Perceived Quality of Work Life (QWL) and Job Involvement among Employees of Selected Divisions of GSRTC

Abstract

It is noteworthy that how employees perceive their working life and how much they are involved in work/job have always remained a major concern for any organization. Several studies have explored Quality of Work Life (QWL) and Job Involvement (JI) separately, but mostly in foreign context and it basically covers executive and managerial level employees only. It is found that studies highlighting the opinions of lower level employees are very rare. Further, it is established that very few studies have focused on QWL among the employees of Transportation Industry, and studies focusing on the relationship between QWL and JI are very rare. Specifically, none of them has been in any of the State Transport Undertakings (STUs) of Passenger Road Transportation System (PRTS) of India. Identifying this research gap, this doctoral research study analyzes the QWL and JI concerns of operative level employees (the Drivers, Conductors and the Mechanic staff) in one of the mostly privileged largest STUs of India - Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation (GSRTC). The Drivers, Conductors and the Mechanic staff are the real faces of STUs, as the passengers need to spend active journey time relying on their obligation only. Here, the Drivers and Conductors are the ones who directly come into contact with the passengers on daily basis and hence their behavior, attitude, courtesy, politeness, regularity and such other soft aspects become very important. Even the Mechanic Staff, who never come in face-to-face contact with the passengers, but they are the people who enable the duo of driver and conductor to serve the public better by ensuring timely maintenance, up-keeping of the buses, etc. needs to be recognized. So, this single largest cohort of STU needs to be motivated, dedicated, and involved in their jobs and thereby committed to STUs noble objective of providing safe, convenient and economical road transport services. But, the motivation, commitment, dedication and involvement depend on the Quality of Work Life (QWL) experienced by them at workplace. In this Research Study, adopting Cross-sectional Descriptive Research Design and comprimary data was collected from 400 Drivers, Conductors, Driver-cum-Conductors and Mechanics of GSRTC and has been analyzed through cross-tabulation, chi-square test, one sample t-test and measures of correlation. Contradicting the jaundiced popular misconception about non-managerial/operative level employees in India, this study highlights the welcome change in need priorities of operative level employees with greater importance being placed on higher order needs satisfaction. It is found that job-content related essential factors have emerged as the most important QWL components in contrast to the job-context related extrinsic factors. However, the study reveals that overall QWL and JI in GSRTC is just near to average and above average level respectively; requiring thorough attention and efforts.

Keywords: Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation (GSRTC), Job Involvement, Passenger Road Transportation System (PRTS), State Transport Undertaking (STU), Quality of Work Life (QWL)

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