subject: Quality Of Work Life [print this page] Quality Of Work Life Quality Of Work Life
The mechanical approach or quantitative approach that scientific management assured gave way to the frustration of workers which led to human relations movement and later socio-technical movement which is the basis for today's Quality of Work Life. Thus, the evaluation of the concept QWL was mainly in three phases- Scientific management, human relations movement and finally socio-technical movement. The socio-technical system advocates such an organizational design which ensures high quality of work life. Most of the organizations are interested in enhancing employee's QWL and generally try to instill the feeling of security, equality, pride and prestige, among its employees. For this purpose procedures and policies are framed to make the work less routine and more rewarding for the employees. These procedures or policies provide autonomy, recognition, good working condition and conferring awards in appreciation of work done etc.
QWL dimensions are broadly divided into: Classical dimensions and Contemporary dimensions. Classical dimensions include physical working conditions, employees' welfare, employee assistance, job factors and financial factors whereas, Contemporary dimensions include collective bargaining, industrial safety and health, grievance redressal procedure, quality circles, work-life balance, workers' participation in management etc. Industrial Safety is one of the contemporary factors, which influence the QWL of the employees.
Industrial accidents cause disastrous damage to the life and property of the people. The dawn of 20th Century ushered a new era in Industrial Safety. The modern industrial safety movement was started in 1912 with the help of Co-operative Safety Congress.The National Safety Council was set up on 4th March 1966 in Mumbai at the initiative of the Union Ministry of Labour and Rehabilitation, Government of India to promote safety consciousness to prevent accidents and to conduct safety programmes.
The Government of India extended top priority to industrial safety, particularly after the Bhopal Gas tragedy in Union Carbide Factory in 1985, where thousands of people lost their lives and lakhs of people turned disabled. This situation compelled the Government to implement mandatory safety measures in every industrial undertaking. The Workmen's Compensation Act imposed a financial burden on Management for the workforce to be insured against injuries, disablements, deaths and diseases. More sophisticated organizations, discovered that safety programmes were cost effective. The hidden costs of accidents are typically four times the direct and obvious costs. Federal Legislation and accompanying court decisions have added a "police and punish" approach in the form of surprise inspections and fines.
Safety is defined as "Protection of physical health of people in the organisation and prevention of work related injuries and accidents." The safety awareness programmes are very important to industrial employees. The safety rules need to be laid down and be enforced by every organization. Safety is primarily the responsibility of the management. This responsibility should rest on the shoulders of all cadres of management; such as plant managers, maintenance engineers, supervisors, foremen and safety managers.
The accident represents a social loss of great magnitude in the form of pain, loss of earning capacity and disturbance to economic efficiency. Getting men to work safely is primary concern of employer to ensure safe performance. Prevention of accidents is an objective of every organization which requires no explanation. This is one area in which there is complete identity of employer-employee interests, the employee does not want to be injured and the employer does not want to incur the cost of injury.
Safety measures prevent accidents and ensure regular flow of work. In turn, it helps, to increase not only the workers morale but also productivity of the organisation without fear unless otherwise safe working conditions are provided. The employer has primary responsibility to provide or arrange such type of environment. The main causes of accidents may be Human causes like: age, education, health condition, experience, psychological factors, social factors etc., or Technical Causes like, hazardous arrangement, defective equipment, poor house keeping etc., or Environment causes like, poor lighting and ventilation, congestion and over-crowding, humidity, long hours of work and high speed working machines.
Two types of ratios are used to measure industrial safety i.e., Frequency rate and Severity rate. The frequency rate can be expressed as the lost-time due to accidents per million man-hours worked; the severity rate is the number of days lost due to accident per million man-hours worked. According to National Safety Council USA, prevention of accidents depends upon 3E's -Engineering, Education and Enforcement. The job should be engineered for safety, employees should be educated in safety procedures and safety rules should be properly enforced.
