ejss_7_1_05

European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 7, Number 1 (2008)

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Constructs of Quality of Work Life: A Perspective of

Information and Technology Professionals

Guna Seelan Rethinam Human Resource Advisor, Ebrahim Khalil Kanoo Group of Companies, Bahrain

E-mail: [email protected]

Maimunah Ismail Department of Professional Development and Continuing Education Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia

E-mail: [email protected] Tel: 603-89468111; Fax: 603-89467905

Abstract Many factors determine the meaning of quality of work life (QWL), one of which is work environment. A group of workforces that is greatly affected in QWL as a result of dynamic changes in work environment is information technology (IT) professionals. This article reviews the meaning of QWL, analyses constructs of QWL based on models and past research from the perspective of IT professionals in many countries and in Malaysia. The constructs of QWL discussed are health and well-being, job security, job satisfaction, competency development, work and non-work life balance. The article concludes that QWL from the perspective of IT professionals is challenging both to the individuals and organizations. The implications of this meaning and constructs for future research in QWL from the perspective of IT professionals are discussed. Keywords: Quality of Work Life, Information and Technology Professionals, Job

Security, Work-Life Balance, Competency Development and Job Satisfaction. 1. Introduction: Meaning of quality of work life This article reviews literature on quality of work life (QWL) in terms of its meaning and constructs specifically from the perspective of information technology (IT) professionals. We first review the definitions of QWL in order to come up with a conclusive meaning of QWL. Secondly, we describe who IT professionals are and why QWL is significant to them. Thirdly, we discuss the theoretical constructs of QWL and research that used these constructs to highlight their significance to IT profession and organizational performance. Finally, we conclude by formulating a conceptual paradigm of QWL that may inspire future research in the realm QWL.

As the work culture changes drastically in the recent years, the traditional concept of work to fulfils humans’ basic needs are also facing out. The basic needs are continued to diversify and change according to the evolution of the work system and standards of living of a workforce. Thus a definition by Suttle (1977) on the QWL as the degree to which work are able to satisfy important personal basic needs through their experience in the organisation is no longer relevant.

Generally jobs in the contemporary work environment offer sufficient rewards, benefits, recognition and control to employees over their actions. Although to some extent contemporary workforce are compensated appropriately, their personal spending practices, lifestyles, leisure activities, individual value systems, health and so forth can affect their levels of need. It is similar to


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the argument posted in the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in which each individual has different level of needs because in reality what is important to some employees may not be important to others although they are being treated equally in the same organization. This definition, focusing on personal needs has neglected the fact that the construct of QWL is subjective and continuously evolves due to an ever-growing needs of each and every employees.

Hackman and Oldhams (1980) further highlight the constructs of QWL in relation to the interaction between work environment and personal needs. The work environment that is able to fulfill employees’ personal needs is considered to provide a positive interaction effect, which will lead to an excellent QWL. They emphasized the personal needs are satisfied when rewards from the organisation, such as compensation, promotion, recognition and development meet their expectations. Parallel to this definition, Lawler (1982) defines QWL in terms of job characteristics and work conditions. He highlights that the core dimension of the entire QWL in the organization is to improve employees’ well-being and productivity. The most common interaction that relates to improvement of employees’ well-being and productivity is the design of the job. Job design that is able to provide higher employee satisfaction is expected to be more productive. However, he accepted the fact that QWL is complex, because it comprises physical and mental well being of employees.

Later definition by Beukema (1987) describes QWL as the degree to which employees are able to shape their jobs actively, in accordance with their options, interests and needs. It is the degree of power an organization gives to its employees to design their work. This means that the individual employee has the full freedom to design his job functions to meet his personal needs and interests. This definition emphasizes the individual’s choice of interest in carrying out the task. However, this definition differs from the former which stresses on the organization that designs the job to meet employees’ interest. It is difficult for the organization to fulfill the personal needs and values of each employee. However if the organization provides the appropriate authority to design work activities to the individual employees, then it is highly possible that the work activities can match their employees’ needs that contribute to the organizational performance.

