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Quality of Work-Life In the era of Globalization of Market economy, hyper competition and uncertainty of rapidly changing environment the success of an organization depends on strategies adopted to improve the quality of work-life of employees. A growing number of today's organizations recognized that quality of work-life is one of the Human Resource strategies to promote and maintain an orderly atmosphere for employees to work effectively. Quality of work-life refers to the quality of relationship between employees and the total work environment of an organization. It seeks to create a work culture in the organization where employees are treated with dignity and respect, flexible work options that can offer creative approaches for completing task while promoting balance between work and family life, participation of employees in corporate decision making and interaction of the individual and the organization to satisfy each other's needs and expectations. Quality of work Life has been defined as the workplace strategies, operations and environment that promote and maintain employee satisfaction with an aim to improving working conditions for employees and organizational effectiveness for employers. (Lau & Bruce 1998, p.213). Richard Walton's recommended eight conceptual categories to evaluate QWL programs 1. Adequate and fair compensation; 2. Safe and healthy work environment 3. Opportunity to use and develop human capabilities 4. Opportunity for continuous growth and security 5. Social integration at the work place 6. Constitutionalism in the work organization 7. Work-life balance 8. Social relevance QWL is a collective responsibility of the management, employees, leaders of the union, government and behavioral scientists. The strategies frequently been used for improving QWL in organizational settings can be classified into a) Career management, b) Job design, c) Reward management, d) Employee relations e) Managerial practices and f)Work-life balance. Career management is concerned with providing opportunities for employees to progress and develop their careers. The components of career management includes the provision of learning and development opportunities, career counseling, charting career paths, career information systems and periodic skill assessment which forms a means for employees to fulfill their potential and achieve a successful career with the organization. Specifically as a strategy to improve QWL, the development of careers and career paths takes into account organizational needs, employee interests and the norms and values of the broader culture. For example, Toyota Technical Center, USA, provides a range of career options to its employees in the form of ongong training and education. Its training program covers every topic from problem solving to cultural awareness. The employees are encouraged to pursue further education through the organization's tuition reimbursement plan. As a strategy for improving QWL, job design must take into consideration the requirements of the organization for productivity, operational efficiency and quality of product or service and provide the maximum degree of intrinsic motivation for the employee to improve performance. Whatever options are used the overall objective of job design is to integrate the needs of the individuals with those of the organization. For example, in Buick division of General Motors, autonomous groups were formed with responsibility for both assembly and inspection of the finished product. Employees were trained to perform a wide variety of jobs required in the group. Both executives and employees were also trained in listening skills, goal-setting and resolving conflicts in groups. All these measures led to an increase in sales by 77 percent and a dramatic improvement in product quality. S.V.V.S.Vara prasad, N.Sudheer Kumar Employee unrest disappeared in the division and absenteeism declined to 2 percent as compared to the GM average of 5 percent. As a strategy for improving QWL, reward management is concerned with the formulation and implementation of strategies and policies to reward people differentially according to their contribution. The philosophy of reward management relates to how people should be valued for what they do and what they achieve. The aim of reward management is to operate fairly, function consistently, operate transparently, motivate, develop a positive employment relationship and obtain their commitment and engagement. As a strategy to improve QWL, employee relations practices include formal processes, procedures and channels of communication. The employee relations climate of an organization encourages maximum interaction between managers and employees; achieve commitment through employee involvement; develop mutual interest in achieving the organization's goals; ensures transparency in all matters that affect employees; eliminate dysfunctional competition between work related groups and promote teamwork. For example, Southwest Airlines generated a feeling among its employees that they belong to one family and "a place where kindness and human spirit are nurtured". Employees tend to be personally involved, responsible and motivated in their jobs which in turn lead to better performance of the organization. QWL in an organization is a function of management practices that directly affect employees' motivation and ability to provide products and services that are valued by customers. The role of supervision and management is to enhance motivation, job engagement and commitment of employees through policies and processes that influence the design of jobs, reward system, performance management, creating positive work environment and the development of teamwork. As a strategy for improving QWL, Work-life balance provides scope for employees to achieve a satisfactory balance between work and non-work activities. Flexible working is (Contd.. on Page 31) Authors can be reached at: Prasad_1523@rediffmail.com and Sudheer_nsk@rediffmail.com | HRD News Letter | March 2007, Vol.22, Issue:12 32|
