Quality of Working Life (QWL)

An alternative prescription for school administration and manage- ment. QUALITY OF WORKING LIFE (QWL) Some Potential Applications to Education E. L. KOCH University of Calgary Over the past decade a humanistic and participative approach to work life has evolved which has aroused considerable interest throughout the industrial world. At first glance it bears a resemblance to such previous humanistic endeavors as human relations, human resource development, and organiza- tion development. However, the new approach, termed "quali- ty of working life" (or QWL), does have some unique features which differentiate it from past approaches. These will be delineated subsequently, but certain prior considerations need to be dealt with. It would be appropriate to make some comments on the relationship between education and the business-industrial system. The fact that for most of this century education has borrowed models, values, and concepts from the world of business would not be very difficult to establish (and education is not the only social institution to which this statement would apply). The concepts of efficiency, economy, accountability, competency, and productivity have wide currency in educa- URBAN EDUCATION, Vol. 17 No. 2, July 1982 181-197 1982 Sage Publications, Inc. 181 182 URBAN EDUCATION./ JULY 1982 tion. Raymond Callahan, in his classic work, Education and the Cult of Efficiency (1962), has delineated the history of the impact of business values on the emerging profession of school administration in the first third of the twentieth century. Edu- cators have subsequently been exposed to the human relations movement (Wiles, 1950; Bartky, 1953), accountability (Les- singer, 1970), human resource development (Sergiovanni and Carver, 1973), organization development (Schmuck and Miles, 1976), and MBO (Hostrop, 1973). There is no sinister or negative implication intended in the previous statement. Busi- ness is the paramount social institution of North American culture at this time, as the Catholic Church was the paramount institution of the Middle Ages. Some adaptations and borrow- ings from business have been helpful and useful for education and others have been inappropriate and perhaps harmful. Europeans and North Americans have tended to approach the humanization of work at different starting points and from different perspectives. The European movement has been grounded in left-wing political philosophy and ideology- notably early socialism, Marxism, anarchism, syndicalism, and social democracy. This movement commenced around the turn of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century and has tended to emphasize problems of worker alienation, worker control or power sharing, and structural change. Recent indicators of this movement (Geiger, 1979; Mills, 1978; Jenkins, 1974) would be the industrial democracy project in Norway; co-determination in West Germany, worker-man- aged enterprises in Yugoslavia, and efforts at applying kib- butz-type organizational forms to industrial settings in Israel. The North American approach is of more recent vintage. Among the first conspicuous efforts was the human relations movement stemming from the Hawthorne experiments (Ro- ethlisberger and Dickson, 1950) of the late 1920s and early 1930s, as well as the writings of Elton Mayo (1960). Since that time a number of related trends have emerged, including human resource development or HRD (Nadler, 1970), job enrichment (Herzberg, 1966), motivation (Maslow, 1954), Koch /QUALITY OF WORKING LIFE 183 system four (Likert, 1961), theory Y (McGregor, 1960), and organization development, or OD (Beckhard, 1969). North American approaches have tended to emphasize worker psychology, motivation, team building, and job enrichment. Superstructure, profit, and private ownership have remained largely neglected (although recent arrangements between Chrysler and the UAW have some superficial similarities to West German codetermination). It is important to keep in mind the cultural and historical differences between European and North American societies. Just as borrowings between social institutions with differing functions should be done with some selectivity and thought, consideration should be given to the matter of intercultural borrowing. The major bridge between European and North American approaches seems to be the British-originated sociotechnical systems approach (STS). The early founders of STS were British social scientists largely associated with the Tavistock Institute (though subsequently continental and North American scholars adopted the approach). Notably the work of Eric Trist (1978), Fred and Merrelyn Emery (1974), Tom Burns and G.M. Stalker (1961), Joan Woodward (1965), Einar Thorsrud (1975), and Hans van Beinum (1975) might be cited. A number of these scholars have either migrated to or taught in Australia, Canada, and the United States, conse- quently diffusing STS theory. STS has provided the major conceptual framework for QWL. WHAT IS QWL? In the broadest sense, QWL is a joint management- employee effort to deal with the intrinsic and extrinsic aspects of work. Robert Guest (1979: 76) has suggested the following general definition: "Quality of work life" is a generic phrase that covers a person's feelings about every dimension of work including economic 184 URBAN EDUCATION / JULY 1982 rewards and benefits, security, working conditions, organiza- tional and interpersonal relationships, and its