In the same vein Heskett, Sasser and Schlesinger (1997) define QWL as the feelings that employees have towards their jobs, colleagues and organizations that ignite a chain leading to the organizations’ growth and profitability. A good feeling towards their job means the employees feel happy doing work which will lead to a productive work environment. This definition provides an insight that the satisfying work environment is considered to provide better QWL.

Proceeding to previous definitions, Lau, Wong, Chan and Law (2001) operationalised QWL as the favourable working environment that supports and promotes satisfaction by providing employees with rewards, job security and career growth opportunities. Indirectly the definition indicates that an individual who is not satisfied with reward may be satisfied with the job security and to some extent would enjoy the career opportunity provided by the organization for their personal as well as professionals growth.

The recent definition by Serey (2006) on QWL is quite conclusive and best meet the contemporary work environment. The definition is related to meaningful and satisfying work. It includes (i) an opportunity to exercise one’s talents and capacities, to face challenges and situations that require independent initiative and self-direction; (ii) an activity thought to be worthwhile by the individuals involved; (iii) an activity in which one understands the role the individual plays in the achievement of some overall goals; and (iv) a sense of taking pride in what one is doing and in doing it well. This issue of meaningful and satisfying work is often merged with discussions of job satisfaction, and believed to be more favourable to QWL.

This review on the definitions of QWL indicates that QWL is a multi-dimensional construct, made up of a number of interrelated factors that need careful consideration to conceptualize and measure. It is associated with job satisfaction, job involvement, motivation, productivity, health, safety and well-being, job security, competence development and balance between work and non work life as is conceptualized by European Foundation for the Improvement of Living Conditions (2002).


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To summarise, QWL is viewed as a wide-ranging concept, which includes adequate and fair remuneration, safe and healthy working conditions and social integration in the work organization that enables an individual to develop and use all his or her capacities. Most of the definitions aim at achieving the effective work environment that meets with the organizational and personal needs and values that promote health, well being, job security, job satisfaction, competency development and balance between work and non-work life. The definitions also emphasize the good feeling perceived from the interaction between the individuals and the work environment.

Understanding the nature of work in the contemporary environment, we define QWL as the effectiveness of work environment that transmit to the meaningful organizational and personal needs in shaping the values of the employees that support and promote better health and well-being, job security, job satisfaction, competency development and balance between work and non-work life. This definition quantifies the QWL among the IT professionals with the aim to gain leverage in recruiting, motivating and retaining the valuable IT workforce as the nature of work continues to diversify. 2. Who are IT Professionals? One of the fastest growing workforces in the present work environment is the group of information technology (IT) professionals. The number of personal computers (PCs) worldwide is close to 1 billion, but the number of IT professionals joining the field is dwindling fast. Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) estimated that 1.64 million new IT jobs would be created within the period of 2004 to 2016 (BLS 2007). According to the bureau, one out of four new jobs will be IT related. IT professionals are involved in acquisition, processing, storage of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information which demand extensive use of IT skills. The nature of jobs enables the IT professionals to work independently with multinational teams round the clock regardless of their locations throughout the world (Evans and Wurster, 2000). This flexible work arrangement creates new employment trends that makes it possible for the sharing of work around the time zone. On the other hand it allows the organizations to capitalize on skills and the expertise of some highly competent workforce residing across the world to work remotely with multiple superiors at lower costs (Industrial Relations Services, 2000; Merill, 2000). This shapes the organization to a smaller or lean structure. It is reported that IT organizations in midsize and large companies will be at least 30% smaller than they were in 2005 (Computer Computerworld, 2006). Such a working environment exposes the IT professionals to high task complexity that possibly leads them to high strain, uncertainty, lack of proper personal development opportunities as well as a greater imbalance of work with non-work activities. Robbins (2001) argued that such work scenarios will lead the IT professionals to experience poor QWL.

