EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In this study I have examined changes in work organization, employment conditions and work-
life arrangements, especially as seen from the perspectives of employees. The rationale for the
report is that it is important to develop and maintain an up-to-date understanding of what is
happening in the rapidly changing areas of work organization, working conditions, and employee
attitudes and well-being.

This study is an outcome regarding analyzing the implications that new forms of work
organization have for the different aspects of conditions of employment, such as hours of work,
the intensification of work and health at the workplace, pay systems, security of employment,
work and family, and social dialogue. The organization of work has great implications for the
quality of working life, and this is clearly demonstrated by the on-going debates on changes in
work organization in the direction of greater flexibility and their potential and actual effects on
workers. While it is widely assumed that flexible forms of work organization can have desirable
influences on both, the enterprise and its workers, these outcomes are often not realized in
practice. Even when a new form of work organization results in positive outcomes overall, the
gain is not always shared by all the participants involved: in many cases, some workers benefit
from the change, but others do not. Thus, changes in work organization should be approached
from the perspective of workers as well as employers, in order to allow their social implications
to be fully explored. The study will also highlight the employee reasons for joining and leaving
Birla Sunlife.

The evidence provided in this study is mixed. As the report notes, the paucity of information on
developing and transition economies is another obstacle that prevents us from reaching any firm
conclusions regarding the effects of these new changes on the quality of working life. Therefore,
a more cautious approach is essential in assessing recent trends towards new work organizations.
It is hoped that issues concerning the quality of working life in the context of changing forms of
work organization will be widely discussed between social partners and inspire further studies,
particularly in developing countries and transition economies.

1
 INTRODUCTION
This study will examine changes in work organization, employment conditions and work-life
arrangements, especially as seen from the perspectives of employees of Birla Sunlife. It will
explore the links between changing environments outside the employing organization, the inside
contexts and employer strategies within the organization, and worker perceptions and well-being.
These are areas of long-standing research interest among academics and practitioners, but at the
present time there are new concerns — associated with pressures related to globalization,
accelerating technological change and changing worker expectations. These concerns are
relevant not only to industrialized countries but also to transition economies and developing
countries; they affect both the formal and the informal sectors of economies.

In order to explore these areas, the report draws on a number of bodies of literature, in particular
from industrial relations, human resource management, social psychology and industrial
sociology. It will identify and define the main aspects of working conditions and quality of
working life. It will also touch on a number of perspectives and models in these areas. On the
basis of this, certain linkages will then be considered, concerning effects of changing working
arrangements and work organization on employee attitudes and socioeconomic outcomes. The
report will proceed to examine surveys and other evidence which explore linkages suggested by
these frameworks. Finally, some broad conclusions will be drawn and an agenda for further
research will be outlined.

The rationale for the report is that it is important to develop and maintain an up-to-date
understanding of what is happening in the rapidly changing areas of work organization, working
conditions, and employee attitudes and well-being. In the first place, it is important from the
point of view of workers, since job satisfaction and well-being at work are both important ends
in themselves and a means to a broader end, which we may be loosely described as ‘the good
life’. Second, it is also important for employers to appreciate the present situation, not least
because, in a world of increasing competition, the working conditions and feelings of employees
can affect corporate performance. Recognition of this interest on the part of employers is in part

2
attested by the increasing number of employee opinion surveys which firms carry out or in which
they partake. Third, these subjects are also important from a broader societal and governmental
perspective, since worker responses and job satisfaction/dissatisfaction also have consequences
for the broader working of society. This relates not only to economic outcomes and implications
for jobs and living standards; in addition, it has other social implications. In this sense, for
example, long working hours and dissatisfaction at work can have adverse effects on the
frequency of illness and the quality of family life. Recent work on the “economics of happiness”
suggests that these issues need to be taken seriously in the light of broad welfare considerations.

3
 COMPANY PROFILE
Established in 2000, Birla Sun Life Insurance Company Limited (BSLI) is a joint venture

between the Aditya Birla Group, a well known and trusted name globally amongst Indian

conglomerates and Sun Life Financial Inc, leading international financial services organization

from Canada. The local knowledge of the Aditya Birla Group combined with the domain

expertise of Sun Life Financial Inc., offers a formidable protection for its customers’ future.

With an experience of over 9 years, BSLI has contributed significantly to the growth and

development of the life insurance industry in India and currently ranks amongst the top 5 private

life insurance companies in the country.

Known for its innovation and creating industry benchmarks, BSLI has several firsts to its credit.

It was the first Indian Insurance Company to introduce “Free Look Period” and the same was

made mandatory by IRDA for all other life insurance companies. Additionally, BSLI pioneered

the launch of Unit Linked Life Insurance plans amongst the private players in India. To establish

credibility and further transparency, BSLI also enjoys the prestige to be the originator of practice

to disclose portfolio on monthly basis. These category development initiatives have helped BSLI

be closer to its policy holders’ expectations, which gets further accentuated by the complete

bouquet of insurance products (viz. pure term plan, life stage products, health plan and

retirement plan) that the company offers.

Add to this, the extensive reach through its network of 600 branches and 1,75,000 empanelled

advisors. This impressive combination of domain expertise, product range, reach and ears on

ground, helped BSLI cover more than 2 million lives since it commenced operations and

establish a customer base spread across more than 1500 towns and cities in India. To ensure that

our customers have an impeccable experience, BSLI has ensured that it has lowest outstanding

claims ratio of 0.00% for FY 2008-09. Additionally, BSLI has the best Turn Around Time

according to LOMA on all claims Parameters. Such services are well supported by sound

4
financials that the Company has. The AUM of BSLI stood at Rs. 8165 crs as on February 28,

2009, while as on March 31, 2009, the company has a robust capital base of Rs. 2000 crs.

Vision
To be a leader and role model in a broad based and integrated financial services business.
Mission
 To help people mitigate risks of life, accident, health, and money at all stages and under
all circumstances
 Enhance the financial future of our customers including enterprises
Values

 Integrity
 Commitment
 Passion
 Seamlessness
 Speed

A US $28 billion corporation, the Aditya Birla Group is in the league of Fortune 500 worldwide.

It is anchored by an extraordinary force of 100,000 employees, belonging to 25 different

nationalities. The group operates in 25 countries across six continents – truly India's first

multinational corporation.

Aditya Birla Group through Aditya Birla Financial Services Group (ABFSG), has a strong

presence across various financial services verticals that include life insurance, fund management,

distribution & wealth management, security based lending, insurance broking, private equity and

retail broking. The seven companies representing ABFSG are Birla Sun Life Insurance

Company, Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company, Birla Sun Life Distribution Company,

Birla Global Finance Company, Birla Insurance Advisory & Broking Services, Aditya Birla

Capital Advisors and Apollo Sindhoori Capital Investment. In FY 2008-09, the consolidated

revenues of ABFSG from these businesses crossed Rs. 4763 crores, registering a growth rate of

36%.

5
Sun Life Financial is a leading international financial services organisation providing a diverse

range of protection and wealth accumulation products and services to individuals and corporate

customers. Chartered in 1865, Sun Life Financial and its partners today have operations in key

markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hong

Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China and Bermuda. As of December 31, 2008,

the Sun Life Financial group of companies had total assets under management of $381 billion.

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Individual Solutions

At Birla Sun Life Insurance, we look at life from your perspective. Hence, no matter what your

dreams are - be it long term protection, wealth creation, health, retirement security or your

children’s education, we provide you customised insurance solutions to meet all your Life needs

successfully. 

Protection Solutions for your family's life insurance needs.

Children’s Future Solutions To take care of your children's need.
Wealth with Protection Solutions To help you create long term wealth & protect your
family.
Health & Wellness Solutions To cover you & your family's current & future health need.
Retirement Solutions To financially secure a happy retired life.
Group Insurance

Employee benefit plans provided by employers to their employees play a very important role in

increasing employee loyalty and productivity. Birla Sun Life uses its vast expertise in helping

organizations and groups design customized solutions to their employees.

