QUALITY OF WORK LIFE AS A PREDICTOR OF TRUST AND SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING OF EMPLOYEES

Abstract

Organizations have delved into initiating intervening strategies for providing primed quality of work life (QWL) with a view to sustain potential employees for heightened productivity, efficiency, effectiveness and performance. The elements that are relevant to an individual’s quality of work life include the task, the physical work environment, administrative system and the social environment within the organization and the life on the job and off the job. Organizations are responsible for their employees’ performances and employees are concerned with their own interests and benefits. Linkages between employees’ interest and organizational objectives are yet to be established. The most important aspect which binds an employee to the organization is the level of trust and the well-being of employees at the workplace. But currently, in organizational behavior, very few researches have been taken in pursuit of delineating the interpersonal relationship and well-being of employees. This perspective has been neglected by the management and practitioners that low level of trust and low well-being when spilled over at the other domains of life lead to distrust and life dissatisfaction and makes an employee less competent to face the existential challenges of life. The purpose of this research is to study the relationship of quality of work life (support from manager/supervisor, freedom from work related stress, job satisfaction, challenge, use of skills and autonomy, salary and additional benefits, relationship with work colleagues, involvement and responsibility at work, and communication, decision-making and job security) with trust (Affect based trust, and Cognition based trust) and subjective well-being (life satisfaction, positive affect and negative affect). The present study has carved the niche which focused on experiencing quality of work life which would be responsible for garnering the level of trust along with subjective well-being and also examined the mediating effect of trust on the relationship of quality of work life and subjective well-being. The study has been conducted on a sample of 350 IT employees, including programmer, programmer/analyst, project leader, senior business analyst, and senior programmer analyst. The participants were chosen as purposive convenient sampling. Prior to analysis, a pilot study was conducted to test the survey’s content and found no issues related to the survey. The data were analyzed with the Pearson’s r and Stepwise Multiple Regression Analysis to examine the effect of quality of work life on trust and ii subjective well-being of employees. In addition, to examine the factor structure of the measures taken up in the study, scales were subjected to Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with Kaiser’s Varimax Rotation. Furthermore, bootstrapping approach using SEM was employed to study QWL and SWB as independent and dependent variable respectively whereas trust was taken as mediating variable. To sum up, the analyses have been conducted using SPSS®17 version and AMOS®20 version for Pearson’s Correlation, Stepwise Regression Analysis, Factor Analysis and Mediation Effect. The results have indicated a positive and significant relationship of quality of work life with trust and subjective well-being of employees. The findings have supported the nascent viewpoint that up to what extent these positive QWL at the workplace influence trust and well-being of employees. The results also explained that the causal path of QWL to SWB is partially mediated by the trust. It could be said that positive experiences with quality of work life when spilled at other aspects of life will definitely lead to attitudinal and behavioral organizational outcomes, where an individual can thrive to become productive and being open to the challenges at work and non-work domains of life and prove to be a nutriment for positive thinking and experience integrity at personal and professional fronts of life. As optimum quality of work life leads to satisfaction of variety of needs through resources, activities, and outcomes stemming from participation in the workplace, which leads to positive work experiences and must be considered as an important contributing factor not only to job satisfaction, but also to satisfaction with other domains of life (Sirgy, et. al, 2001). Within this conceptual framework, positive relationship is the end criterion which suggests that one’s handling of interpersonal situations and relationships has great importance for one’s self-realization (Ryff & Singer, 2000) and promoting trust and subjective well-being within the IT employees. The study provides valuable implications for the management practitioners, researchers and management body to better understand the psychological needs and workplace expectations of employees because positive experiences at the workplace have a spillover effect on personal domains of an individual, and make them fully functional, flourishing and lead to faith, cooperation, satisfaction, trust, and well-being of employees. Keywords: Quality of Work life, Trust, Subjective Well-being, Managers.