No doubt, all other occupations have a capacity to influence the work and non-work life balance, but some occupations are potentially more influential than others. Bagnara, Mariani and Parlangeli (2001) have reported that work within the high technology and continuously facing uncertainty are potentially more stressful than others. Martinsons and Cheung (2001) further argue that continuous changes in work related factors directly or indirectly affected the IT professionals. Indeed these changes demand them to perform thus, an effective measure to handle its consequences is the responsibility of the organizations. Therefore, one of the ongoing concerns among the IT industries is to mitigate the effects of changes in work environment on job satisfaction, work performance, reliability, health and comfort. Understanding the constructs of QWL among the IT professionals is essential to provide substantial strategies to counteract such surges (De Jonge et al., 2000; Andries et al., 2002) especially in the technologically emerging societies of Malaysia. 3. Constructs of Quality of Work Life The selected constructs of QWL that we use in this article are derived from the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Condition (EWON) (2002) who have used the dimensions


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widely in their QWL studies. These factors are believed to be appropriate and reliable in the context of Asia generally and Malaysia specifically because some of the factors were used separately by researchers in Japan (Fujigaki, Asakura and Haratani, 1993), Singapore (Lau et al., 2001) and Malaysia (Rethinam, Maimunah, Musa and Bahaman, 2004). The dimensions of QWL selected are health and well-being, job security, job satisfaction, competence development and the balance between work with non-work life. The following section discusses each of the constructs of QWL from the perspectives of IT professionals. 3.1. Health and well-being

Health and well-being of QWL refer to physical and psychological aspects of an individual in any working environment. Asakura and Fujigaki (1993) examined the direct and indirect effect of computerization on workers health and well-being. Their results were similar to the study of Iacovides, Fountoulakis and Kaprins (2003) that higher job demand leads to higher strain work environment, hence, it affects their health and well being. An unstrained work environment ensures good health and psychological conditions which enable the employees to perform job and non-work related functions without inhibitions. Thus, it leads to an unstressful work environment providing comfortable work life.

There are many definitions of stress as it is deemed as a subjective phenomenon of QWL. Chan et al. (2000) define stress as a response to the perceived relationship between the demands on individuals and the ability to adjust to their work environment. Carayon, Smith and Haims (2001) revealed that stress arises in the process of interaction between a person and the work environment that threatens the individual’s physical, psychological and physiological homeostasis. Physical illness and psychological disorders increase when pressure at work increases. Stress causes problems to the muscular system and circulation thus, increasing the risk of myocardial infarction which is well documented in psychosomatic studies. They further reported that employees who has been exposed over two years in high strain work environment is associated with higher systolic blood pressure. The nature of IT professions reflect a similar situation that continuously demanding and monotonous work environment that affects the brains resulting in exhaustion and decreasing in some of IT professionals’ cognitive abilities.

Depression and anxiety are also another form of stress that contributes towards the deterioration of health. Employees develop various symptoms of stress that can harm job performance, health and even threaten the ability to cope with the environment. In the past few decades, impressive developments of information technologies have taken place in workplace. Apart from the positive effects of IT there are also potential adverse effects that must not be overlooked. Korunka et al. (1997) identified IT proponents to subjectively experience stress and dissatisfaction at work. IT related jobs have been associated with repetitive strain as well as problems related to excessive exposure to video display terminals (Ng and Munro-Kua, 1994; Duxbury, Higgins and Johnson, 1999). Routine work, badly designed instruments such as computers and furniture in ICT work environment have significantly increased work related disorders (Blatter and Bongers, 2002) such as musculoskeletal problems (Cardosa and Wan Fauziah, 1994).

Jobs in IT work environment have become a critical factor because they involve a new set of stressors that are also physically demanding. Many researchers highlight technostress concept when discussing stress that is related to IT (Bradley, 2001). Technostress includes the pressure of mastering the IT revolution, the daily frustrations and sudden interruptions of software bugs or system crashes, resulting in work intensification and workplace stress. The symptoms of technostress are related to physical and psychological conditions such as backache, uncertain tempers, ulcers, acne, insomnia, low morale and job-hopping. On the other hand, resistance to learn and keep up with IT or rejection of the technology due to individual ambivalence, reluctance or fear of IT also causes stress particularly among seasoned IT professionals.

