ZENITH International Journal of Business Economics & Management Research

Vol.1 Issue 3, December 2011, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

QUALITY OF WORK LIFE AMONG SUGAR MILL EMPLOYEES A STUDY IN TAMILNADU

DR. MRS. M. JEYARATHNAM*; MRS.V.R.MALARVIZHI**
*Director and Professor, Department of Womens Studies, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. **Senior Lecturer, Department of Management Studies, Sengunthar Engineering College, Tiruchengode, Namakkal DT, Tamil Nadu.

ABSTRACT Human resource plays an important role in the success of any organization, because most of the problems in organizations are human and social rather than physical or technical. A good quality of work life not only attracts new talent but also retain the existing talent. Quality of Work Life has been defined as "the quality of relationship between employees and the total working environment". This study attempts to evaluate the quality of work life of sugar mill employees and analyze the relationship between the productivity and quality of work life. Data were collected through questionnaire from a sample of 190 employees from sugar mills in Erode district in Tamilnadu. The results of the study showed the intensity of working conditions and the behavioral aspects of the employees in the study area. It concludes that the basic strategy for improving the quality of work life is to identify employees important needs and to satisfy those needs. The study also indicated that dissatisfaction might happen due to lack of recognition, tedious work, unhealthy peer relations, poor working conditions, low self-esteem, occupational stress, heavy work load, monotony, fatigue, time pressures, job insecurity, instability of job. KEYWORDS: Human resource, quality of work life, job satisfaction, productivity, stress. ________________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION With the fast changing international scene sugar trade in India has become more vulnerable to international pressures. The sugar industry is one of the largest agro-based food processing industries and India is the largest producer and consumer of sugar. In this competitive world, success of any business organization depends on its human resource. Human resources symbolize the total of innate abilities, acquired knowledge and skills represented by the ability and aptitude of the employed. For human resource, Quality of Work Life (QWL) has assumed a lot of interest and importance all over the world. An old proverb says that work is workship. Certain values were attributed to work in the past. But todays employee would not believe in such values of work. Employees work for salary, if the conditions of work are encouraging and pleasant and terms of employment are favorable to him. WHAT IS QWL? In todays work environment, organizations need to be flexible, and adopt a strategy to improve the employees 'Quality of Work Life' to satisfy both the

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Vol.1 Issue 3, December 2011, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

organizational objectives and employee needs. Effective quality of work life practices in organizations makes its impact on employee performance and the overall organizations performance. J. Richard and J. Loy define QWL as "the degree to which members of a work organization are able to satisfy important personal needs through their experience in the organization". According to Robbins, "Quality of Work Life" is defined as, A process by which an organization responds to employee needs by developing mechanisms to allow them to share fully in making the decisions that design their lives at work. REVIEW OF LITERATURE Supervisors who foster a supportive work environment typically display concern for employees needs and feelings, provide positive feedback and encourage them to voice their concerns, develop new skills and solve work-related problems. Deci, E.L., & Ryan, R.M. (1987). Building on Kahns(1990) ethnographic work, a field study in a U.S. Midwestern insurance company explored the determinants and mediating effects of three psychological conditions meaningfulness, safety and availability on employees engagement in their work. Results from the revised theoretical framework revealed that all three strongest relation. Job enrichment and work role fit were positively linked to psychological meaningfulness. O Brien Pallas & Bauman(1992) developed a model to examine factors that influence nursing work life based on quality of work life literature and the complexity of nursing work life. In their model, factors that influence nurses quality of work life are categorized as being either internal to the individual or the environment in which the nurse is employed or external to these elements. Both internal factors influence nurse and client quality outcomes and can be classified under the four categories of individual characteristics, work design, work context and work world. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM QWL is significant in relation to job satisfaction, civilizing work or individualizing the organization; and organizational development programmes. But now a days employees are dissatisfied with the several functions of the job and dealing with social relationship in the organization consequent upon the mechanization and automation of the industry. Additionally disregard by others and less utilization of skills caused stress and disappointment among the workforce. They experience alienation, which may result from poor design of socio-technical systems. Job discontent and job pressures have their substantial effect on employees' health in the form of reduction in happiness, increase in smoking, drinking, putting on excess body weight etc. Therefore, organizations are required to adopt a strategy to improve the employees 'quality of work life'(QWL) to satisfy both the organizational objectives and employee needs.

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ZENITH International Journal of Business Economics & Management Research

Vol.1 Issue 3, December 2011, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 1. To evaluate the quality of work life among the employees in various departments. 2. To analyze the relationship between quality of work life and productivity.