Retirement Solutions

Our employee benefit solutions are designed to enable organizations and groups to offer superior

benefits to their employees to meet both statutory requirements like gratuity and retirement

solutions.

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Gratuity

While Gratuity is a statutory obligation it is also a very important tool today to create employee

loyalty. A comprehensive gratuity plan can help organizations reduce both business costs and

corporate tax. Birla Sun Life’s gratuity solution manages your gratuity liability effectively and

also helps you release resources for other business activities.

Superannuation

Today while there is a high awareness of the impact of inflation and its affect on retirement

savings among employees, very few would have adopted a systematic and disciplined savings

plan to counter its effect. Organizations can play a key role in helping employees to build the

desired retirement corpus while at the same time increasing employee loyalty. Birla Sun Life’s

solutions can be customized to effectively meet both employer and employee requirements.

Leave Encashment

Leave encashment liabilities for organization keep growing with time thus straing the

organizations resources. These liabilities can bee effectively met through the management of a

dedicated fund for leave encashment. Birla Sun Life vast experience in effectively managing

funds and delivering superior returns can help organizations effectively manage these liabilities

Protection Solutions

Birla Sun Life Insurance Group Protection Solutions provide the benefit of an insurance cover to

an entire group of people as a single unit. This can be Employer – Employee Groups, Affinity

Groups and Mortgage Groups

Employer employee

At Birla Sun Life Insurance (BSLI), our goal is to help you ensure your employees’ well being

so that they can enhance their performance & potential. Our protection solutions combine new

innovations in organizational benefits with the traditional strength of employee assistance to

help:
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Protect the investment in your people Reduce the liability, cost and negative impact of mental

reassures in the work place Maintain your position as employer of choice; and Incorporate

employer protection & wellness into your core business practices

Affinity

 An affinity group is a group consisting of persons who assemble together with a commonality of

purpose or engaging in a common economic activity. In Insurance parlance Non-employer-

employee groups like employee welfare associations, borrowers of a bank, professional

associations or societies may also be treated as affinity groups provided the president/ secretary/

manager/ group organizer in his capacity as organizer of the group has an authority from

majority of the members of the group to arrange insurance on their behalf.

Rural Insurance

A large population of India lives in the rural areas with. The impact of risks associated with life

and health are far more severe on this population as compared to the urban population with

higher levels of income.

Birla Sun Life launched its rural program in 2001 to provide insurance to the rural populace of
India. This includes the endowment product that provides life cover and guarantees returns to the
insured on maturity. By virtue of the benefits it provides, this product has been very well
accepted and has gone on to become the most popular product in the rural areas.

With changing times and with increasing disposable incomes in rural areas, we improved our
solutions to the rural population and launched two Micro Insurance Products in 2008 which
include a pure term and return of premium products. One of the unique features of these products
is that they provide a grace period of 180 days as opposed to 30 days for other similar plans in
the market. This gives policyholders the flexibility to pay premiums.

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Birla Sun Life Insurance Bima Dhan Sanchay

Birla Sun Life Insurance Bima Dhan Sanchay apart from providing the security of life insurance
cover also guarantees the refund of premiums paid by you on maturity.

Birla Sun Life Insurance Bima Suraksha Super

Birla Sun Life Insurance Bima Suraksha Super provides you life insurance cover for which you
have to pay regular premium

Birla Sun Life Insurance Bima Kavach Yojana

9
 THEORETICAL CONCEPT

Basically QWL refers to the favourableness’ or unfavourableness of a job environment

for people. The basic purpose is to develop work environments that are excellent for people as
well as for the economic health of the organisation.

"When organisation have addressed the issue of quality of working life, they have
always achieved great productivity breakthroughs" ----Jerome M. Rosow.

A better quality of work life for employees leads to a higher productivity for the employer.

In the first part of this report I have identified various dimensions of this concept such as
safe and healthy working conditions, Adequate and fair compensation, Social integration in the
work organization, The social relevance of work life etc.

By this study on quality of working life it seems that in recent years there have been
significant changes in technology and work organization. Some of this involves high investment
simply in “hard” technology, sometimes with a deskilling of work. However, some also involves
a combination of “hard” technological and “soft” organizational change, with experimentation in
terms of new forms of work organization, mainly though not exclusively in developed countries.
These latter systems are often referred to as either “lean”, “high performance” or “high
commitment” production systems, meaning systems of working based on more flexible
techniques, changing skill mixes, and broader jobs with differing degrees of team working.
These systems usually crucially involve some of the following: more flexible working, either in
terms of functions or in terms of numbers; job rotation over a wide or narrow range of tasks; the
reduction of supervision and the introduction of some degree of “empowerment” or self-
management, often in teams; just-in-time delivery, production and service systems; “total quality
management” or “business process re-engineering”; greater use of outside contractors,
outsourcing and putting-out systems; and communications arrangements such as quality circles.

Then I have also signified some new trends in working organization such as
competitiveness, skill, hours and working time issues, intensification, Employment relations and

10
job tenure, Pay and benefit systems, etc. I have also analysed Implications for worker attitudes
and pulse taking.

In the second part of the report I have given various steps to improve performance/
satisfaction process and there are some elements should be present in the QWL programme like:

1. Open communication

2. Equitable reward system

3. A concern for employee job security

4. Participation in job design - job enrichment & organisational design

5. Employee skill development

6. Reduction of occupational stress

7. Good employer-employee relations

8. A challenging job

9. More opportunity for growth

10. Encouraging creativity and innovation in employees

11. Alternate work schedule

12. Workers participation in management

13. Supportive leadership

14. Autonomy and delegation of authority

15. An atmosphere based on fairness, integrity and trust

16. Continuous development of employees

17. Good appraisal system

18. Recognition programs

19. Employee benefits

20. Profit sharing

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 21. Pension rights.

The third party of the report covers the case study of Wal-Mart in which technology,
work conditions, and working environment of Wal-Mart is discussed and the objective is to
examine the structure of Wal-Mart’s store operations, and to analyze how its technology, culture
and management structure are used in conjunction with official policies and covert practices to
shape the experience of Wal-Mart’s workers.

History

The American Society of Training and Development established a task force on the QWL
in 1979. This task force defined QWL as “a process of work organisation which enables its
members at all levels to actively participate in shaping the organisations, environment, methods
and outcomes. This value based process is aimed towards meeting the twin goals of enhanced
effectiveness of organisation and improved quality of life at work for employees”. A more
specific definition by Cohen and Rosenthal describes it as an “”international design effort to
bring about increased labour management cooperation to jointly solve the problem of improving
organisational performance and employees satisfaction”.

A number of attempts have been made to identify various dimensions of this concept.
Some have emphasised the improvement in work conditions leading to better quality of life,
while others feel a fair compensation and job security should be emphasised. This report will
start with rather more objective developments in these areas and will consider both descriptive
and statistical accounts. It will then move on in the next section to the more subjective area of
perceptions, attitudes and employee pulse-taking. It must be stressed, however, that the objective
and subjective are closely inter-related and often objective measures must be complemented with
more subjective assessments.

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 1. Adequate and fair compensation – This refers to a just and fair balance between
effort and reward. It includes such things as a fair job evaluation, training to perform the job
reasonably, ability of the organization to pay, demand and supply of talent and skills and profit
sharing. In summary, it should respond to whether the compensation “bears an appropriate
relationship to the pay received for other work” (fair). It may be useful to point out here that in
India such labour legislations as Payments of Wages Act, 1936 and Minimum Wages Act, 1948
ensure adequate and fair compensation to employees.