There are substantial literatures linking computerization and health and well being in occupational industry. Cardosa and Wan Fauziah (1994) had highlighted the alarming situation of


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health and safety among the computer users in various occupational office workers in Malaysia. They suggested for a serious policy initiatives on computer users because they argued that the workers’ health should not be sacrificed for the sake of greater productivity and efficiency in the industry. A recent research conducted by Blatter and Bongers (2002) on the duration of computer and mouse use in relation to musculoskeletal disorders of neck or upper limb, indicates that the duration and the frequency of computer use have substantially increased the health risk of the users. The majority of these studies showed substantial increase in neck, shoulder and hand or wrist problem among those working for longer hours with poor ergonomic practices while working on a computer.

Several large cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have focused on job components such as demands, control, rewards and support. The results indicate that the combination of high demands and low control at work have impact on health and well being. The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (2000) examined the number of European employees that are exposed to risks or that have experienced illness. They observed that the main indicators for Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) risks are the work pace which is determined by a high prevalence of repetitive movements and high-speed work. This finding is parallel to the earlier research by Ng and Kua (1994) on the health hazards among IT professionals in Malaysia. The research signifies that a substantial number of IT professionals experienced OSH outcomes such as musculoskeletal disorders, stress and work-related sick leave.

Although, the health and well-being of workforce has improved due to the disappearance of harsh and hazardous work in the last century, workforce are again at risk because of the nature of contemporary work especially in IT industries is psychologically demanding. Therefore, job demands that cause strain can be detrimental to individual health, thus leading to psychological distress and health complaints (Karasek and Theorell, 1991; Cheng et al., 2000; De Jonge et al., 2000). As a concluding remark, IT workplace should focus on prevention strategies from poor health and wellbeing in order to provide a good QWL. Factors that lead to physical and psychological disorders should be nipped in its bud in order to provide a good QWL among the fastest growing IT workforce. Stress management techniques and complementary medicine may have some positive benefits as short-term relief of strains, but they cannot eradicate the problem completely. The prevention strategies should focus on the relationship between the individual job context, working conditions and the changes in the workplace. The prevention strategies must be healthy and humanistic nature in order to enable IT professionals to work comfortably. An unstressful workplace is not merely from the financial reimbursement or other benefits that matter. It is a feeling of fulfillment and gratification that the employees experience from working, thus it eventually provides a good health and well being. 3.2. Job security

A dramatic change of workforce in contemporary work environment has revealed a significant amount of organization change (Watson et al., 2003). Organization change such as downsizing, rightsizing and outsourcing have adversely affected employees’ loyalty, morale, motivation and perceived job security. Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (1996) highlighted that job security is the most controversial issue in contemporary work environment. Job security, the central aspect of QWL represents strength of the organizations to provide permanent and stable employment regardless of the changes in work environment. Hence, providing a sense of security is important especially in the work environment where many facets of jobs can be outsourced.

The increase in industry wide unemployment and outsourcing trends have made it evident that job security cannot be taken for granted (Probst, 2003). Jobs in IT industries such as computer programming, software development, system analysis are highly paid but the chance to extend the contract is uncertain. Therefore, it is observed that IT industry has practiced high employment rate but low job security which has led to the intrinsic insecure work environments that lead to poor QWL. This move has prompted some critics to view that employers are adopting an active policy of creating a division between the core of highly protected workers, with long-term career perspectives and a


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periphery of project based IT professionals where employer can leverage scarce and high value talents that tend to be terminated at the end of every project. The increase in project based working arrangements is often regarded as employees’ choice, although the desire has come from the employer to increase the part timers or contract workers and long work culture (Cooper, 1998). The emergence of outsourcing and IT automation concept also has significantly fuelled the sense of job insecurity among IT professionals. As a conclusion, the unstable work nature and the way working culture are being diversified, point to a considerable impact on the job security among the IT professionals.