intrinsic meaning in a person's life. Somewhat more precisely, Guest (1979: 76-77) elaborates further: I will define QWL more specifically as a process by which an organization attempts to unlock the creative potential of its people by involving them in decisions affecting their work lives. A distinguishing characteristic of the process is that its goals are not simply extrinsic, focusing on the improvement of produc- tivity and efficiency per se; they are also intrinsic, regarding what the worker sees as self-fulfilling and self-enhancing ends in themselves. Another writer, Nadler (1978), emphasizes the structural aspects of QWL. Nadler takes a typology of conflict resolution from the labor-management context developed by Walton and McKersie (1965). The latter identified two bargaining patterns distributive bargaining, the rather common zero-sum, win/ lose, adversarial system of labor negotiation, and integrative bargaining, in which both parties seek to cooperate in projects and problem solving. Nadler seems to view QWL as a form of integrative bargaining. He describes a model in which both union and management contribute members to a Quality of Work Labor-Management Committee; the committee in turn employs an external consultant and external researchers, multilevel work unit committees (department, plant, total enterprise), and an ad hoc project committee which reports to the senior QW Labor-Management Committee. Finally, Nad- ler identifies three prerequisites for integrative bargaining: motivation information and trust. Two other commentators, Lippitt and Rumley (1977: 38), suggest the following definition: "Quality of Working Life" is a broad concept. It refers to the degree to which work provides an opportunity for an individual Koch / QUALITY OF WORKING LIFE 185 to satisfy a wide variety of personal needs-from the need to survive with some security to the need to interact with others, to have a sense of personal usefulness, to be recognized for achievement and to have an opportunity to improve one's skills and knowledge. To the above Lippett and Rumley (1977: 38) add other work characteristics, including * organizational environment (pay, benefits, opportunity for career growth) * physical environment (functional, comfortable, safe) * the job itself * social relations Trist (1977) details intrinsic and extrinsic features of work. Among the extrinsic items he cites fair pay, job security, benefits, safety, health, and due process; among the intrinsic factors mentioned are variety and challenge, continuous learning, discretion, autonomy, recognition, support, mean- ingful social contribution, and a desirable future (i.e., not necessarily promotion but a vertical career leading to greater skill development-"hope as a human right"). Pulling together these various definitions, what can be said? * QWL is a broad, comprehensive general concept. * It is a philosophy with a humanistic value framework. * It is concerned with traditional items of labor negotiation (i.e., pay, benefits, safety, production, efficiency). * It substitutes self-actualizing or complex man models for the narrow economic man model. * It is concerned with changing the organization's culture. * It is concerned with intrinsic meaning, growth, and autonomy. * It is concerned with social support. 186 URBAN EDUCATION / JULY 1982 * It is a process stressing increasing participation and develop- ment. * It is concerned with social contributions and responsibility. * It is usually a long-term effort. * An essential element of QWL is the ability of individuals or groups to be able to influence their work environments. A BRIEF EXAMINATION OF THE QWL PROCESS Robert H. Guest (1979) did a study of the introduction of QWL at General Motor's Tarrytown plant, which may become to QWL what Hawthorne was to the human relations move- ment. Details of the study will not be discussed, but a few highlights and facts will be mentioned. Tarrytown was perhaps the worst plant in the General Motors system in terms of productivity and labor relations. A state of continuous warfare seemed to be going on between the union and management. Management approached the union (an important point to keep in mind-generally, management initiates discussion on QWL). Both sides perceived the situation as so bad that they figured "what the hell, we have nothing to lose" (Guest, 1979: 79). The situation seems somewhat analogous to the alcoholic who has to hit bottom before he decides to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. Management showed its good faith by asking for and using worker suggestions in redesigning part of the production process. The union leadership began to redefine their purposes as being more than "bread and butter issues" (i.e., wages, hours, job security); they began to see their task as helping workers to participate in decisions affecting their work; to be consulted; and to be concerned with broader improvement in the quality of work life. Consultants were brought in to train workers and super- visors in problem-solving and communication skills. Though skeptical at firstt all parties came to appreciate the utility of an Koch / QUALITY OF WORKING LIFE 187 external third party. The sessions dealt with both interpersonal and technical problems. Tarrytown progressed from one of the worst plants to one of the best. Absenteeism and grievances were considerably re- duced. Guest (1979: 85) quotes the production manager as saying: From a strictly production point of view-efficiency