2. Safe and healthy working conditions – In order to improve QWL the work
environment should be free from hazards or other factors detrimental to health and safety of
employees. Walton specifically refers to reasonable hours of work, zero risk, physical conditions
of work and age restrictions on both lower and upper side. Once again, concern for safety in the
work place in India is enshrined in the Factories Act, 1948 which lays down minimum standards
of protection from machine and other hazards (noise, pollution, fume, gases etc.) at the place of
work.

3. Immediate opportunity to use and develop human capacities – The work today
ahs become repetitive and fragmented, the average worker often responds mechanically to the
demands of machine without much control on them. QWL can be improved if the job allows
sufficient autonomy and control, uses a wider range of skills and abilities, provides immediate
feedback to workers to take corrective action, is seen as a total activity, and provides opportunity
to plan and implement by them.

4. Opportunity for continued growth and security – Here the focus is on career
opportunity as against the job. how much and what kind of opportunities available to develop
new and expand existing abilities to avoid obsolescence? Whether the newly acquired talent
could be put to some use and hence lead to personal growth and security?

5. Social integration in the work organisation – One of the objectives of QWL is to

generate satisfying identity with organization and develop a feeling of self esteem. The variables
that inculcate these are absence of hierarchical status, opportunity for upward mobility, openness

13
and trust, a sense of community feeling on the job, and freedom from prejudice based on sex,
caste, race, creed and religion. Once again Article 16 of the Indian Constitution guarantees equal
opportunity of employment irrespective of race, creed, caste, religion and sex.

6. Constitutionalisation in the work organisation – Enhanced QWL should also

ensure zero violation of the constitutional guarantee by executive/organizational decision. Such
guarantees as right to personal privacy free speech equitable treatment and governance by the
“Rule of Law” are necessary to uphold to improve QWL.

7. Work and the total life space – The demand of the work, like late hours, frequent
travel, quick transfer are, both psychologically and socially very costly to the employee and his
family. Such phenomena occurring a regular basis necessarily depress the QWL.

8. The social relevance of work life – The organization’s lack of concern for social
causes, like waste disposal, low quality product, overaggressive marketing, employment practice
make workers depreciate the value of their work and career which, in turn effects their self
esteem. The social responsibility of the organization is an important determinant of QWL.

The eight criteria indicated above constitute the board realm of quality of working life. It
is possible that all of them may not be relevant to all of groups or employees but irrespective of
the criteria the underlying assumption which defines the QWL is the individuals own experience
of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. According to Takezawa(1976) “what constitutes a ‘high’
quality of working life may vary in relation in both the workers aspiration and the objective
reality of his work and society. It is ultimately defined by the worker himself”

With the encouragement of International Labour organization and active lead taken by
National Institute of Labour, Delhi, the QWL as a movement has started attracting the attention
of both academicians as well as practitioners in India. The factors that seem to have led to the
movement can be summarised as follows.

1. The profile of Indian industrial worker has substantially changed over time. From an
illiterate, rural, low caste individual to educated, urban and essentially belonging to upper

14
 caste person, the Indian workers has come a long way (Sharma 1978). He seems to have
different hopes and aspirations and more committed to the factory way of life. Monge
believes that blue collar worker today is a committed man who has moulded himself
according to the emergent social structure.

2. Of late growing emphasis is placed on the significance of human resources in India. More
and more people are beginning to realise that like finances and machines, work force is
an equally significant input in the survival of an organization. This realisation has
culminated itself in the recently introduced Ministry of Human Resources Development.
Therefore, major investments have to be made in keeping this significant aspect of
organizations in “best shape” for it to perform. More willingness to work cannot boost
the moral of the worker unless he has socially accepted positions required for the
industrial way of life. According to Sen Gupta 1982, the Indian worker is deprived of
such a position. His wish has to be recognised and rewarded.

3. According to the latest Census of India, 33.44 percent of the total population constitutes
main workers. Of these, about 30 percent work in industry trade, commerce
transportation etc. (Census of India, 1981). It is estimated that approximately 10 percent
of the work force is currently employed in the organized sector most of which is
unionised and vocal. A quick look at the registration of the unions and their membership
shows that both are steadily increasing over time. At the same time the frequency of
strikes and mandays lost is also increasing over time. According to Verma(1986), the
number of disputes increased by 58 percent and the number of mandays lost went up 40.6
percent during the period 1961-83.

In a developing country with its attending problem such trends by them can be
detrimental to national growth. Hence, more and more people are thinking of ways and
means to minimise and possibly control this trend.

4. Finally, as a result of growing body of knowledge in human behaviour, in general, and

industrial behaviour, in particular, both the academicians and the practitioners are gaining

15
the necessary confidence to think of innovative modules to understand, predict and
control human behaviour. This is a growing trend of experimenting with newer concepts,
theories and framework which is laying the foundation for determining most effective
utilisation of human resources by inculcating a new sense of freedom and resultant
increase in productivity.

16
 New Trends in Work organization

In recent years there have been significant changes in technology and work organization.
Some of this involves high investment simply in “hard” technology, sometimes with a deskilling
of work. However, some also involves a combination of “hard” technological and “soft”
organizational change, with experimentation in terms of new forms of work organization, mainly
though not exclusively in developed countries. These latter systems are often referred to as either
“lean”, “high performance” or “high commitment” production systems, meaning systems of
working based on more flexible techniques, changing skill mixes, and broader jobs with differing
degrees of team working. These systems usually crucially involve some of the following: more
flexible working, either in terms of functions or in terms of numbers; job rotation over a wide or
narrow range of tasks; the reduction of supervision and the introduction of some degree of
“empowerment” or self-management, often in teams; just-in-time delivery, production and
service systems; “total quality management” or “business process re-engineering”; greater use of
outside contractors, outsourcing and putting-out systems; and communications arrangements
such as quality circles.

5.1 The quality of working life and competitiveness

The concept of the ‘quality of working life’ is imprecise and thus problematic to
operationalise. Historically, it can be traced back to the quality of working life movement that
largely consisted of a number of industrial psychologists in response to a perceived
disenchantment with the organization of work in the late 1960s and early 1970s. A number of
reports published in both the US and UK sought to develop models of job redesign that aimed to
improve utilization of worker initiative and reduce job dissatisfaction thereby offering an
alternative to the technocratic rigidity and inflexibility of Taylorism. QWL has also been
associated with organizational changes aimed at increasing the levels of job enlargement (greater
horizontal task flexibility) and job enrichment (greater vertical task flexibility including the
taking on of new responsibilities including those formerly undertaken by supervisory or

17
managerial personnel). Crucially, the idea is that of attaining higher levels of participation and
thereby motivation by improving the attractiveness of the work itself rather than through
improving the terms and conditions of work. Early work on QWL was strongly rooted in
psychology with a focus on the individual. The historical context for this has been identified as
the breakdown of the illusion of industrial consensus identified as occurring from the 1960s
onwards. The term ‘quality of working life’ thus saw its birth at an International Conference in
New York in 1972 that sought to share knowledge and initiate a coherent theory and practice on
how to create the conditions for a ‘humane working life’. This conference set up a task force to
develop a model based on four dimensions of integrity that are as follows-

 Integrity of body

 Social growth and development

 Integrity of self

 Integrity of life roles.

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 For Walton, improvements in the quality of working life needed to focus on the following
factors:

• A just rewards system with minimum guarantees;

• A safe and healthy physical and psychosocial work environment;

• Job design based on the needs of both workers and their organizations;

• Employment security with prospects for internal career advance;

• A working climate with a positive social atmosphere and social integration;

• Clearly articulated individual rights;

• Worker participation in decision making;

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 • Due limits to the encroachment of one’s working life on one’s life beyond the
workplace;

• Social relevance - an instilling of employee conviction that the organization would act
with social responsibility and honesty in its dealings externally.