The ability of organization to provide better QWL to retain their IT professionals has been a critical factor in the effort to achieve strategic business goal. The exit of IT professionals who seem to know a project in detail can ultimately contribute to the lost of business opportunities. Not long ago, Fortune magazine reported that quitting a job in the technology profession has become an annual event, as the average job tenure in IT shrank to about 13 months, down from about 18 months in 1998 (Daniels and Vinzant, 2000). Changing employers may be an effective career strategy for some IT professionals. On the other hand, most organizations strive to retain the valued IT professionals by various means. This is one of the realities of QWL among the IT professionals even though the organization provides secured job environment that is expected to provide better QWL. 3.3. Job Satisfaction

As IT professionals become vital in leapfrogging a country such as Malaysia into a developed nation, the stable transformation of the existing workforce towards knowledge workers emphasizes the importance of having satisfied employees. Traut, Larsen and Feimen (2000) suggested that a better understanding of job satisfaction will ensure a sustainable development of IT workforce. Although, job satisfaction has been studied ever since the emergence of concept of job (Lamond and Spector, 2000), it remains as one of the most heavily studied topics in the human resource management especially among the industry like IT which experiencing high turnover culture. Typically job satisfaction is defined as an employee’s level of positive effect towards job or job situation that enhances quality of work life. The definition, however, evolves as the changes take place in work environment.

Later, cognitive and behavioural components were added to this definition. The cognitive aspect represents an employee’s belief about his job or job situation. This means an employee may believe that his or her job is interesting, stimulating, or otherwise. The behavioural component represents an employee’s behavioural tendencies toward his or her job. The action of attending work regularly, working hard and intending to stay in the organisation for long period of time shows the positive behaviour which indicates job satisfaction. In contrast, negative behavioural outcomes reveal dissatisfaction in job. Job satisfaction of an employee differs in meaning and importance in relations to the facets of work. Some may feel pay and fringe benefits that meet his expectations to be extremely important; another, it may be essential to have a job that provides an opportunity for challenging assignment. The results of previous studies indicate that many different aspects of the job, such as pay, promotions, supervision, fringe benefits, one’s co-workers support, and excessive working hours (Watson et al,. 2003) are associated with levels of satisfaction. Martinsons and Cheung (2001) reported that IT professional’s insufficient compensation and poor promotion prospects were key sources of dissatisfaction. For example, offering compensation and rewards significantly lower compared to the competitors for the same type of work can trigger employees’ dissatisfaction that will create intention among them to leave the organisation. Therefore, it is important to know whether the employees are satisfied. It is also widely expressed that job satisfaction appears to stem from the interaction between the employee, the job itself and the organizational context within which the job is carried out. In summary, the scope of job satisfaction varies with the industries however, general concepts such as physical conditions that allow the utilization of the ability of employees, proud of working in an organization and a sense of belonging that leads to job satisfaction are among the items adopted in any study on QWL.


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3.4. Competency Development

There was a strong consensus that IT professionals would need to continuously enhance their skill sets in order to remain employable in the IT industry Work associated with greater task variety, task discretion and skill development opportunities foster the competency development among the workforce (Javernpaa and Eloranthay, 2001). There are types of work, which are intrinsically interesting and provide opportunities for competency development. The nature of IT related jobs are expected to stimulate growth in skills and knowledge. This is seen as an important aspect of competency development that enhances QWL. Therefore competency development is operationalized as the nature of the job that provides opportunities and stimulates growth in skills and knowledge either for career or organizational development.

Career development opportunity will provide essential training that will help the individual employees to equip with the new skills to spearhead in their career. Most contemporary organizations do not limit themselves to just training an employee for a job, but they go beyond to furnish them with a support system that encourages workplace learning. Empirical research portrays that IT profession is associated with higher skill levels, greater employee responsibility and greater task complexity that lead to higher utilization of individual capabilities. Hence, individuals in such work scenario, who use more advanced technological infrastructures, are exposed to greater competency development (Wall, Cordery and Clegg, 2002).

Learning opportunities and skill discretion have also proven to have a positive effect on job satisfaction and reduced job stress that will lead to better QWL. The opportunity to develop and the use of skills is associated with learning mechanisms. This applies especially when the job requires employees to deploy cognitive skills. With respect to learning, greater autonomy on job enhances the acquisition and utilization of knowledge whilst greater participation is held to promote cognitive growth via increased knowledge transfer among employees (Scully, Kirkpatrick and Locke 1995). Such a job environment expands knowledge base, leads to a better understanding of how the job is related to other organizational practices and a greater ability to solve problems. In such a situation, employees gain the cognitive and behavioural repertoire to predict, control or cope with uncertain demands thus reducing the likelihood of poor QWL. In contrast, high job demands with inadequate control reduce the ability and opportunities to develop new skills and knowledge and thus enforce negative attitudes and anxiety which deteriorate QWL.