and costs-this entire experience has been absolutely positive, and we can't begin to measure the savings that have taken place because of the hundreds of small problems that were solved on the shop floor before they accumulated into big problems. Union spokesmen were similarly positive and seemed con- vinced that participation was genuine. QWL also seemed help- ful in ameliorating crisis situations such as the OPEC price rise, overtime, and layoffs. Guest (1979: 86) suggested a num- ber of prerequisites to the success of QWL including (para- phrased): * competent management * a strong union backed by its membership * management initiation * not used to circumvent prevailing agreements * commitment by management and labor * orient and involve middle management and supervision (the level feeling most threatened by QWL projects) * success should not result in work force reductions or speed up * program should be voluntary * limited, flexible, exploratory approach rather than master plan * immediate response and talking out of problems * opportunities for application of skills taught * QWL should be continuous 188 URBAN EDUCATION / JULY 1982 WHY HAS QWL EMERGED AT THIS TIME? In an article appearing in the Harvard Business Review, T. Mills (1975) suggested four hypotheses for the emergence or popularity of humanistic approaches to work organization: (1) alienation, boredom, and job dissatisfaction (2) decreasing motivation and increasing counterproductive be- havior (3) rising expectations and declining institutions (4) dying mechanisms and changing ideas All of the points have to do with change change in values and attitudes, demographic changes in age and sex distribu- tion, and organizational and institutional inability to adapt to changing conditions. Relevant to these changes is the work of Daniel Yankelovich (1981) and the hypothesis of the "new worker"-younger, better educated, less attracted to the traditional work ethic, with expectations of meaningful work and social responsibility by corporations. Simplified and boring jobs seem to lead to alienation and counterproductive behavior (absenteeism, tardiness, high turnover, sabotage, alcohol and drug abuse on the job, poor workmanship, etc.). Traditional authoritative institutions (i.e., marriage, the law, churches, schools, families, and government) seem to have lost much of their power to control social behavior; some social scientists are writing about what is termed a "legitimation crisis". Mills's final point deals with the adaptability and flexibility of bureaucratic organizations. Another sign of the times is a recent work by David Ewing of the Harvard Business School entitled, Freedom Inside the Organization: Bringing Civil Liberties to the Work Place (1977). This text develops the notion that the newest rights battleground is the work place and criticizes what is termed the "outmoded law of employer chauvinism" (Ewing, 1977: 29). Ewing points out elsewhere in the work that the notion of economic man has perhaps done more to stimulate unrest and Koch / QUALITY OF WORKING LIFE 189 opposition to management than either communism or soci- alism. He concludes that struggles for rights having been won in the legal, political, and social arenas; the time is ripe for bringing rights into the work place. He suggests rights of free speech, criticism, due process, and restrictions on invasions of privacy. Two other writers, Emery and Trist (1978) have developed a number of models dealing with environmental complexity. Their typology is a continuum from simple/ predictable to complex/ uncertain. Our present situation is described as the turbulent environment. This is a situation characterized by enormous organizations and organization sets; deep inter- dependencies between economic and other types of organiza- tions; increasing reliance on science and research, which in turn generate an increasing rate of change and heterogeneity; and more rapid modes of communication, transportation, and information processing. The increased complexity seems to create added uncertainty and unpredictability. If Ashby's law of requisite variety (Beer, 1974) from the field of cybernetics is valid, then only variety can absorb variety-or stated dif- ferently, there are no simple solutions. Paul Blumberg (1973: 8) has examined a large number of studies on participatory decision making and concludes: There is hardly a study in the entire literature which fails to demonstrate that satisfaction in work is enhanced or that other generally acknowledged beneficial consequences accrue from a genuine increase in workers' decision-making power. Such consistency of findings, I submit, is rare in social research. To summarize, the following reasons seem to have some bearing on the emergence and support for QWL by powerful elements in industrial societies: * Alienation seems to have increased and to entail less and less acceptable social and economic costs. 