Organisations adopting such an integrated approach to workplace design, it has been

argued, lay the foundations for achieving higher performance outcomes compared to designs
where QWL aspects are disregarded.

A central concern of the QWL movement has thus been that of replacing jobs based on
single, repetitive tasks, often on assembly lines, with more ‘humanised’ forms of work having a
less clearcut separation of conception from execution. Such alternatives, it is argued, allow for
jobs that are less alienating, and allow for greater job satisfaction, more meaningful work and
greater influence on workplace decisions. In turn, such developments generate higher-level
organisational performance, less sickness absence and reduced employee turnover.

By the 1980s the QWL concept had become the ‘dominant generic term for a loosely
connected set of concerns in areas such as work organisation, working conditions, the working
environment and shop-floor participation’. Similar concepts could be discerned in Germany
(translated as the ‘humanisation of work’), France (‘improvement of working conditions’), and
the Eastern European countries (‘workers’ protection’). However, different researchers have
sought to emphasise different things in their use of the term. Some, for example, have focused on
the extent to which the work environment motivates work performance; some have been
interested in the safeguarding of physical and psychological well-being, whereas others have
studied QWL as a concept for developing means to reduce worker alienation, both in the labour
process and in society more generally. It can be seen that by the mid 1980s, therefore, the
concept had moved beyond its origins in psychology and an emphasis on the individual by
encompassing a more sociological approach involving group and organizational perspectives.

20
 The ideas encapsulated by QWL can also be traced in related literatures on working life
that deal with similar themes, but without using the QWL terminology. For example,
Antonowsky (1987) has focused specifically on the health aspects of work by asking why people
were so often fit at work rather than unfit. His research showed that fit employees were
associated with jobs where they experienced a sense of context in their duties that were related to
three main factors:

 Comprehensibility

 Manageability and

 Meaningfulness.

Focusing similarly on health themes, Maslich and Leiter (1997) have argued that a
significant source of stress and even burnout can arise when a conflict of values exists between
the main stakeholders of an organisation, namely employees, owners and customers (clients).
One precondition of a healthy workplace, therefore, is argued as being a shared value document
as well as a multiple stakeholder approach to organizational control.

The case for stakeholder convergence with is also a theme of the emergent discourse on
sustainability in organisations. Sustainable work systems are counterposed to intensive work
systems. The latter are those that consume resources generated in the social system of the work
environment. The interaction between the individual and work has a negative balance between
consumption and regeneration and is characterised by exhausted work motivation, stress, long-
term sickness absence, ill-health retirement, workplace downsizing and closure. In contrast,
sustainable work systems develop by regenerating resources, add to the reproduction cycle and
are consonant with long-term convergence between stakeholder interests.

In the attempt at arriving at a definition of the quality of working life for the current
study, however, many of the categorisations in the literature such as that of Walton and the early
psychological approaches were felt to be too broad and clear limitations were thus necessary.
Moreover, there is some confusion as to whether QWL describes or characterises certain types of

21
change processes or is in fact an outcome of such processes. The emphasis here is on the features
of work redesign that can reasonably be argued as facilitating QWL improvements rather than
QWL itself in the strict sense of its usage in the earliest definitions. These features of work
redesign can be summarised as follows:

• Job enlargement: this entails the extension of job duties and rotation that might, for
example, accompany a switch to some form of teamworking or more functional flexibility.

• Job enrichment: this entails a vertical extension of duties, normally consisting of a

greater proportion of one’s duties being those traditionally associated with supervisory or
managerial roles in the traditional Tayloristic model of workplace design. Such duties might
include daily and weekly planning of work, quality control, problem identification and solving,
maintenance, budgeting and supplier and customer contact. Again, training in new competencies
is required.

• Participation: this entails the participation in an increasing number issue affecting the
labour process and design of the workplace. The notion of consultative participation is intended
here whereby channels are established for employees to be given a voice on matters that affect
them and thus some degree of influence.

• Autonomy: this also entails participation, but that of a more delegated and devolved
form. Here workers are granted powers of self-regulation in areas such as the pace of work, job
methods and sequencing without reference back.

• Developmental scope: this concept entails the notion of worker input into and discretion
over developmental processes at the workplace in the spirit of sociotechnical systems theory. It
involves providing systematic ways whereby the first four concepts above are systematically
linked to a system of individual and workplace learning including new product and process
design, as well as payment systems that support learning.

To sum up, the more psychologically based dimensions of QWL outlined by Davis and
Cherns, Walton and others are seen here as the stakeholder outcomes afforded to employees

22
from a process of change in work organisation. The impact of such change on QWL is mediated
by certain organisational outcomes in terms of job redesign. Such redesign is conceptualised as
comprising five features appearing to contribute positively to QWL that can be discerned in the
literature. Accordingly, we can think of a process whereby value is added for employees as
follows:

New work organisation Job design Enhanced quality of working life

Competitiveness
The concept of competitiveness generally describes the degree to which an organisation
that engages in adding value through market exchange can sell on the market on terms similar to
its rivals. Closely allied with this is the notion of competitive advantage whereby the
organisation enjoys some uniqueness that enables it to engage in exchange on better terms than
its rivals do. For the purposes of this study, no distinction is made between the notions of
competitiveness and competitive advantage. Assumed in the discourse of competition is the
existence of market exchange. Although this discourse has reached certain locations in the public
sector, the main emphasis in the study is on private sector firms. Discussions on sources of firm
competitiveness are commonly conducted with reference to the work of Porter (1980) on generic
strategies. Porter argued that there are three fundamental ways in which firms can seek
competitive advantage in a particular market. These are

cost leadership (producing at the lowest cost in the industry), differentiation (offering
consumers some sort of uniqueness in product or service provision that they value highly and for
which they are often prepared to pay a premium price), and focus (choosing a narrow
competitive scope within an industry).

Porter’s views on strategic choices for maintaining competitiveness have subsequently

been called into question. Prahalad and Hamel (1990) noted that in the information age, firms
had an increasing capacity to imitate and copy a rival who was apparently following Porter’s
business and corporate strategy prescriptions to the letter. Moreover, empirical evidence from
Japanese companies showed that it was possible for firms to be ‘stuck in the middle’ and adopt
simultaneously what Porter would describe as conflicting business strategies. Toyota’s

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encroachment into the US car market was based on both cost leadership and differentiation;
indeed, this was the very logic behind total quality management. The key to genuinely sustained
competitive advantage, therefore, was not that of adopting the correct strategy content but,
rather, the capacity to innovate and do new things ahead of rivals. This depended on the core
competencies of the organisation and these, in turn, rested on the firm’s ability to learn
collectively. Ultimately, therefore, competitiveness depends on the pace at which a firm embeds
new advantages deep within its organisation rather than its stock of advantages at any particular
time.

The notions of differentiation and focus in Porter’s typology of generic strategies are in
essence marketing activities rather than those within the domain of human resource management
and therefore have no direct connection with the quality of working life. On the other hand,
strategies for competitiveness through cost leadership are often directly associated with human
resource aspects. The same could be said for the notion of innovative capacity that emphasises
the core competencies of the organisation. These core competencies are, in effect, the individual
and collective competencies of its personnel. An improved level of innovative capacity may lead
to new focus or differentiation strategies, but in such situations the link between QWL and
competitiveness is indirect. For the purposes of this study, therefore, the notion of competition is
will be restricted to cost leadership and innovative capacity.

Both cost leadership and innovative capacity, in turn, can be achieved and, indeed,
measured on a number of dimensions. For example, The World Competitiveness Yearbook
(WCY, 2000), published by the International Institute for Management Development, although
focusing on macro conceptions of national competitiveness, also publishes data on the
competitiveness of firms and the environments in which they are embedded. Looking at factors
inside the firm, the WCY methodology looks specifically at productivity, labour costs, corporate
performance, management efficiency and corporate culture. In sum, competitiveness in the firm

is dependent on the extent to which the firm is managed in an innovative, profitable and
responsible manner as well as the availability and qualifications of human resources.