Martinsons and Cheung (2001) further reported that technical IT skills were perceived to be the most important skill for new IT professionals. Meanwhile the most important skills for experienced IT professionals were project management, interpersonal skills and business knowledge. Technical skills are important because they are related to creativity, flexibility and the ability to work as part of a team (Jarvenpaa and Eloranta, 2001). Therefore, lack of career progression and professionals development in such a working environment may cause IT professionals to experience poor QWL. Thus, understanding the constructs of QWL in terms of job environment that provides essential competencies for the IT professionals to excel in their careers will ensure good QWL. 3.5. Work and non-work life balance

A major component of QWL, which is important for both the employees and the employers, is the relationship between work and home life. In an increasing competitive environment, it is difficult to separate home and work life. Employees today are more likely to express a strong desire to have a harmonious balance among career, family life and leisure activities. This has been suggested at the international level the need for national policies in many countries. An ILO convention that was adopted in 1981, states that it is necessary for organizations to help employees to balance their work and non-work demands (Lewis, 1997).

The advantage of being able to work anywhere and at anytime has blurred the boundaries of work and leisure hours. Ironically, with IT revolution and intensified virtual communications,


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workload and working hours among the workforce have increased. The extended function of IT as a communication tool necessitates employees to distinguish between significant and insignificant information. This could increase the intensity of work because the information overload through e-mail consumes a considerable amount of time. Therefore, IT professionals to some extent are required to work long hours; hence compromising their personal time will lead to an imbalance between work with non-work life.

The threat of imbalance in work and non-work life has implications not only on the employees but also on organizations, governments and society (Grzywacz and Marks, 2000; Swanson, Power and Simpson, 1998). This relationship is bi-directional because previous studies have indicated that less conducive environments in the workplace have a greater impact on home life than vice versa. Another important factor that creates an imbalance work condition was a commitment to the work activities. The IT work environment is widely assumed to be a high-commitment workplace that forces the IT professionals to sacrifice their personal leisure hours to meet their work demand. The flexible scheduling of work hours which supposedly contribute to balance work and family relationship, which may create a conflict. Such a work arrangement demands the IT professionals to be committed with work whenever possible and hijack them from joining non work related activities.

A meta-analysis has confirmed that conflict between work and non-work life is associated with impaired psychological well-being and other negative outcomes (Allen et al., 2000). Work family conflict is a form of inter-role conflict in which the general demand of time devoted to the job interferes with the involvement of family related responsibilities. The study carried out by Aminah (2002) supports that inter-role family conflict occurs when the cumulative demands of multiple roles at home and at work become too great to manage comfortably.

Allen et al. (2000) emphasized that problems associated with family responsibilities are additional sources that may diminish QWL among IT professionals. They additionally assert that when an employee has higher work responsibility there will be more spillover of negative work outcomes on family life. The demands of managing higher responsibility at work and home are also a potential source of stress because it allows a spillover to family life thus creating an imbalance working environment.

Burke (1998) proposed three hypotheses to explain the work-family relationship. The first is spillover, where the events of one environment affect the other; the second is compensation, where the individuals attempt to compensate in one environment for what is lacking in the other and the third is where the environments can be described as independent. Accordingly, IT based employers that have been slow to respond to the continuing pressures have contributed to a growing incidence of work-life conflict among their employees. The spillovers between work and personal life have serious implications on employees’ QWL. It has also been argued that the conflict related to work and personal demands can lead to negative health outcomes for employees, may decrease organizational commitment, job satisfaction and increase burnout, which will eventually lead to poor QWL.

Traditional human resource policy practices that require the IT professionals to work long hours at the expense of personal time is believed to generate poor work family relationship. Working long hours consistently reflect poor health both physically and psychologically. Most studies on hours of work and health re-affirm that consistent long hours at work do reflect itself in employees’ ill-health, both physical and psychological.

