed in SPSS version 17. susing Mann-Whitney, Kruskal Wallis tests and Spearman correlation coefficient. The subjects were consist of 66 men (22.1%) and 233 women (77.9%) whit age mean 31.6± 6.6 years. The mean of work experience was 7.55± 6.8 years. The findings of study showed that sleep quality were suitable in only 55(17.1%) of nurses but 221(73.9%) of nurses have not sleepiness. The quality of life was high among only 32(10.7%) of nurses. In this study, quality of life has a relationship with sleep quality (P=.001, r=-.572) and sleepiness (P=.001, r=-.246). The sleep quality was related with gender, age, monthly income, disease, marital status and type of insurance. Also, the sleepiness was related to marital status and life quality was related to monthly income, disease, marital status and type of insurance P<0.05). This study showed that sleep quality is not suitable among nurses. Also, in this study the sleep pattern was related to quality of life, so lack of enough and suitable sleep will affected the quality of life, in turn, provided health care by nurses to patients and attendance would not be fair. Correcting and modification the sleep quality among nurses is very important. © 2015

Quality of work life: Perception of college teachers

Several Research Studies in the world have measured the Quality of Work of Employee’s in Industries, Universities, Schools, Government and Non Government Organizations. This research study highlights the quality of work life of college teachers under various dimensions. New Challenges can be faced with employee’s commitment and involvement in achieving organizational goals. This study helps the college teachers to know the level of perception towards QWL and to enhance the same by the educational administrators.. Quality of Work Life is the essential concept of favorable situations in a working environment. The Quality of Work Life facilitates employee’s training opportunities, job satisfaction and working conditions. A better Quality of Work Life improves the growth of the employee’s along with the organization growth. The universe of the study includes 12 colleges located within the Tiruchirappalli city limit and 1279 college teachers were working during May 2008 – February 2009. A sample of 239 respondents was collected from the universe. The collected data after being coded were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social sciences Research (SPSS) and various statistical tests were applied based on hypotheses and matching variables. There is a significant association between quality of work life total and quality of life in teaching environment total. It shows QWL of college teachers is in low level.Quality of Work Life: College Teachers; Perception

Quality of Life (QOL) of Balinese Women Working in Spa Tourism Industry

Bali is one of spa tourist destinations having various categories of spas and spa treatments, and the most important is the spa therapists. Spa development becomes an interesting phenomenon to be studied when it is associated with an involvement of Balinese women as spa therapists in foreign countries. The world’s demand for Balinese spa therapists has become the motivation of women to work in this area. The work and life of Balinese spa therapists while they are working in foreign countries serve as parameters to know their quality of life, and these parameters are also the main focus of this study. Through in-depth interviews and questionnaires distributed to 20 therapists it was found out that 85 percent of them have revealed an improvement in their quality of life that is influenced by two factors: the material and intimacy factors. The material factor in question refers to the economic improvement of the family as they could earn enough income to cover their family needs. The intimacy factor in question refers to closeness and a sense of solidarity fostered while they are working abroad and the relationship within the family. This study concludes that the most important part of the development of spa in Bali is its female Balinese spa therapists due to the image that Balinese women working as spa therapists are loyal, hard-working and honest making them in demand among tourists who are seeking spa treatments. Being a spa therapist can improve their quality of life, which means that subjectively both material and intimacy factors are the aspects that affect the quality of life of the Balinese spa therapists

Does labour market disadvantage help to explain why childhood circumstances are related to quality of life at older ages? Results from SHARE

There is robust evidence that childhood circumstances are related to quality of life in older ages, but the role of possible intermediate factors is less explored. In this paper, we examine to what extent associations between deprived childhood circumstances and quality of life at older ages are due to experienced labour market disadvantage during adulthood. Analyses are based on the Survey of Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), with detailed retrospective information on individual life courses collected among 10,272 retired men and women in 13 European countries (2008-2009). Our assumption is that those who have spent their childhood in deprived circumstances may also have had more labour market disadvantage with negative consequences for quality of life beyond working life. Results demonstrate that advantaged circumstances during childhood are associated with lower levels of labour market disadvantage and higher quality of life in older ages. Furthermore, results of multivariate analyses support the idea that part of the association between childhood circumstances and later quality of life is explained by labour market disadvantage during adulthood

Quality of Working Life In Sociological Perspective,

Although the economic and political climate has changed dramatically since the early 1970s, when the 'Quality of Working Life' (QWL) movement was officially 'born', such that QWL has now been effectively marginalised as an issue of public concern, the basic problems at the heart of this movement, and that of both its predecessors and ostensible descendents, are still very much alive. Indeed, it is argued throughout the present thesis that QWL theorists and practitioners have rarely recognised the nature of the problems at the heart of their own project, nor have they traced thoroughly the genealogies of their own theory and practice. Amongst many other things, the QWL project lacks sociological perspective. It is this particular criticism that formed the focus of the present thesis. In approaching the subject matter of the thesis, a deliberate decision was made to locate discussion of QWL within a broader sociological context than its advocates were willing, or able, to do. Thus, it was hoped to show that mainstream approaches to QWL had either Ignored completely, or inadequately conceptualised and treated, issues of key importance to a fuller understanding of the problems at the heart of QWL concerns. The main areas chosen to highlight the weaknesses of QWL theory and practice, and to provide necessary sociological perspective, were those of structural contradiction in the relations between capital and labour; management; work; and worker participation, In addition, an attempt was made to map out and criticise both the homogeneity and diversity of QWL theory and practice. It was subsequently argued that whether considered as one homogeneous perspective, or as a number of divergent, though still related, perspectives, QWL theory and practice lacked soclologiacl perspective, and, that such a lack of perspective had detrimental consequences for the intellectual validity (and, indeed, for the practical utility) of QWL initiatives. Overall, it was concluded that the Inherent limitations of the discourse of QWL precluded deployment of the 'sociological imagination'. However, without the deployment of such a perspective, attempts to comprehend the nature of the problems which lie at the heart of the QWL project are doomed to failure

Quality of Working Life of Nurses and its Related Factors

Background: Nurses as the largest group of health care providers should enjoy a satisfactory quality of working life to be able to provide quality care to their patients. Therefore, attention should be paid to the nurses’ working life. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the quality of nurses' working life in Kashans' hospitals during 2012. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 200 nurses during 2012. The data-gathering instrument consisted of two parts. The first part consisted of questions on demographic information and the second part was the Walton’s quality of work life questionnaire. Data were analyzed using the SPSS software. For statistical analysis T test and one way ANOVA were used. Results: The results of the study showed that 60% of nurses reported that they had moderate level of quality of working life while 37.1% and 2% had undesirable and good quality of working life, respectively. Nurses with associate degrees reported a better quality of working life than others. A significant relationship was found between variables such as education level, work experience, and type of hospital with quality of working life score (P 0.05). Conclusions: Nurses' quality of work life was at the moderate level. As quality of work life has an important impact on attracting and retaining employees, it is necessary to pay more attention to the nurses’ quality of work life and its affecting factors