It can be reasonably assumed that performance improvements and higher productivity

will enhance the prospects for cost leadership and thereby competitiveness. Measuring

24
productivity, however, is not unproblematic. Productivity is commonly conceived as output per
capita or value added per employee, yet researchers have also proposed a number of key ratios.
Brulin and Nilsson (1995), for example, propose lead times, capital tied-up, quality I (less waste,
fewer complaints, zero faults), quality II (improved supply precision), throughput times, supply
times, retooling times and stock turnover. More generally, performance can be measured by staff
turnover, absenteeism rates and surveys of staff motivation.

Clearly, choices on work organisation innovation will impact on and thereby partially
mediate competitiveness in the sense of providing organisations with the means to be as good as
or better than their rivals. Improved competitiveness can thus be seen as a potential
organisational outcome of innovative work organisation. In private sector commercial
organisations this, in turn, will benefit the organisation’s owners since a perceived improvement
in a firm’s competitive position will normally boost its share price and add shareholder value. By
the same token, we can talk about greater effectiveness in public sector organizations benefiting
taxpayers or boosting taxpayer value. Accordingly, we can think of a process whereby value is
added for owners or taxpayers as follows:

Competitiveness is seen as consisting primarily of two aspects, namely cost leadership

and innovative capacity. The capacity to develop new techniques for organising production
processes can clearly lead, in turn, to lower cost innovations. As also stated, innovative capacity
can also enhance performance and competitiveness through generating new advantages in a
firm’s marketing activities associated with differentiation and focus. These, however, are not
considered in the study. Finally, it might be the case that improved competitiveness also impacts
positively on the quality of working life through generating more resources for investment in
human resource development as well as generating higher expectations of these

25
 amongst the personnel of the firm concerned. The conceptual framework guiding the
study is set out as figure 2. A number of conditions or drivers of change in the environment are
seen as the main impetus behind innovations in work organisation.

26
27
Skill
Skill is a key aspect of work organization, of workers’ ability to remain in gainful
employment and of their job satisfaction. However, it is a difficult concept to measure.. Possible
measures are :

(1) The distribution of employment across jobs;

(2) Within jobs, the qualifications formally required for a job, training time to do a job
competently, and the amount of learning on the job; and

(3) Self-assessment of skill levels.

For the United States, Cappelli has produced some useful research and has provided a
survey of some of the evidence. His research suggests that, in the case of production jobs, the
composition of the labour force has shifted towards higher skilled jobs and that, more
importantly, there has been an up skilling within such jobs. In the case of white-collar jobs,
changes are more complicated and suggest an even split between up skilling and deskilling.
Overall, the development of new office equipment seemed to be associated with deskilling. More
recently, he suggests though that the small up-skilling, but argues that employer-provided
training is in jeopardy because of the dismantling of internal labour markets and the increasing
inability of firms to recoup the costs of training. The implication is that much up skilling has
come from informal learning on the job, from self-investment, and perhaps from educational
provision.

Hours and working time issues

The question of hours poses important problems in a number of directions. It has
implications for the wellbeing of individual workers. Thus, a review of reviews of American,
European and Japanese studies suggests that there is a positively significant correlation between
long hours of work and physiological and psychological ill health. The length of the working
week also has implications for broader social welfare, in that working hour and regimes have
profound effects on family life. In addition, it has implications for economic welfare, where
some have argued that the recent rise in productivity in countries such as the United Kingdom
and the United States may be occasioned by longer hours rather than any real efficiency gains.

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 Another aspect of hours is shift and night work. This has always existed in some public
sector jobs, in some continuous process industries and in manufacturing jobs, especially during
periods of high levels of economic activity. In recent years, however, it has increased among
white-collar workers, in retailing, hotel and

catering, and in other service and financial areas. The predictions are that this is likely to
increase further as more firms respond to the so-called “24-hour society”. In terms of effects, it
is well known that night and shift work can upset people’s circadian clocks. This can in turn lead
to fatigue, stress and depression. If continued for long periods, it can also result in
gastrointestinal problems and cardiovascular disease. Moreover, tired workers are more accident
prone.

We should also look at other aspects like:

 “Extensive” effort, namely the time spent at work,

 “Intensive” effort, namely the intensity of work during time at work;

 “Constrained” effort, namely effort which is essential to get the job done,

 “Discretionary” effort, namely effort over and above what the job formally requires.

Intensification of work within a given number of hours

It refers to the intensity of work during job time at work. It covers heavier workloads,
tighter deadlines and faster work pace. Over the years, attempts have been made by
psychologists to measure physical and mental effort under experimental conditions. This has
always had practical limitations. Alternative “real world” methods are as follows:

 It is possible to carry out detailed case-studies, examining output and worker hours,
management standard-setting and control regimes, and worker restrictive practices. These have
the benefits and limitations of case-study work.

 Quantifiable proxies may be designed and assessed. For example, there are a number of
recent studies which have taken injury rates as such a measure. However, this approach has
serious problems of multiple causation and inference. Another proxy which has been used is

29
residual productivity (viz. productivity minus investment effects). Again, there are serious
problems with this, not least that efficiency may increase without workers working harder.

 A further method is to use work-study measurements, preferably with some kind of

longitudinal data. In the United Kingdom, Bennett and Smith-Gavine developed an index of the
“Percentage Utilization of Labour”, based on results of work-study in a panel of factories. This
index measures changes in productivity attributable to changes in work speed relative to the
standard times dictated in a putatively scientific manner by work-study experts. The validity of
this approach has been subjected to a convincing conceptual, practical and empirical critique.

 Finally, we come to subjective effort measures via surveys. In turn, these are of two
kinds:

(a) Those based on recall by respondents

(b) Those based on the posing of identical question at different points in time, preferably
to a continuing panel of workers. Problems with the former technique revolve around memory
recall and the idealization of the past. Somewhat similar problems exist with the latter technique,
but overall answers have been shown to correlate well with related experimental and objective
measures.

Recent research suggests that work intensification can have detrimental effects on health.
There is little evidence to suggest that work intensification leads to greater job dissatisfaction.
Again, this may reflect worker expectations in a competitive context and the nature of peer group
pressures.

The healthy workplace

Rationales for interest in this concept are both social (with considerations of individual
and family well-being) and also economic (with health and safety costs constituting an estimated
5 per cent of GDP in a country such as the United States). A recent study which pulls together
some of this literature defines the healthy workplace as not only one with minimal levels of
injury and illness, but also one with “balanced and appropriate internal relations conducive to
good health and well-being”.

Measure of workplace health include work-related injuries, accidents and illness, and can
also be proxied by absenteeism, turnover and grievances. It is well known that, in terms of

30
injuries, there are significant differences within countries between sectors and occupations, with
construction and transport having high accident rates and professional services and managerial
jobs having low rates.

By contrast, illness tends to be more frequent in personal and protective services and
lower in construction and manufacturing. Determinants of injuries and illness are various and
may be inversely related. Thus, there are more injuries in smaller workplaces, among younger
workers, in workplaces where there is less discretion on the job, no union presence, more
contingent pay, and longer hours and more shift working and contract working. There is more
illness and illness absence in larger workplaces, where longer hours are worked and where
workers feel they have less discretion in their jobs. Interestingly, illness is higher where there is
more employee representation and trade union membership, more participation in workplace
decision-making, including on health and safety matters, and where there are more family
friendly policies in place.

