Assessing the quality of work life of primary school teachers in Isfahan city Dr.Mohammad kazem Emadzadeh Associate Professor, Department of Management, Isfahan University, Iran Mahnaz Khorasani MS student in the field of Business Management Finance, Isfahan University, Iran Fateme Nematizadeh MS student in the field of Business Management Finance, Isfahan University, Iran Abstract The purpose of this study is assessing the quality of work life and its components in the primary school teachers of the Isfahan city. The method of this study is descriptivesurvey and the statistical population was composed of 862 teachers in Isfahan city and 120 samples were selected based on statistical estimates and simple random sampling. The data collection instrument is a questionnaire and the reliability coefficient of questionnaire based on Cronbach's alpha coefficient was calculated 87% which is significant at alpha 1%. In this study, the quality of work life and its components has been studied based on the demographic variables of gender, marital status, education level and work experience of teachers. For data analysis techniques, descriptive statistics (mean, percentage, frequency, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (One sample t test, independent- samples t test, Levin test and ANOVA) is used and SPSS software was used for this purpose. Keywords: Quality Of Work Life, Teachers, Education 1. Introduction: Human resources are the main factor of competitive advantage, success and survival of the organization. Conducting human resource required to attention to their psychological and physical needs (1).Studies show that employees' psychological needs are met through the use of quality of work life techniques (2). Quality of work life is the employees' mental perception from the physical and psychological desirability in the work place(3). Quality of work life is related to the welfare of employees at work and it is quite different from the subject of job satisfaction (4). Domain of quality of work life does not only affect the employees' job satisfaction but it is also influence the lives outside work of employees such as family, leisure and social needs. When the needs of employees at work does not meet, likely they experience a lot of work stress that will have adverse consequences on the welfare of employees and job performance (5) Stress is a common problem among teachers that may have serious consequences for them (6).Education is one of the organization that its success depends on the use of committed employees. Teachers are the most important and effective forces of education and attention to their work environment are one of the tasks of education (7). If there is adverse conditions on the learning environment, may be create a lot of problems Effects of it due to academic failure, low motivation for students to progress and even lead to psychosomatic disorders (8).Therefore check the status of the teachers' 438
quality of work life appears to be essential. The results of other research indicate that quality of work life has a direct correlation with satisfaction and organizational commitment of employees Lewis (1998) suggests that the quality of work life is correlated with commitment and performance of employee correlated. Huang et al suggest that feelings and perceptions of employees from quality of work life has a considerable effect on organizational commitment (9) the following section includes a review of the relevant literature follows, leading to the study's questions. 2. Literature review: Researchers have different opinions about the quality of work life, for some the concept of the quality of work life refers to industrial democracy, employee in company decisions and achieve the goals of human relations movement in two decades ago for others the quality of work life is meant to improve productivity By humans and not through capital or production inputs. Labor unions define the quality of work life as a healthy working conditions and equitable division of revenue However some labor unions are suspected to attempt of managers to improve the quality of work life in fact They argue that managers seeking to improve the quality of work life for workers to increase their productivity without pay more to them (10). Each of the management theorists describes the quality of work in a manner. Casio (11) defined the quality of work life in two aspects: mentally and objective. In objective definition quality of work life is equivalent the set of actual and objective Circumstances and procedures that Including promotion policies, participatory supervision, involving employees in decision making and working safe conditions.in mental definition the quality of work life is the perception of employees' physical health (physical) and psychological (mental) health in their work place.in this concept the quality of work life means mental imagine and perception of employees from the physical and psychosocial desirability in the work place.casio(12) examined the domination of quality of work life from eight aspect.these eight aspect are the amount of :communication, employee involvement, desire and motivation to work, job security, career progress, solving problems, salary, pride of a job. Walton divided the main components of quality of work life into four parts; He believed that the factors affecting the quality of work life