UNIT – I Lesson 1 HRM – AN OVERVIEW Lesson Outline Nature of ...

Analyzing the conceptualizations of the main authors who investigated the theme,
it is possible to identify three main groups that had developed common basic points in its
statements of QWL. The common conceptions were:
1. Emphasis on well-being and worker satisfaction, concomitant with the concern
with the productivity increase, effectiveness and the organizational effectiveness
2. Valuation of workers’ participation in decision taking process, at work and
questions related to the reformulation of positions
3. Emphasis on humanist perspective to think on the people, their work and the
organization.
QWL is also referred to as an important Organization Development (OD)
intervention technique to be used along with other techniques like team building, process
consultation and role analysis technique. QWL as an OD technique is designed to improve
organizational functioning by helping to humanizing the workplace, making it more
democratic and involving employees in making decisions affecting them. The conditions
that contribute to motivation such as equitable salaries, activities such as job enrichment
and job rotation would also contribute QWL. Thus, QWL clearly exhibits features that
have also been associated with the very basic objectives of Human Resources
Management, Employee Relations and Labor Welfare.
Jurisdiction of QWL initiatives includes task-related issues, managementemployee
communication, team working, work restructuring, redesigning of compensation
and benefits, and workers’ active participation in management. The underlying importance
of QWL of human capital, lies in the fact that most people who work for a living are
spending a significant amount of their waking hours at the workplace executing the
requirements, duties and functions of their job and that their satisfactions and
dissatisfactions at workplace are carried over to the home as well. By improving the QWL,
the workers feel better about themselves when they are working in a plant.
In the middle phases of the QWL debate in the 1970s, the idea was put forth that
greater individual control over work, through genuine participatory decision making,
would have positive outcomes for employees and employers alike. By the early 1980s,
such advocates of worker involvement and labor-management cooperation identified
increased participation with workplace empowerment. In the past, management assumed
an attitude of passivity when solving their subordinates’ problems. But when employees
are encouraged to solve their own problems using the managers as resources, a sea change
is at hand. On the employee side, the act of taking on power and responsibility is equally
momentous”