Today, I propose to tell you a story of a business unit which can be described as symbol of Honesty. YES, I am talking about the company : Polyhydron located at Hubli near Belgaum in Karnatak State, India. Mr.Suresh Hundre, CMD, established this unit in 1987 and with two decades of experience of observing ethical practices developed into "Business Ashrama" on 4th July 2002. (Samadhi day of Swami Vivekanand). According to Mr.Suresh Hundre : "It is a place for grooming karmayogies based on an experiment of integrating spirituality with business which produces excellent results". If you read the vision statement of Polyhydron it says: "We will create an island of excellence through focus on customer, employee-empowerment and continuous improvement." Let me explain to you that Mr.Hundre and his colleagues follow not only in words but also in spirit their mission statement which reads as "Polyhydron will nurture an ethically managed organisation. We will not exploit our customers, suppliers, government, society and nature." Frankly, as a teacher of management, I have yet to find a more comprehensive mission statement than this one. If you visit the Ashrama, you will experience the spiritual ambience - Dhyan Mandir for meditation, water ponds, fish, royal swans and a lot of greenery. Polyhydron is in the manufacturing of mobile hydraulic press, way back form 1987-88. Till then the equipment was imported from USA. Obviously from India's point of view, precious foreign exchange has been saved by the Unit. It conducts usual business activities like manufacturing, marketing, finance, HR etc. but in a unique way. For example ; in manufacturing, there is such an open-ness that a worker on the shop-floor can reject the material and believe me - he is the final authority. As regards marketing, no attractive concessions or discounts are offered to the customers. At this stage, some figures will make my point clear. For example; in 1995- 96, the company turnover touched Rs.5.75 Polyhydron : Business Ashrama A Unique Experiment in Business Ethics crores without offering any discounts and company proudly paid corporate tax to the tune of Rs.1.5 crores. Incidentally, Mr. Hundre does not welcome any consultant in his office who may like to offer advice on how to reduce the tax burden! You will be surprised that the company's starting point of planning is : How can we pay more tax to the Government in the current year as compared to previous year! To Mr.Suresh Hundre, this is "continuous improvement". I remember having read an article in the Harvard Business Review entitled : "If honesty does not pay, why be honest in business" ( It is a well-intentioned survey based article). However in the words of Mr.Hundre, "Honesty is not the best policy. It is the only policy. "We are honest, we are transparent and we do not pay any bribe!" Management of the unit is simple. It is based on "trust". Mr.Suresh Hundre's Polyhydron is a temple of ethics in an engineering industry. Ms.Sushma Nirgundkar who wrote an article in the Times of India, mentions "Mr.Hundre's role models are Mahatma Gandhi, Kiran Bedi, Ratan Tata and Narayan Murthy". It is admirable that in this unit, there are only two layers( in other words there are no supervisory staff). The atmosphere is of mutual trust. Everybody in the organisation knows the figures of net profit, material cost, labour cost, tax paid to the government, excise paid, payments made to the suppliers etc. Even outsiders like government officials and customers have access to this information. Anybody in the organisation can challenge any voucher! There are no "debtors" no "creditors". Obviously there are no bad or doubtful debts. Suppliers are paid the moment the material is accepted and customers pay immediately on delivery. Employee Empowerment: All the employees are expected to be honest. They will follow ethical practices. I can give one example here. A few years back, the company was to buy a few computers. The company paid heavily for software and hardware for the computer network, buying from the original Dr. S G Bapat is President, Dr S G Bapat & Assocites, Pune. E-Mail: sg_bapat@hotmail.com;sg_bapat@indiainfo.com Dr. S.G.Bapat manufacturers, when pirated versions were cheaply available in the open market. The price paid was working out to be double. The company decided to buy half the number of computers and employees agreed to work in turns and by rotation - even night shift for some might be thought to be OK. A small incident but noteworthy. Mr.Suresh Hundre believes in setting a personal example. He does participate in social activities but it will be after 5 p.m. If he is taking Off, his casual leave application will be on the notice-board. I was surprised that in our seminar in Pune on "Value based Management", he was a faculty, but he was on "leave" and was not on duty. Forget about charging TA DA for the company! Anybody would like that all the world over such units be multiplied. There are quite a few people in the world who still believe that "Good Ethics is Good Business". I talked to Mr. Suresh Hundre, CMD. Here is a brief of the interview: Do you feel that most of the employees have understood the concept of employee empowerment? Suresh : Yes. Most of the employees have understood the concept of Business Ashrama and they are fully empowered. In fact, a senior faculty member from Karnatak University's Management Institute is writing Ph.D. thesis on Empowerment at Polyhydron. Mr.Hundre, you may be knowing that Mahatma Gandhi suggested "trusteeship formula" for distributing the gains as 25% to owners and shareholders, 25% for additional repayment of loan and interest, 25% to be divided equally amongst the employees and 25% is to be used for "expansion of the business in future". Do you agree with this formula or you have developed your own one? Suresh : Dr.Bapat, we have our own formula. We first calculate the wealth created and then we share 30% with employees, 5% with shareholders, 1% with society and balance 64% remains in the for growth. (Of course, this is all after the payment of corporate tax as per existing rules). u H | HRD News Letter | March 2007, Vol.22, Issue:12 33|
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Page 6 and 7: From National President’s Desk Co
Page 8 and 9: Column Spell C-H-A-N-G-E With Succe
Page 10 and 11: c) Investment Planning & Retirement
Page 12 and 13: New Dimension In Performance Manage
Page 14 and 15: Quality Education - End of Need for
Page 16 and 17: Measuring HR - 'Support Function' t
Page 18 and 19: To Lead Well, Speak Well "Proper wo
Page 20 and 21: Towards Effective Workforce: An Ins
Page 22 and 23: HRM is seen by practitioners in the
Page 24 and 25: English Language Tests In today's c
Page 26 and 27: Case Study - Practices to Retain Ta
Page 28 and 29: Emotional Intelligent Role of Human
Page 30 and 31: Emotional Intelligence And Training
Page 34 and 35: Performance Management - Vivid face
Page 36 and 37: Mentoring For Competitive Advantage
Page 38 and 39: "Sir, this is too much. I am humili
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