190 URBAN EDUCATION / JULY 1982 * the "new worker" thesis-workers tend to be younger, have higher expectations than their predecessors, and are less dependent * the decline of the authoritative power of traditional institutions (i.e., schools, churches, family, marriage, employer preroga- tives, etc.) * unadaptive and inflexible bureaucracies * civil liberties or constitutionalism in the work place (also institutions such as schools, hospitals, prisons, etc.) * legitimation crisis in management * participation and cooperation as related to worker satisfaction and productivity (and perhaps a new basis for legitimacy) * turbulent and unpredictable environments * destabilizing effects of science and technology THE CASE AGAINST QWL IN EDUCATION Many of the statements made so far probably have a familiar ring or are, in fact, adaptable to the existing subculture of the schools. For several decades educators have been sensitive to mercurial and unpredictable environmental pressures. Re- sponses might be more reactive than proactive, but educators have certainly been attempting to meet public expectations whether they involved the "whole child," alternative schools, back-to-basics, or moral education. The sociotechnical systems approach and QWL have emerged from studies of economic organizations and require con- siderable modification to be useful in social service and people- transforming organizations. Technology probably can have an enormous potential in schools some day, but for various reasons this potential is not currently being activated. One could suggest with several plausible reasons for technological underdevelopment-teacher conservatism, sabotage, commu- nity conservatism, job protectionism, misguided humanism, lack of financial resources, and so on. Or technology could be Koch j QUALITY OF WORKING LIFE 191 redefined broadly in terms of software such as curricula, teaching methods, and materials and texts. In general, the social and systemic elements of STS theory are relevant to schools and organizations of all types. The technological dimension does not appear to be as salient in educational systems. Education is further characterized by fuzziness of output measures in comparison with the crispness and clarity of manufactured products and profits in economic organizations. Profit and productivity are ill-fitting metaphors for analyzing schools. Several of the psychological factors that cause alienation in industrial settings do not seem problematic for teachers in schools. The boring or very narrow task, the social depriva- tion, the meaninglessness of the job, the lack of social utility or responsibility, the lack of opportunities for growth and development, and the lack of autonomy are not deficiencies generally found in teaching. Teaching is either actually or potentially an intrinsically rich and satisfying form of work. The major complaints heard from teachers have to do with stress or burnout afflictions associated with overstimulation and overload rather than deprivation. Humanism is almost an educational invention going back not fifty or a hundred years but thousands of years. The ideas of Plato, Confucius, and others to Francis W. Parker and John Dewey have emphasized the whole person or well-rounded approaches to dealing with people. Ideologically, educators do not need much persuasion on this issue. It is a largely unsung story, but educators have been working much in the spirit of OD and HRD for a very long time. Group approaches to learning, project methods, problem solving, and concern for motivation were all around when this writer was a child, and it seems certain they preceded the writer's birth. Action research was being used by Stephen Corey (1953) and Taba and Noel (1957) in the 1950s. The National Training Laboratories (NTL), which developed sensitivity training, T- 192 URBAN EDUCATION / JULY 1982 groups, and other techniques, was sponsored by the NEA (Marrow, 1967). Education itself has come up with a number of participative, collegial, and cooperative methods or ar- rangements such as clinical supervision and team teaching. Quality of education or excellence in education have also been long-term concerns. Education has not always been pictured as up to date or innovative. In fact it is suspected that popular imagination would tend to view the schools as rather reactive and backward. However, on many of the problems addressed by QWL the schools come out quite well. The case against QWL in schools include the following points: * Education is environmentally sensitive and does not need remediation in this respect. * Technical factors and clear-cut output measures are not very appropriate to education. * Alienating factors among teachers are different than those found among blue-collar workers. * Humanistic attitudes, values, and rhetoric are widely prevalent in education. * Cooperative and participative approaches are being widely used. * Quality is a continuing and long-term concern. THE CASE FOR QWL IN EDUCATION Is there anything useful to be gained by employing aspects of QWL in the schools? The most obvious area of possible use is that of labor-management negotiations. Not as an alternative, but as an adjunct to the present system, QWL could be used in a number of situations. Teacher unions have been a mixed blessing. There has been improvement in economic and working conditions for teachers over the past two decades after prolonged lag and neglect. At the same time, there has also Koch / QUALITY OF WORKING LIFE 193 been some loss of public esteem and support. It is possible, and QWL demonstrates this, that many problems having to do with working conditions can be resolved at the work place cooperatively. With flexibility and collaboration and by utilizing teacher-management groups, work can be redesigned; sticky questions having to do with class size, paraprofessional roles, response to communities, curriculum, and the like can probably be dealt with more effectively than under present arrangements. What is being suggested is that locals, however defined, should