Quality of work life and academic staff performance

Assignment Task

Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between the quality of work life (QWL) of academic staff in universities and how QWL affects their performance. Data for this study were collected using a questionnaire from 379 academic staff in public and private universities in Malaysia. This study found differences among demographic variables in QWL and work performance by using t-test and one-way ANOVA method. Partial Least Square was used to explain the relationship among dimensions of QWL and performance. The result implied that dimensions of powerlessness and tolerance at workplace affected performance in public universities, while dimensions of financial, co-worker relationship and tolerance at workplace have positive significant relationship with performance in private universities. The findings show that managers of universities must pay more attention on the significant dimensions and improve them among the academic staff in order to achieve a high level of work performance.

Introduction

Quality of work life (QWL) can be defined as the terms of employment, physical conditions and facilities at the workplace that can affect the psychological well-being of employees (Nazir, Qureshi, and Shafaat 2011), i.e. with better terms and conditions of employment and facilities at the workplace, the psychological well-being of employees would improve, and thus their job performance would improve (Herzberg 1986). QWL is indeed the manifestation of employees’ feelings of satisfaction about all dimensions of work including economic rewards, security, working conditions, organizational culture and climate, and co-worker relationship (Zahoor 2016). QWL not only focuses on the financial aspects related to work but also considers some other imperative aspects of the job such as employment conditions, performance, efficiency, organizational commitment, social support and social relevance (Farjad and Varnous 2013). Therefore, improving workers’ QWL in an organization would contribute significantly to employee satisfaction. Similarly, sociologists have discussed the importance of QWL in determining employees’ satisfaction in their work (Dolan et al. 2008; Rose et al. 2006). Hence, QWL not only contributes to greater job satisfaction but also support improvement in productivity, capability and overall effectiveness of an organization. The wellbeing of the employees and a high level of QWL among them are paramount for the growth and development of an organization (Reena and Jayan 2012). In addition to this, a high level of QWL will help an organization retain and attract employees (Sushil 2013). Therefore, QWL not only improves working conditions of employees but also helps the organization to generate a high level of productivity

Discussion

The result of this study showed the influences of QWL dimensions on work performance of academic staff in public and private universities. It showed that the dimensions of powerlessness and tolerance at workplace affected academic staff performance in public universities, and the financial dimension, co-worker relationship, and tolerance at workplace has positive significant relationship with academic staff performance in private universities. The powerlessness dimension negatively affected the performance in public universities and did not affect the performance in private universities. This means that a high level of powerlessness among academic staff leads to a low level of work performance in public universities. The finding of this study is in line with the previous study that found a significant negative relationship between powerlessness among the faculty members and performance in a university (Al-Zou’Bi 2012). He explained that faculty members in public universities felt more alienated compared to private universities. Similarly in this study, it can be argued that academic staff in public universities felt powerless and their work performance was affected by this dissatisfaction dimension of QWL. This is mainly because work alienation is a common issue among the employees in public organization (Pandey and Kingsley 2000) due to the size of public organizations and the level of bureaucracy in these organizations (Dehart and Pandey 2005).

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