Evolution of the concept of "quality of working life"

In scientific literature the "quality of working life" and the "quality of life" are widespread. During the evolution the conception of the quality of work life passed four stages of formation: embrional, quantificational, conceptual and integrational. The first stage had been formed before 1890, when Augustine (4-th-5-th centuries) took as principles of the division of labor, then Thomas Aquinas (13-th century) formulated the foundation of the social division of mental labor and manual labor. A. Smith in his work "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" marked that just the social division of labor is the factor of economic advance. At this stage the labor is considered of as the value and the necessary feature of living abilities. The second stage began in 1890 and continued until the beginning of the 20-th century. In 1911 F. Taylor contributed greatly in the development of the conception of the quality of work life, he embedded in production strict regulation of labor, established for exposure between remuneration of labor and achievement of job order sheet. At this stage the quality of work life is considered as activities of organization, which oriented to satisfaction of wants of workers with the help of the creation of the devices and this devices help a worker to get a full access to decision procedure, which determines his life at work. The third stage corresponds to 1920-1990. The theory of human relations begins to display itself. The important contribution on this stage is made by F. Herzberg in 1950. He developed two-factor theory, signposted hygiene factors (labor cost, labor conditions, human relations) and motivating factors (meaningful work, career prospects, recognition of colleagues). At this stage the quality of work life is characterized as conditions and job arrangement for the best realization of the workers' abilities. The fourth stage begins with the presentation of the conception of the decent work at the international conference in 1999. The essence of this conception consists in creation equal time decent work and productive labor in conditions of liberty, equivalence, social safeguard and respect of human dignity for men and women. The quality of labor is considered in a broader sense, as a category, which expressed the relations between people in production. A number of the national economists note that the quality of work is influenced by the contest and labor conditions, the state of individual working places, the collective forms of organization of labor. To sum it up it is possible to pick out the following problems about quality of work life in Russia: the existence of different classification of factors about the quality of work life; the disunity of opinion comparative its indicators; the absence of common method stage routing about the quality of work life; the absence of the research of characteristic about the quality of work life of workers of the different age groups. Also it stands to mention that today the quality of work life useful to describe as a system in other words as a complex of different interrelated elements.

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