Family-unfriendly and -friendly patterns of work

There is increasing growth of family-unfriendly patterns of working. Couples are
spending more time at work or are increasingly work-orientated; they are having increasing
difficulty juggling child-care arrangements; and they have limited time for relaxation and leisure
together. Many families are currently dual career or two-earner families. Many children have
both parents at work, and that most employees feel there is insufficient paid and unpaid care
leave provision. Even where the one partner (usually the woman) may not work, there has been
an increase in dual job-holding, perhaps in part reflecting the stagnation of earnings of less-
skilled males at the bottom of the income distribution. This combination of factors can lead to
stress and depression, adverse effects on children, and marriage breakdowns and divorce. In
many advanced Western countries, large firms are increasingly instituting so-called “family-
friendly” initiatives, such as parental leave, maternity benefits, career breaks, flexible hours,
child and elder care arrangements, and job share schemes.

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Employment relations and job tenure
In the area of employment relations, in many countries, there has been much comment on
the trend towards so-called “externalization” or “marketization”, with the dismantling of internal
labour market-type arrangements, the growth of more flexible, non-standard employment
contracts, and the greater use of contingent work (outsourcing, in sourcing, the use of temporary
labour, and fixed- and part-time employment). This has also been associated with the greater use
of more contingent pay and more flexible non pay benefits. Others have conceptualized these
developments as a trend away from “relational” and towards “transactional” employment.
Relational employment is said to be open-ended and potentially longer term, with both economic
and socio-emotional involvement between employer and employee. Transactional employment
entails a shorter term exchange, based on compensation for specific performance requirements
and with limited involvement between employer and employee. Yet again, others have
conceptualized these developments in terms of a growth of a “core and periphery” model of
employment: where a core of regular employees still exists in primary jobs and companies,
enjoying the benefits of an internal labour market arrangement, but surrounded by a periphery of
temporary and part-time workers in less good jobs or in supply firms, and more subject to the
vagaries of the external labour market.

Pay and benefit systems

Important points are as follows:

(1) There seems to be some shift in a number of countries towards contingent pay (e.g.
Output, performance or profit based pay).

(2) This is occurring more in some countries than others, e.g. more in the United
Kingdom and the United States than in continental Europe, but, even in Europe and in Japan,
there is some movement away from pay based on job grade or seniority.

(3) In part related to this, there is a widening of pay differentials both in national
economies and within firms in a country. External market forces therefore seem to be having
more of an effect on wage setting.

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 (4) There are also changes in some benefit systems, with a reduction in the value of
certain benefits or their growing marketization. For example, there has been a trend in a number
of countries away from defined-benefit and towards defined-contribution pension plans.

Other aspects of worker dignity: Sexual harassment, bullying at work, minority

rights
There is a growing recognition in many countries of the problems of sexual harassment at
work and minority rights. Data on this are confined mainly to a few developed countries. In
many developing and transition countries, there is less legal recognition of these problems. It
would be useful to have comparative work done on these matters, which might bring together
definitions of the issues, assessment of the extent of the problem, trends in legal approaches, and
surveys of enterprise policies and practices. There is also a growing awareness in some countries
of the problems of bullying at work. There is some evidence that this may be on the increase at
the moment, as competitive pressures intensify on organizations and their members and as some
traditional protections by trade unions are weakened.

Industrial relations, social dialogue and other arrangements

In the area of industrial relations and social dialogue, the tendency in many countries in
recent years has been towards a reduction of trade union membership and, though to a lesser
extent, of trade union coverage. This has been paralleled by changes in collective bargaining,
with a reduction of coverage, devolution to the workplace, and a narrowing of scope of topics
covered. Along with these changes, there has also been a move towards greater significance
being assumed by joint consultative bodies. Some of these are long-standing and powerful, as in
Germany; others are newer and less powerful, as in the United Kingdom. There has also been an
increase in forms of direct participation and involvement via communications systems,
information sharing, quality circles, and total quality management programmes. Alongside these
developments is a reduction in strike rates in many countries though there is evidence that
simultaneously there has also been an increase in complaints being taken to such bodies as
arbitration services and employment tribunals. It is not surprising that these trends, along with
growing global pressures, have meant a failure to develop effective forms of international trade
unionism, collective bargaining and social dialogue.

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 These changes have had a number of consequences.

(1) They have reduced the effectiveness of worker voice, certainly at the level of the
company and plant. As a result, workers now have less of a check on arbitrary and unfair
employer practices.

(2) In addition, these changes may have reduced the standardization and increased the
variance of terms and conditions within companies, industries and countries.

(3) At the same time, however, new mechanisms of direct participation may have
increased worker say over immediate task aspects of work.

(4) For their part, unions have reacted in various ways, but in many instances there is a
growing interest in working with management to increase employee satisfaction and well-being.
According to this view, such a “partnership” relationship is likely to provide a more effective
basis for maintaining jobs and maintaining members.

Social initiatives
Social initiatives are defined as voluntary initiatives by firms which usually affect groups
outside of the organization and which may be more or less related to core business objectives. As
such, they cover the following kinds of initiatives: outplacement services for employees made
redundant; employability and self employment programmes; training and development for
outsiders, such as employees in other firms or in the wider community; health-care programmes
with a community impact; community volunteering by employees; outside entrepreneur
development programmes. The justification for referring to these activities is that they have been
a growing phenomenon and can have important implications for individuals and groups such as
future and past employees of the firm, local communities, and workers in subcontracting firms
and businesses in supply chains.

Implications for worker attitudes and pulse taking

This section will explore the impact of different economic, technological and organizational
choices, and the influence of the more objective factors outlined above on workers’ more subjective
attitudes and well-being.

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 The outer and inner contexts of the firm are seen as affecting worker attitudes and
behaviour, though mediated through their prior attitudes, values, and the meanings which they
attach to work. These then influence workers’ views of the employment relationship and the
psychological contract. In turn, together these then shape employees’ behaviour, in areas such as
effort, dealings with supervisors and other workers, absence and intention to quit, motivation and
performance.

6.1 The meaning of work

Let us give a number of examples which focus on the meaning of work. Women
generally have less good terms and conditions than men, but in many respects they seem no less
satisfied, perhaps reflecting (at least historically) less attachment to work. Of course, this may be
changing if and as female employment opportunities improve. Also, better working conditions
do not always result in a parallel increase in job satisfaction, partly because expectations are
constantly changing. Thus, there may be more pluses and fewer minuses at work, but over time
people have come to expect more pluses and fewer minuses. This may mean that subjectively
they are no more satisfied. In another respect, there are a number of studies which suggest that
the meaning of work may be changing for a lot of workers, in particular in advanced Western
countries, and that workers are placing less emphasis on the centrality of work and the work
ethic.

There are also studies which suggest significant differences across countries in the
meaning and importance of work, with differences in terms of high versus low expectations and
preferences for work versus leisure time. Using large-scale comparative data from eight
countries, group of researchers, the Meaning of Work Research Team, has argued among other
things that the work ethic is now less strong in some Western than in Eastern countries. Thus, the
work ethic was found to be strongest in Japan and much weaker in Germany, the Netherlands
and the United Kingdom. Their research has analysed how work and employment is
characterized across different countries by one of four values: work as a burden, work as a
constraint, work as a responsibility, and work as a social contribution. Their research has tended
to suggest a number of dominant dimensions ranging from work as an individual cost to work as
a social contribution, and whether the individual is seen as owing society a duty to work to
whether people consider that society has a duty to provide work for the individual.

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 In the United States, for example, most people feel that there is a duty on the part of
individuals to contribute to society by working, and there is little belief in society’s obligation to
provide individuals with work. By contrast, in other countries, there is a greater belief in the
obligation of society to provide work for individuals as a way of maintaining human dignity.

