Part One Understanding the Supervisor’s Role
62

your attention away from the task at hand. Inattention leads directly to accidents. For example, many hand injuries from power tools can be at¬tributed to the operator not paying careful attention.

Quality of Work Life

Quality of work life (QWL) is the extent to which employees are able to satisfy important needs through their experiences in the organization. Modern organizations spend considerable effort trying to help employees achieve a high quality of work life. One example is the worker participa¬tion programs described in Chapter 2. Employee involvement programs contribute to QWL because they help bring about job satisfaction and morale. The reason is that employees who are given decision-making re¬sponsibility experience feelings of pride and professionalism.
A high quality of work life can also be a consequence of job satisfaction stemming from any other managerial actions and programs. This is true because QWL can be regarded as an organizationwide state of high job satisfaction and morale. Employees who are satisfied with many elements of their job and the company will therefore experience a high quality of work life.

Life Satisfaction

If you accept the idea that employers should contribute to the general well-being of employees, then job satisfaction has another important consequence. Satisfaction with one’s job and career has a spillover effect on satisfaction with life. Research conducted with 1,100 workers over a four-year period found support for this consequence of job satisfaction. Specifically, the study found that increases in satisfaction with super¬vision, pay, and promotion are likely to increase life satisfaction. Con¬versely, decreases in satisfaction with these factors tend to decrease life satisfaction.6

JOB ELEMENTS CONTRIBUTING TO SATISFACTION

Individual job satisfaction is brought about by the presence of certain sat¬isfying elements of the job. Some of these elements are under the control of the supervisor, while others are beyond his or her control. Figure 3-1


6Thomas I. Chacko, “Job and Life Satisfactions: A Causal Analysis of their Relation¬ships,” Academy of Management Journal, March 1983, p. 167.