3. To suggest methods for improving QWL by highlighting employees expectations and required changes. METHODOLOGY The universe of the study comprises of employees from sugar mills in Erode district in Tamilnadu. A sample of 190 employees from various departments was selected as respondents on the basis of purposive sampling. In this study, the primary data was collected through questionnaire which consists of both open ended and close ended questions. The secondary data was collected from journals and websites. To evaluate the quality of work life among the employees and to analyze the relationship between the productivity and quality of work life, the opinion of respondents was put under 5-point scales varying from Highly Satisfied to Highly Dissatisfied as well as Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree. This survey sought to measure employees mind -set with 23 key factors affecting their quality of work life. Before beginning the main survey, a pilot study was performed with 30 selected respondents to check the reliability and validity of questionnaire instrument. The respondents were asked to define the most important issues affecting the overall quality of work life. Cronbach alpha reliability test was applied and the result was relatively high (0.74).Therefore, it was found that the questionnaire used for assessing the satisfaction level regarding quality of work life of sugar mill employees was reliable. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION This section deals with the findings related to classification of respondents on the basis of monthly family income, qualification, experience, marital status and number of dependents of respondents for their responses regarding quality of work life. www.zenithresearch.org.in PROFILE OF THE RESPONDENTS Table 1 classifies the respondents on the basis of their age, educational qualification, income per month and marital status.

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Vol.1 Issue 3, December 2011, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

TABLE 1: DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF RESPONDENTS Variable Age Below 25 years 25-35 years 36-45 years 46-55 years Above 55 years Educational Qualification School level ITI Diploma Graduate Post Graduate Income(per month) Below Rs.5000 Rs.5001-10000 Rs.10001-15000 Rs.15001-20000 Above Rs.20000 Marital Status Married Unmarried 173 17 91 9 12 70 67 25 16 6.3 36.8 35.3 www.zenithresearch.org.in 13.2 8.4 48 34 27 59 22 25.3 17.8 14.2 31.1 11.6 11 29 72 48 30 5.7 15.3 37.9 25.3 15.8 Frequency(N) Percentage (%)

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Vol.1 Issue 3, December 2011, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

Table 1 highlights that, out of 190 respondents, 11(5.7%) respondents belonged to the age group of below 25 years, 29(15.3%) respondents belonged to 25-35 years age group, 72(37.9%) respondents belonged to 36-45 years age group, 48(25.3%) respondents belonged to 46-50 years age group and 30(15.8%) respondents belonged to the age group of above 50 years. The table also indicates that 25.3% of the respondents had school level education, 17.8% were ITI holders, 14.2% were diploma holders, 31.1% were graduates and 11.6% were post graduates. Only 6.3 % of the respondents had monthly income of below Rs.5000, 36.8% were in the income category of Rs.5001-10000, 35.3% were in the income category of Rs.10001-15000, 13.2% were in the income category of Rs.1500120000 and 8.4% were in the income category of above Rs.20000. From the table 1, it is clear that 91% of the respondents were married and remaining 9% were unmarried. PERCEPTION OF RESPONDENTS TOWARDS INFLUENCING QUALITY OF WORK LIFE VARIOUS FACTORS

There are several aspects of measuring respondents perception. First of all, the sugar mills have to assess how their facilities are perceived by the employees. It is essential to identify what the employees are expecting and which factors are most important to them. Respondents were influenced by a variety of factors regarding quality of work life. The respondents were asked to rate various parameters like relationship with co-worker, adequate freedom in executing works, workload, leave facilities, training programs, promotion policies, job security, occupational stress, career growth, respect at workplace and opportunities for utilizing skills and abilities etc. on two five point Likert scales. Table 2 shows the responses towards various Parameters regarding quality of work life. TABLE 2: PERCEPTION OF RESPONDENTS TOWARDS VARIOUS PARAMETERS REGARDING QUALITY OF WORK LIFE S.No 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Factors(Highly Satisfied to Highly Dissatisfied) Opinion about working environment Relationship with co-worker Adequate freedom in executing work Opinion about workload Extent to which organizations ability to satisfy personal needs Health and safety measures Satisfaction about leave facilities Grievance handling procedure Mean Score 4.35 4.82 www.zenithresearch.org.in 2.64 3.77 2.43 4.51 3.47 3.82

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Vol.1 Issue 3, December 2011, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

9 10 11 12 13

Training programs given by the organization Promotion policies Job security Job satisfaction Challenging job Factors(Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree)

3.76 2.59 3.46 4.34 3.65 Mean Score 3.57 4.21 3.63 3.84 3.87 2.38

14 15 16 17 18 19

Job provides enough opportunities to use skills and abilities Respect at workplace Occupational stress Opportunity for career growth Proud to work for organization and management Trade unions protect Workers interests (Yes/No) Response