Task discretion
The degree of task discretion and related feelings of autonomy and responsibility at work
is a subjective dimension of work organization. They are a measure of the extent to which the
worker feels he or she has some degree of control over work. More specifically, they concern the
extent to which methods and rhythm of work are set by technology, the employer, the employee
or by group norms. Operationally, task discretion may be measured by perceived influence over
the choice of tasks, over effort, over methods and over quality decisions. It will be remembered
from the above that there is some objective evidence that there may be a limited move towards
reduction of supervision, “empowerment” and self managed teams. There is also evidence along
the following lines: skills are rising in many jobs; there is some intensification of work; there is
some reduction of employee control through collective bargaining, but some increase in direct
forms of employee participation. This might suggest contradictory outcomes in terms of worker
feelings of discretion.

Stress
In recent years, there has been growing concern about stress at work, and anecdotal
evidence of this is widespread. There has also been some increasing recognition that stress may
be costly to firms and industry. It has been suggested that each year around 10 per cent of the
GNP of countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States is lost due to stress-related
poor performance, absenteeism and labour turnover.

The tendency in much of the recent academic research has come to view stress not as
some invariant characteristic or propensity on the part of an individual worker, but more in terms
of the sorts of events which cause stress, sometimes referred to as job stressors. In the literature,
stressors are defined as role demands, task demands, physical demands and interpersonal
demands. The tendency has been therefore to use more situation-specific models and to define
stress in terms of working hours, intensification of work, and problems of balancing the work-
home relationship.

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 On some more objective proxies for stress, there is also some suggestion of an increase:
turnover, higher rates of absenteeism, increased health compensation claims. Stress is generally
lower among blue-collar workers and high among groups such as teachers, general practitioner
doctors, and air traffic controllers.

On the other hand, one must be cautious. There is a tendency for people to agree that
there is a lot of stress in their jobs and to see stress as increasing. There is also a tendency to
believe that technological and organizational change has become more rapid and that this is
having a negative effect on stress levels and the ability to cope. In fact, the evidence seems to
suggest that most workers accept technological change. There is rather more resistance to and
stress caused by organizational change (downsizing, privatization, job redesign, re-allocation of
roles and responsibilities) which workers find more stressful. In turn, however, this should not
be exaggerated by individual case- studies of where this has been badly handled, with inevitable
subsequent adverse consequences. Finally, and perhaps paradoxically, it will be noted below
that feelings of stress do not seem to have affected attitudes to job satisfaction or organizational
commitment.

Job security/insecurity
Job security/insecurity is a subjective concept which is related, though in a complex
manner, to the objective likelihood of actual job tenure or loss. It will be remembered that it was
suggested that the average reported expected risk of job loss has changed little over the last two
decades, although it has risen slightly for professional workers and the costs of job loss have
risen.

Internationally comparative evidence is mixed. On the one hand, ISR surveys of 400
Companies in 17 countries employing over 8 million workers throughout Europe found the
employment security of workers declined significantly between 1985 and 1995. On the other
hand, national surveys in Japan and the United States suggest rather less increase in anxiety
about job loss.

Job satisfaction/dissatisfaction
The usefulness of the concept is suggested by the fact that (1) employees are prepared to
operate with the notion, and (2) there tends to be consistency in attitudes over time.

37
Operationally, job satisfaction is usually a self-report measure of either a single overall feeling or
set of feelings (e.g. satisfaction with job content, job conditions, job pay). These latter are then
combined in various ways

Women are more generally satisfied with their jobs than men, despite having lower status
and lower paid jobs. Part-time workers seem to be more satisfied with their jobs than full-time
workers. Lower levels of education appears to increase job satisfaction; workers in small
establishments are more satisfied than those in large; and public-sector workers have higher
levels of satisfaction than private-sector workers. There is evidence that managers and
professionals and those with more job discretion, control, and more caring type jobs have higher
levels of job satisfaction. However, as certain studies have pointed out, managerial and
professional workers can still feel stressed and suffer the emotional and physical manifestations
of work overload, role ambiguity, career blocks and the like.

Organizational commitment/alienation
Organizational commitment refers to the degree of identification with the goals and
values of the employing organization. It is different from jobs satisfaction, which is concerned
with employees’ attitudes to the specific jobs which they hold within the organization,
Organizational commitment is concerned with the worker’s view of the organization itself. In
practice, it is usually associated with job satisfaction, but can still be treated as analytically
separate. Organizational commitment is generally considered to be rather more stable than job
satisfaction and likely to be associated with high retention of staff. Operationally, there are a
number of measures, such as those developed in the United States and in Britain. These are
basically scale measures of pride in or loyalty to the organization and desire or willingness to
continue to contribute to the organization. These measures tend to be closely inter-related and
therefore suggest that scales on these lines have a reasonable validity.

The state of the “employment relationship”

Some studies of subjective aspects of worker well-being add together job security, job
satisfaction and organizational commitment to produce an indicator of the state of the
employment relationship. (Other more objective data which might be included in this are
measures such as labour turnover, absenteeism, the filing of grievances, and standards of
workmanship. In the past, some studies have also used strikes as a collective measure of the state

38
of the employment relationship.) In practice, operationally, the state of the employment
relationship is usually arrived at through a set of general questions on the relations between
management and employees.

The state of the “psychological contract”

The notion of the psychological contract has attracted considerable academic interest in
recent years. Schein defines the concept as “a set of unwritten reciprocal expectations between
an individual employee and an organization”.

Rousseau defines the concept in terms of “an individual’s interpretation of an exchange

of promises which is mutually agreed upon and voluntarily made between two or more parties”.

Guest and Conway define it as “a dynamic exchange relationship between employer and
employee, and the state of the psychological contract assesses the extent to which mutual
promises and obligations are met”.

In other words, the contract pivots on the willingness of employees and employers to
trust one another’s promises, and is a measure of whether promises have been kept in the past
and are felt likely to be kept in the future. It therefore provides an important evaluation by
workers of management policy and practice.

Operationally, less work has been done on the notion, at least in major representative
surveys. Some have used the idea as an intervening variable which is seen to shape attitudes
towards job security, job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Industrial relations, voice and attitudes

It was suggested above that, in a large number of countries, there has been a reduction in
the coverage and scope of collective bargaining, a tendency for collective bargaining to be
devolved to enterprise or workplace level, a growth in alternative consultation systems, and an
increased use of direct forms of employee involvement.

Unfortunately, good survey evidence on employee attitudes to these developments is

lacking. However, from miscellaneous sources, it is shown that employees wish to participate in
decisions affecting their working lives, though for the most part they are less interested in
participating in organizational-level strategic matters and more interested in participating in
workplace-level decisions concerning immediate tasks and working conditions. Concern about

39
voice in higher level organizational matters is more likely to be salient in exceptional situations,
such as a corporate merger or the threat of plant closure.

These studies used Tannenbaum control graphs which asked workers how much say they
had over a series of decisions (e.g. work organization, working conditions); how much say they
thought others had (e.g. their immediate supervisor, top management, their employee
representative, their trade union); how much say they would like to have; and how much say they
thought others should have. Both the levels and the gap between actual and desired were then
measured. Roughly, this could be used as a measure of worker satisfaction with their level of
voice in industrial relations terms.

On other forms of participation, it has been suggested that employee involvement in work
organization matters is valued by employees and that it can have a significant effect on
organizational citizenship behaviour. This is defined in terms of individual discretionary
behaviour which benefits the organization, but which is not necessarily rewarded by it. Such
behaviour may be as judged by the employer or individual employee. In other words, employee
involvement and participation in work organization via consultation and voice at the level of the
job is valued by workers and encourages organizational citizenship behaviour; this, in turn, has a
positive effect on individual performance.

Employee perceptions of enterprise social initiatives

There has been little polling of employee attitudes in the area of enterprise social
initiatives as defined above. It would be useful to have surveys which reflected attitudes towards
such things as family-friendly interventions; relationships with workers in supply chains, and
other out-reach programmes by firms.