are: meaningful job, challenging work, Security and development of skills, continuous learning on the job; social and organizational fit of work.he has introduced these four dimensions with more detail: fair and adequate wages,, safe and healthy working conditions, opportunities for the development of human capabilities,opportunities for continuous growth and security, importance of work in the community, ; social fit of work and lawgoverned work(13). Schermernrhorn & John (14) believes that to improve the quality of work life in the following factors must exist in the organization, fair and adequate pay, health and safety of working conditions,creating opportunities to learn, growth in the professionalism path, professional integrity in the organization, support of individual rights and proud of the job. Porras & Silver (15) believes that the quality of work life is one of organizational interventions that has a great impact on the changes planned.they argue that the subsets of organizational development are organizational arrangements, quality circles, share of income, Schedule of works, organizational structure, Social factors, theories of personality, technical systems social. Stone (16) believed that programs of the quality of work life are seek to the integration needs of employees and appropriateness the needs of employees with the demands of organization for higher productivity. Sirgy and et al (17 )believes that the quality of work life, is related to 439
satisfy the needs employees and they suggested that quality of work life of employees should be reviewed in terms of employee needs and they specified seven categories of need. 1 - Health and safety needs (protection against disease and injury within and outside the workplace) 2 - The needs of family economy (wages, job security and etc) 3 - The need for social (cooperative work between colleagues, and having free time in the workplaces)4-social needs(having the cooperative work between colleagues and spare time at work place 5- The need for self-esteem (recognition and appreciation of the work inside and outside the organization) 6 - The need for training (training to improve job skills 7-The aesthetic needs (creativity workplace and personal creativity and general aesthetics. Quality of work life has advantages for employees and employers. Studies results show that there is significant correlation between the quality of work life and business performance in terms of shareholder wealth, business sustainability and the differences in competitiveness capability in terms of quality of service, knowledge and flexibility of employees (18). Quality of work life Lead to create motivation, loyalty and flexibility in the workforce. All these factors are crucial for competitiveness of organizations also quality of work life lead to reduces absenteeism and turnover rates of employees and increase their job satisfaction(10). Trust staff into existence of quality of work life plans gives them a sense of security and satisfaction and therefore it will be cause of the progress of employees. Employees believe that the quality of work life lead to their job satisfaction through meaningful jobs,job security,provisions for the payment of salaries and benefits, Staff development, social interactions, having freedom of speech and thus help them to increase productivity and organizational effectiveness and all these factors will increase the dignity of employees(19). Methodology: In this study the instrument of data collection was a questionnaire with 36 closed questions with A five-point Likert-type scale ranging from strongly disagree (value of 1) to strongly agree (value of 5) was used to measure quality of work life. Questions have inspired by the questionnaire of Casio (12) and the designing of questions based on the dimensions of quality of work life from his perspective. This questionnaire is considering eight components of quality of work life which include the amount of communication, employee, desire and motivation to work, the job security, career progress, solving problems, salary, and job pride. To calculate the reliability coefficient was used Cronbach's alpha coefficient that with select a random sample of 30 teachers the total reliability coefficient of questionnaire was estimated 0.87 that is significant in alpha level of 1%. In this study to determine the validity of the measuring instrument is used content validity and the validity of the questionnaire has been confirmed by several university professors and experts in the field of human resource management. The study population consisted of all primary school teachers in the area five of education in the city of Isfahan. In this study the method of sampling is simple random and after the preliminary study and determination the variance of population (1.54)sample size was calculated 120 people based on statistical estimates.for analysis of the data has been used descriptive (average, percentage, frequency, standard deviation) and inferential statistical (One sample t test, independent- samples t test, Levin test,) techniques. 440