As the IT work environment imposes its employees to work extended hours either at office or home, this might have tremendous effect on the marital and family relationship. There is a link between long hours and the breakdown of the family, primarily because in contemporary business environment an average family is a dual-earner family. Elisa and Ellen (2001) revealed that the majority of employees suggested that their long work hours have negatively affected their personal life and family responsibilities. The portability and the connectivity of IT allow the connection of job task from remote areas. The stringent deadline on their tasks encourages the IT professionals to engage with work task for longer hours in a day. Indeed, the IT professionals are willing to sacrifice non-work


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related activities to accomplish the task on time. Bradley (2001) argued that constantly increasing work demand creates an isolation of the personnel from their families. Personnel and family responsibility are neglected in the process of securing an economic prospect; hence, it deteriorates the interaction of family life that reduces QWL.

Competitive work pressures among IT professionals to boost productivity with skeleton resources make it difficult to achieve a balanced work-life. The work pressures affect the employee’s social environment, and if no corrective action taken, it may result in a poor social life. Therefore, alternatives such as career breaks, flexible working arrangements (Bijleveld, Andries and Rijkevorsel, 2000) and family friendly employment policies were suggested to balance between work and non-work life.

Reducing the level of spillover may help to reduce the perceived stress and psychological stress and assist to maintain some amount of balance between the two environments (Aminah, 2002). The existing low level of organizational support with increase in work-life conflict provides the risk of lower QWL. Organizations need to provide alternative means of employment practices to eliminate the pressure of spillover without influencing the career progression. The balance is important particularly among the IT professionals in order to nurture and develop the sustainable human resource practices in the IT work environment. Therefore, balance between work and non-work life is suggested as one of the measures of QWL.

Figure 1: A Paradigm Showing the Constructs of QWL

Health and Well-Being

Job Security Competency Development

Quality of Work Life (QWL)

Job Satisfaction

Work and Non-Work Life Balance

4. Conclusion and Recommendations IT industries in many developing countries such as Malaysia are experiencing tremendous challenges in meeting the employment market demand. A good human resource practice would encourage IT professionals to be more productive while enjoying their work. Therefore, QWL is becoming an important human resource issue in IT organizations. Effective strategic human resource policies and procedures are essential to govern and provide excellent QWL among IT professionals. Conversely, poor human resource strategic measures that are unable to address these issues can effectively distort the QWL, which will eventually fail the organisations’ vision of becoming competitive globally. Thus, this analysis attempts to suggest the meaning and what makes up the QWL from the perspective of IT professionals within the IT sector.

It is pertinent to have a better understanding of the changes in the components of QWL of IT professionals to enable human resource practitioners and adult educators to take proactive steps in integrating relevant human resource strategies, change models, policies, procedures, appropriate training programs, motivation and coping strategies to improve the QWL of IT professionals. By knowing the constructs of QWL as indicated in Figure 1, organizations are able to identify ways and means to improve the approach in minimizing the adverse impact of changes in work environments


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pertaining to QWL. The article would certainly enhance knowledge on the contextual environments of IT professionals that lead to QWL.

The main elements of the QWL, such as health and well-being, job security, job satisfaction, competence development, balance between work and non-work life are expected to help human resource practitioners as adult educators to co-design the IT work with humanistic factors. This will ensure the smooth transition of the contemporary workforce towards a knowledge based workforce. Subsequently, this analysis would also serve as a guide for the relevant ministries related to communication and multimedia functions, organizational practitioners, decision makers and individual employees to humanize the workplace for a better QWL.

We believe that the results of this review would also have significant implications on the individuals who intend to join the IT profession and would help the potential IT professionals to prepare themselves psychologically to meet the demands and challenges which otherwise may risk a poor QWL. This analysis also allows the utility of the knowledge claimed by other scholars in different work and cultural backgrounds to fill a scarcity of information that can eventually improve the understanding on the QWL among IT professionals. We also believe that this review provides directions to researchers from the various fields such as medical practice, occupational, safety and health (OSH) as well as ergonomics to further explore empirical evidence affecting QWL of IT professionals.


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