address local or particularistic concerns. Traditional union negotiations should deal with universals regarding the entire employee group; people at school X should not be hamstrung by conditions which applied at different times and places but are inappropriate or meddle- some in a particular situation. Something like QWL seems to be going on in some community schools or programs of active public participation. The writer's observations would lead to the view that questions of work life quality need to be made more explicit. Perhaps a terminological change is in order if QWL is to enter education and substituting the term "quality of school life" (QSL) might be more useful. Certainly a consensual definition of educa- tional quality from the community, subject to periodic review, might ameliorate one problem. It was previously pointed out that many of the factors which cause "blue-collar blues" among industrial workers do not seem to be as pronounced among teachers-that in fact overload, overstimulation, and too much variety seems to have created problems of stress and burnout. The factors in the industrial model might, however, apply to students. Teachers, in many respects, share the problems of industrial managers in attempting to motivate and stimulate a recalcitrant group of workers. Students also have some feelings of alienation, meaninglessness, and exhibit hostile and antischool behavior (vandalism, absenteeism, drug and alcohol abuse at school, dropping out, violence against teachers, etc.). Counterproduc- 194 URBAN EDUCATION / JULY 1982 tive cycles need to be halted at some point if the organization is to survive. Implicit in the previous discussion and QWL literature is concern with the impact of lifestyles or situations outside the work place (or school). It is not meant that schools or organizations have the right to be meddlesome or interfere with the privacy of employees or students. It does mean that a recognition of away-from-work lifestyles or situations affect the work place and vice versa. Some organizations supply instruments and facilities for dealing with extrawork issues. For example, in schools the issue of stress and burnout are much discussed at this time. Are we really able to separate out stress which originates at home or at work? Would it not be more useful to look at the problem as an interdependent dialectic rather than two impermeable compartments of life space? Teachers are aware that students' performance and attitudes are influenced by diet, nutrition, health, weight, self- image, sleep, interpersonal relations, and a host of factors beyond their control or knowledge. What is being said in a sense is that work and home (or nonwork activities) are interdependent and interpenetrating and that some mode of examining relationships and changing behaviors be developed. Work and community can also be viewed as microcosms of the larger society, and the possibilities for mutual influencing can also be taken into account. In certain technical areas, the newly christened QSL can find some useful borrowings from QWL. Contexts such as staff development, in-service training, supervision for instructional improvement, curriculum development, and task structure are areas which QWL (and sociotechnical systems) have come up with a number of transferrable techniques. Emery and Emery (1974) developed a Participative Design Workshop in which employees redesign their jobs. The Emerys point out that two- thirds of the supervisory positions tend to become redundant after iedesiggn. Somie plaiits have- set up autonomous work groups and group self-supervision schemes which might be Koch / QUALITY OF WORKING LIFE 195 tried in education. All of the cited approaches imply rather radical decentralization. It would seem that if corporate management seems willing to make profit hostage and trust its blue-collar employees that schools would be taking even less risk in trusting its professional employees. This writer does not often agree with Milton Friedman (1962), but his notions of maximizing choice and decentralization of schools seem to have some possibilities of freeing some of the energies and talents presently being blocked in so many schools. In summary, the useful contributions of QWL or QSL would be as follows: * employee-management relations-an adjunct to traditional bargaining * compatible with prevailing public participation approaches * student alienation parallel to worker alienation in industry * overall quality of life (QL) includes both school and nonschool life * QWL provides models applicable to staff development, super- vision, work redesign, etc. Some preliminary suggestions for implementing QSL might include the following: * decentralize decisions on teaching (time, grouping, material, methods) to operational levels (school, department, or class) * provide time off, consultants, and in-service education in process areas (communications, problem solving, consensus building, conflict resolution, etc.) * joint union or staff association and management committee to deal with QSL * joint parent or community and school committees to deal with QSL * QSL for pupils and students * quality as an evolving localized consensus 196 URBAN EDUCATION / JULY 1982 CONCLUSION An effort has been attempted in this article to introduce the concept of quality of working life to educators including its rationale, cultural context, process, and applicability to edu- cation. 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