Quality of Working Life

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Interest in the Quality of working life is spreading rapidly and the phrase has entered the popular vocabulary. That this should be so is probably due in large measure to changes in the values of society, nowadays accelerated as never before by the concerns and demands of younger people. But however topical the concept has become, there is very little agreement on its definition. Rather, the term appears to have become a kind of depository for a variety of sometimes contradictory meanings attributed to it by different groups. A list of all the elements it if held to cover would include availability and security of employment, adaquate income, safe and pleasant physical working conditions, reasonable hours of work, equitable treatment and democracy in the workplace, the possibility of self-development, control over one's work, a sense of pride in craftsmanship or product, wider career choices, and flexibility in matters such as the time of starting work, the number of working days in the week, Job sharing and so on altogether an array that encompasses a variety of traditional aspirations and many new ones reflecting the entry into the post industrial era. The term "quality of working life" was introduced by professor Louis E. Davis and his colleagues in the late 1960s to call attention to the prevailing and needlessly poor quality of life at the workplace. In their usage it referred to the quality of the relationship between the worker and his working environment as a whole, and was intended to emphasize the human dimension so often forgotten among the technical and economic factors in job design. Treating workers as if they were elements or cogs in the production process is not only an affront to the dignity of human life, but is also a serious underestimation of the human capabilities needed to operate more advanced technologies. When tasks demand high levels of vigilence, technical problem-solving skills, self initiated behavior, and social and communication skills. it is imperative that our concepts of man be of requisite complexity. Our aim is not just to protect the worker's life and health but to give them an informal interest in their job and opportunity to express their views and exercise control over everything that affects their working life. Certainly, so far as his work is concerned, a man must feel better protected but he must also have a greater feeling of freedom and responsibility. Something parallel but wholly different if happening in Europe, industrial democracy. What has happened in Europe has been discrete, fixed, finalized, and legalized. Those developing centuries driving toward industrialization like R.O.K, shall have to bear in mind the human complexity in processing and designing the work and its environment. Increasing attention is needed to the contradiction between autocratic rule at the workplace and democratic rights in society.n society.