Professional Documents
Culture Documents
3.5 - Quality of Work Life
3.5 - Quality of Work Life
Career change
Without doubt, the most important determinant of QWL is career achievement, followed by career satisfaction and career balance. Rose R C, Beh L, Uli J and Idris K (2006) Quality Of Work Life: Implications Of Career Dimensions. Journal of Social Sciences 2 (2): 61-67
What?
What?
A review of the literature reveals relatively little on quality of working life. Where quality of working life has been explored, writers differ in their views on the core constituents.
Taillefer,-Marie-Christine; Dupuis,-Gilles; Roberge,-Marie-Anne; LeMay,-Sylvie (2003) Health-related quality of life models: Systematic review of the literature. Social-Indicators-Research. 64 (2): 293-323
Quality of Working Life is the greater context in which to understand various factors in the workplace such as job satisfaction and stress. A proper understanding of the bigger picture would offer opportunity for better informed interventions for individuals and at an organisational level.
We looked at the literature, and talked with the organisations we work with and came up with:
overall quality of life that is influenced by work the widest context in which an employee would evaluate the influence of work on their life.*
How?
We started with our working definition to help define the scope of a scale.
We drew upon theoretical definitions of QoWL (Herzberg, Loscocco & Rochelle, Sirgy, Warr,etc.) We had access to related scales, our own staff survey data and job experts
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Job Career Satisfaction (JCS) : = .86 How far you agree that you are generally happy with your ability to do your work General Well Being (GWB) : = .89 How much you agree you feel generally content with life as a whole Home-Work Interface (HWI) : = .82 How far you agree that the organisation understands and tries to help you with pressures outside of work Stress at Work (SAW) : = .81 How far you feel agree you experience stress at work Control at Work (CAW) : = .81 How far you agree you feel you are involved in decisions that affect you at work Working Conditions (WCS) : = .75 The extent you agree that you are happy with conditions in which you work
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Home
Quality of Life
HomeWork Interface
General Well-Being
Work
Stress at Work
Job -Career Satisfaction
Individual
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Home
Quality of Life
HomeWork Interface
General Well-Being
Stress at Work
Work
Working Conditions
Individual
Control at Work
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Plan
Where we are
Where we want to be
Physiological
Increased use of sick days and vacations Low levels of energy and motivation Drug/alcohol abuse symptoms Difficulty concentrating Reduced creative output Dissatisfaction and resentment Lower performance Anger and violence toward co-workers More grievances in union settings
Psychological
Behavioral
Stress at Work
Think about the ways that the workplace or school can be stressful How do you personally cope with these stressors? What does your organization do to help reduce the extent to which you experience stress?
65% of workers said that workplace stress had caused difficulties 10% said they work in an atmosphere where physical violence has occurred because of job stress 29% had yelled at co-workers because of workplace stress 14% said they work where machinery or equipment has been damaged because of workplace rage
On the job
Job or task demands, like workload and responsibility Interpersonal conflict Management practices Physical risks
Source: NIOSH Publication No. 2008136, Exposure to Stress: Occupational Hazards in Hospitals
Definition
Competing demands from work and family roles Became a larger issue when dual career couples and shifting expectations for family life increased Examples of conflicts include scheduling problems, exhaustion, taking home to work with you, and taking work home with you
Results
Those who reported high levels of work-family conflicts took 1.4 times more certified sickness absences than those who reported low levels of workfamily conflicts Effects were especially strong among blue-collar and lower level white-collar workers
Source: Vaananen et al., Work-Family Characteristics as a Predictor of Sickness Absence, JOHP, 2008
Examined database of 1,367 individuals working in 126 different occupations Surveys were conducted over a number of years Work that is highly interdependent Responsibility for others Inflexible schedules Strong time demands Number of children
Source: Dierdorff and Ellington, Its the Nature of the Work, JAP, 2008