Some British research shows that employer involvement in the community and socially
responsible practices towards the environment can have a positive effect on employee
commitment, in part through increased job satisfaction. There is also limited case-study and
survey evidence which suggests that employees increasingly look for employers who say and
seem to value their employees, customers, etc.; who are environmentally aware; and who
contribute to their communities. Employees take a positive attitude to various kinds of activities.

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 FINDINGS

The sample size of this primary research is 50, and out of that survey I come to a
conclusion that Birla Sunlife saves money on labour costs, in part, because it under-staffs, then
makes its employees “do the work of three people.” The objective is greater productivity, a goal
which is often attributed by business analysts, to the advanced information technology.

In industrial production, as technology improves, employers often make fewer people

work faster by requiring that they tend more machines for the same rate of pay, a “speedup.” In
part, Birla Sunlife saves money in the same way. Yet, unlike the work in factories, the operations
of HR division do not allow management to increase the number of repetitive tasks
employees are required to do. Except for blue collar jobs, marketing employees are asked to do
a variety of different tasks in a shorter amount of time. Such demands create confusion and
anger. Birla Sunlife culture is brought to bear to make it normatively acceptable to require that
all employees from store managers to sales clerks TO blue collar ones accept this regime. The
Birla Sunlife culture, then, is a method of disciplining employees to accept the demands of an
authoritative, all encompassing culture, one that admits of arbitrary authority, and generates
confusion and uncertainty. Employees, indoctrinated in the family ethos of this culture, making
low wages, often start the job with great expectations. When they experience the Birla Sunlife
modus operandi they then begin to feel angry and betrayed.

Birla Sunlife’s technology does not reduce the quality of work to its lowest possible skill
level. Nor is Birla Sunlife a place where employees do mindless jobs with a touch of the button.
Instead, the computer technology creates new pressures for employees - from top management
downward.

As a result, Birla Sunlife employees, are frequently taxed to the limit, both physically and
psychologically. The pressures they confront are the result of working conditions that can shade
off into the illegal. Indeed, the illegal practices are not a fluke, but, a direct result of the way
Birla Sunlife regularly “takes care of its people” and the culture it imposes to shape the
“desirable” behaviour.

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 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The central argument on which this report is based is that we need a new language for
conceptualising actionable knowledge that involves a discursive rehabilitation of the quality
of working life (QWL). But in contrast to earlier work on QWL, such a discourse cannot
easily be detached from business dynamics. Accordingly, sustainable organisational change
requires a convergence between QWL, however defined, and competitiveness. Considerable
evidence is presented here to refute the scepticism of certain critics who doubt that
convergence is possible.

On the domestic front, there is evidence to suggest that certain firms have sought to
forge new relationships with their workforces by adopting ‘soft’ HRM techniques such as
striving for shared values and new techniques of participation. Moreover, firms in
manufacturing and organisations elsewhere have introduced a considerable array of
innovations both at the organisational level and at a level that is more focused on the
management and control of work. In many respects, the changes have improved the quality
of working life compared with the previous regimes of repetitive tasks, low autonomy, and
physically dangerous work environments associated with Fordism. Employers have, in many
cases, also seen such moves as necessary as a means for producing to meet the demands of
changing and increasingly diversifying consumer markets and remaining competitive within
them.

An overall assessment of organisational innovations is usefully facilitated by

distinguishing between those that have been primarily motivated as means for improved
competitive advantage and those that have been primarily motivated by a search for
improving the quality of working life. In the case of the former, the main stakeholders
driving change in the private sector have been the top management of firms faced with
pressures from the financial markets for increased shareholder value, whereas in the case of
the latter the main stakeholders have been the trade unions, research community and, in some
cases, actors within the state including politicians. It should be said, however, that in the tight
labour market of the late 1980s certain top managers also briefly sought to improve the
quality of working life as a necessary means for easing labour supply bottlenecks.
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 What can we say, then, about the prospects for convergence between QWL and
competitiveness? The various studies referred to in this literature survey show that where
innovations are motivated primarily by an improvement in QWL, such improvement can lead
to improved performance and competitiveness thereby supporting the basic stance of those
advocating a ‘soft’ approach to strategic human resource management. In contrast, however,
innovations that are primarily motivated by the need to improve performance and
competitiveness through cost reductions either have no relationship or have a tendency to
impact negatively on QWL – the latter is the case with the doctrine of leanness that has been
observed as becoming prominent in the 1990s.

Despite the evidence that firms can reap considerable performance advantages
through attempts at increasing the quality of working life through greater job enlargement,
job enrichment, competence development and delegated participation, there is also
considerable evidence that some firms are actually eschewing such approaches in deference
to short-run pressure for immediate results on the ‘bottom-line’ of the profit and loss account
and rapid increases in stock market valuation.

Investments in high involvement management are not properly valued by the stock
market, leading to systematic under investment in these assets.

A somewhat different interpretation of recent events is that attempts to improve the

quality of working life have been based on conceptually flawed models. The sociotechnical
approach, for example, has been criticised by Adler and Docherty (1998) for failing to pay
attention to the creation of customer value, the external business environment or the
dynamics of the sociotechnical system. In response, these authors suggest a shift from
sociotechnical systems to what they call sociotechnical business systems that take greater
account of business purpose, context and dynamics. Such an approach puts greater emphasis
on the learning and developmental capabilities of the system in a context of ongoing
environmental change and shift the emphasis away from the closed systems assumptions that
have generally pervaded STS thinking.

It is accordingly argued here that stakeholder convergence, together with a dynamic

approach to performance measures and longer-term thinking, is a prerequisite of

43
organisational sustainability and the ‘high road’ trajectory of organisational development. It
should be pointed out, however, that an explicit policy of convergence inevitably involves a
question of values in that the interests and perspectives of different stakeholders are seen, by
all, as equally legitimate. No one set of stakeholders has a privileged claim on organisational
resources or objectives.

The case for the rehabilitation of QWL should see the concept neither as an deal in its
own right nor as a potential performance outcome of the ‘correct’ prescriptive blueprint.
Rather, QWL should be explored as a discursive tool for participative job redesign that is
sustainable when there is convergence with competitiveness. It is probably more useful to
conceptualise performance in terms of competitiveness than efficiency or cost leadership, as
the latter are rarely bases for sustainable advantage in the longer run. The nature of
contemporary business dynamics is such, however, that the focus of competitive advantage
should be on the capacity of the organisation to innovate rather than finding cost leadership
solutions. In increasingly fierce global markets there is continuous pressure to deliver faster
and better products and services at lower prices. But these are no longer seen as sufficient
means for adding value; they are mere ‘entrance factors’ to the competitive game and offer
no guarantee of winning it. Rather, sustainable organisational change needs to embrace high
road solutions that focus on liberating human creativity and facilitating innovation.

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REFERENCE

 Saiyadain M. S., Quality of Working Life, Human Resources Management.

 Sen Gupta, C. Industrial man in Indian reconsidered. Economic and Political Weekly,

 Sharma, B.R. Labour Force Commitment: Some implication for industrial relations.
Management and Labour studies.

 Skrovan, D.A. brief report from the ASTD. Quality of working life task force. Training and
Development Journal

 Takezawa Shin-Khi. The Quality of Working Life: Trends in Japan, Geneva

 Verma, N. Leadership Styles in Interpersonal Perspective.

 http://www.ilo.org

 http://www.qaiindia.com/Resources_

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 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that Mr Apoorv Sharma a student

of MAIMS has completed the project
Work on “A Study on the Quality of Work life at
Birla Sunlife” under my guidance and Supervision.

I certify that this is an original work and has not

been copied from any source.

Signature of Guide -----------------------------------

Name of Project Guide ------------------------------

Date ----------------------

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