Research questions 1-How is the current status of the quality of work life and each of the eight components of QWL among all primary school teachers in the fifth area of education is the city of Isfahan? 2 Is there any difference between men and women teachers' comments on the eight indicators of the quality of work life? 3- Is there the difference between single and married teachers' comments on the eight indicators of the quality of working life? 4- Is there any difference between views of teachers with high and low education levels of the eight indicators of quality of working life? 5- Is there any difference between the views of teachers with different experience levels of the eight indicators of quality of working life? Findings Table 1 shows the numbers of sample members in different groups.the study sample is consist of 120 primary school teachers in the area five of education is the city of Isfahan that they are 8 / 66% female and 2 / 34% male, 2 / 9% single 8 / 90% married. More than 20 years 79 Work Experience 10 to 20 years 27 Table 1 - Descriptive statistics of demographic characteristics of sample members Less than 10 years 14 Education BA & higher 76 Under BA 44 Martial Status Married 109 Single 11 Woman 79 Gender Man 41 Variable Frequency 65.8 22.5 11.7 63.3 36.7 90.8 9.2 66.8 34.2 Percentage Survey questions addressed in this section are: The first question - what is the current state of quality of work life and quality of work life of each of the eight components of Casio Primary school teachers in the fifth area of Isfahan city? As shown in Table (2) is observed, the average quality of work life of teachers is 57.2 and only 3.25 percent of teachers had the satisfaction of the quality of work life. Among the component elements of desire and motivation to work with the quality of work life in 45 / 3 have the highest average And 8.62 percent of teachers that have a high 441
satisfaction index. The lowest average salary, with an average rate of about 88.1 so that it is only 10.4 percent of the teachers have high satisfaction index. Table 2 - Descriptive statistics related to the quality of working life and each of its components Variable Number Average Standard deviation Percentage of teachers with high satisfaction Quality of work life 120 2.57 0.66 25.3 employee 120 2.19 0.78 15.8 career 120 progress 2.25 0.79 16.7 solving 120 problems 2.17 0.85 16.1 120 communication 2.82 0.82 39.3 desire and 120 motivation to work 3.45 0.77 62.8 job 120 security 2.88 0.61 41.9 salary 120 1.88 0.75 10.4 job pride 120 3.04 0.83 49.5 To answer the first question one was used One sample t test. The test results in Table 3 is shown, These results suggest that the rate observed at t 5% error level, quality of working life And the component contributions, career development, problem solving, communication between teachers is less than average (t<0 and p=0.000). The results indicate that the desire and motivation of teachers to work more than the average level (t>0 and p=0.000) and Indicators of job security and job pride among teachers is a moderate (p>0.05)..table (3) - single variable t-test analysis to compare the average error level of 5% Variable Sig-t Degree of freedom t Quality of work life 0.000-6.08 employee 0.000-11.27 career -10.02 0.000 progress -10.58 0.000 solving problems -2.28 0.024 communication desire 6.32 and motivation to 0.000 work 442
job -1.89 0.061 security salary 0.000-15.80 job 0.594 0.553 pride Table (3) - single variable t-test analysis to compare the average error level of 5% The second question is there any difference between men and women teachers' comments on the eight indicators of the quality of working life? To answer this question from two independent tests with Levine and t-test is used. Levine first test the correlation of variance between the two groups of male and female teachers on the quality of working life and its eight components and T test with significance level commensurate with the Levine test were studied. Table 4 shows the results of this test. These results suggest that the rate observed at 5% error rate, there is no difference on the quality of working life and Components of, career advancement, desire and motivation to work, job security, salary and job pride and Satisfaction of female teachers and male teachers is also higher (t>0 and p<0.05). so that 3.33% of female teachers and one tenth percent of male teachers have high levels of satisfaction with the quality of their working life And there is no difference between male and female teachers ideas about how to resolve problems and realize (p>0.05). Table 4 - Results of independent t-test analysis with both male and female teachers compared to 5% error level variable Degrees of Sig-t Sig- Levine freedom t Quality of work 0.007 0.073 life 2.764 0.000 0.000 employee 4.132 0.012 0.191 career progress 2.556 0.053 0.038 solving problems 1.965 communication desire and motivation to work job security salary job pride 0.623 0.759 0.002 0.817 0.018 0.824 0.000 0.000 0.015 0.466 4.91 3.323 2.408 3.815 3.124 443