20 21 22 23

Quality of work life affects productivity Income from job is enough for family monthly expenses and bills Discrimination in the job Workers participation improves quality of work life

4.14 3.89 2.10 3.97 www.zenithresearch.org.in

MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS RESULT Multiple regression analysis was used to assess the influence of factors determining quality of work life on productivity. The score for each factor was arrived after averaging the individual scores of each item loaded on that factor. Multiple regression technique reveals the extent of relationship between dependent variable and several independent variables. The standardized regression coefficients give a measure of contribution of each variable to the regression model. A large value indicates that a unit change in this independent variable has a large effect on the

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Vol.1 Issue 3, December 2011, ISSN 2249 8826 Online available at http://zenithresearch.org.in/

dependent variable. R - Square generated by regression analysis points out the proportion of the variation in the dependent variable explained by the independent variables. The multiple linear regression co-efficient (dependent variable) is found to be statistically good fit as R- Square is 0.745. Table 3 shows that independent variables contribute about 74.5 percent of the variation in the quality of work life on productivity by the selected sample respondents and this is statistically significant at 1% level. TABLE 3: REGRESSION RESULTS TESTING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN QUALITY OF WORK LIFE AND PRODUCTIVITY R Value 0.863 R Square Value 0.745 Degree of freedom V1 9 Degree of freedom V2 320 F Value 103.78 Significance 1% Level

Considering factors individually, the result shows that there is fair relationship between quality of work life and productivity. Thus increase in quality of work life automatically increases productivity. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS A cheerful and healthy employee will give better yield, craft good decisions and positively contribute to the organizational goal. An assured good quality of work life not only attracts young and new talent but also retain the existing experienced talent. This study conducted with 190 respondents revealed the impact of quality of work life factors like autonomy, work load, employee engagement, utilizing skills and abilities, occupational stress, trade unions, career growth etc., The results of the study showed the intensity of working conditions and the behavioral aspects of the respondents in the study area and also notified that the basic strategy for improving the quality of work life is first to identify employees important needs and to satisfy those n eeds. Hence the study indicated that increase in quality of work life results in increase in productivity. The study recommended that promotion policies can be improved by giving grade for designation according to the experience of the employees. Arranging meditation classes and entertainment programmes for the employees can minimize occupational stress. Sugar mills can make arrangement for machines to harvest sugarcane due to the shortage of labor for cane harvesting. It is further recommended that the trade unions should consider the problems of the employees and should protect the employees interests on time.

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REFERENCE 1. Arya, P.P (1984), Work Satisfaction and its Correlates, Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 20, 89-100. 2. Camman, C., (1984), Productivity of Management Through QWL Programs, In Frombun, Editor, Strategic Human Resource Management, New York: Wiley. 3. Chan KB, Lai G (2000), Work stress among six professional groups, the Singapore Experience, Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 50(10): 14-32. 4. Eaton, A.E., Gordon, M.E., and Keefe, J.H., (1992), The impact of quality of work life programs and grievances system effectiveness on union commitment, International and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 45, No. 3.p. 591-603. 5. Elizur, D. and Shye, S. (1990), Quality of work life and its relation to Quality of life, Applied Psychology: An International Review, Vol. 39 (3):275-291. 6. Havlovic, S. J., (1991), Quality of work life and human resource outcomes, Industrial Relations, Vol. 30, No. 3, p.469-479. 7. Lewis, S. and C.L. Cooper. (1991), The work-family research agenda in changing contexts, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Vol. 4, 382-393. 8. Maks, M. I., P. H. Mirvis, E. J. hackett and J. F. Grady, Jr. (1986), Employee participation in quality circle program: Impact on quality of work life, productivity, and absenteeism, Journal of applied Psychology, Vol.71, No. 2, pp 61-69. 9. Nadler, D. A., and Lawler, E. E. (1983), Quality of Work Life: Perspectives and Directions. Organizational dynamics, 11, 20-30. 10. Nasl Saraji . G and Dargahi , H.(2006), Study of Quality of Work Life, Iranian Journal of Public Health, Vol. 35, No. 4, 8-14. www.zenithresearch.org.in 11. Raduan Che Rose, LooSee Beh, Jegak Uli and Khairuddin Idris,(2006) Quality Of Work Life: Implications Of Career Dimensions, Journal of Social Sciences Vol.2 (2): 61-67. 12. Straw, R.J. and C.C. Hecksche. (1984), QWL: New working relationships in the communication industry, Labor Studies Journal, Vol. 9, 261-274. 13. Zain, A.Y., (1999), An instrument to measure the perceived importance of quality of work life factors: Development of Psychometric Assessment, 3rd Asian Academic of Management Conference, 16-17 July, 1999, Malaysia.

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