l The third question - Is there the difference between single and married teachers' comments on the eight indicators of the quality of working life? To answer the third question of the Levine test and t- test was used with two independent groups. Levine first test between single and married teachers variance between the two groups of eight components of quality of working life and Two independent groups t test with significance level commensurate with the Levine test were studied.the test results in Table 5 are shown; These results indicate that there is no difference between single and married teachers' comments in error rate of 5% on the quality of working life and The eight components. (P>0.05) Table (5) results by t-test for independent groups compared with the single and married teachers variable Degrees of Sig-t Sig- Levine t freedom Quality of work life 0.49 0.01 0.71 employee 0.17 0.01 1.48 career 0.33 013 0.97 progress solving 0.000 0.000 1.00 problems communication 0.13 0.21 1.51 desire and motivation to work 0.69 0.79 0.39 job 0.17 0.54 security salary 0.16 0.02 1.37 1.52 job pride 0.70 0.24-0.38 The fourth question - Is there any difference between views of teachers with high and low education levels of the eight indicators of quality of working life? To address the answer of question Levine test and t test was used with two independent groups. Levine first test the correlation of variance between the two groups of teachers with a bachelor's degree and Teachers with bachelor's degree or higher on eight indicators of quality of working life and its components Two independent groups t test with significance level commensurate with the Levine test were studied. The test results in Table 6 is shown, the results suggest that there is no difference in the opinions of 444
teachers with less education and teachers with bachelor's and master's degree The higher the level of the quality of working life And all its components except the amount of communication (p>0.05). component of the communication between teachers with undergraduate education than the teachers have a bachelor's degree is lower. (t<0 and p<0.05) Table (6) by t-test results compared with two independent groups of teachers with bachelor's and master's degree or higher variable Quality of work life employee career progress solving problems Sig-t Sig- Levine Degrees of freedom 0.545 0.175-0.6 0.067 0.000-1.85 0.642 0.730 0.74 0.092 0.001-1.70 t communication desire and motivation to work job security salary job pride 0.009 0.394-2.64 0.735 0.787 0.33 0.882 0.209 0.15 0.073 0.000-1.81 0.422 0.291 0.81 The fifth question -Is there any difference between the views of teachers with different experience levels of the eight indicators of quality of working life? Comparison of different ideas for teachers with experience of analysis of variance test and one-variable LSD post hoc test was used. ANOVA test results indicate that there is no difference between the average salary component And professional pride among teachers of different backgrounds average quality of working life and career development, and the average amount of other components, problems, Communication, desire and motivation to work and job security is a difference between teachers with various work experience. LSD post hoc test results indicated that the average quality of working life and components average rate of career development, problem solving, communication, desire and motivation to work and job security More than 10 years experience working with teachers in the teachers with more experience. Table 11 - ANOVA test results for single variable compared teachers with different experience 445
Variable f df in groups df among groups sig Quality of work life 9.41 2 117 0.000 23.57 employee 2 117 0.000 6.82 career progress 2 117 0.000 solving problems 22.87 2 117 0.000 communication 6.02 2 117 0.003 desire and motivation to work 0.000 2 117 0.000 job security 3.15 salary 2.17 job pride 0.74 2 117 0.040 2 117 0.190 2 117 0.040 Conclusion: The purpose of this study was analyzing the quality of work life and its components in the five elementary school teachers. the results show that the quality of work life of teachers is less than average. (t>0, p=0.000) and they do not enjoy the good quality of work life. However, the desire and motivation to the teachers was high. (t>0, p=0.000) component of the salary of the teachers had the greatest dissatisfaction So that the results of the study sample, none of the teachers were not satisfied with the status of payroll And percent of teachers were satisfied with the top of the salary rate of zero percent was achieved and the need for greater attention from authorities; Because there is payroll and benefits and amenities of one of the factors causing stress and decreased job satisfaction and retention of teachers. The results indicate that female teachers have the higher quality of life than male teachers. (t>0, p<0.000) results also suggest that there is no difference between single and married teachers comments on the quality of work life. (t>0, p>0.000) results also show that there is no difference between the views of teachers with less than a bachelor's degree and bachelor's degree or higher in about the quality of work life and its components. ANOVA test results indicate that single variable and LSD post hoc test of the perceived quality of work life Teachers with less than 10 years experience of teachers with more experience; Also confirms the results of descriptive statistics is the same as 80.1 percent of teachers with less than 10 years, 21.2 Percent of teachers have between 20-10 years and 17.2% of teachers have a history of more than 20 years were satisfied of their quality of work life. Due to the influence of teachers to motivate students and provide them to progress attention to the quality of teachers' work and create favorable conditions for them is essential and this issue needs to be considered by authorities. 446
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