Question

Managing quality and human resource and job design.  Specifically explain Problem 1.2

1.1: What are the 4 costs of quality, explain each using examples?

1.2: What is the quality of work-life and propose a sustainable program to support the same?

Answer 1

Answer 1.1

Cost of quality (COQ): It is an approach used by organizations in order to identify the limit to which its resources can be utilized to prevent poor quality, and extent it can be used for appraising the quality of their products or services. It also includes results from internal and external failures.

Four costs of quality components are determined. These are highlighted as follows:

· Prevention Costs: These are the costs that are acquired in order to ensure that defects are prevented and minimized at earliest stage. Example includes Cost incurred in Quality training of employees, cost incurred in conducting quality audit etc.

· Appraisal Costs: This cost is acquired in order to inspect defective products before shipping off. Example of appraisal cost includes salaries of staff employed for inspecting.

· Internal Failure Costs: It is the cost that is accrued on the defective units. Example includes cost of scrapped units, cost of direct material consumed by the defective units etc.

· External Failure Costs: These are the cost acquired by defective units that are shipped to customers. Example: Recalls, lost sales etc.

Answer 1.2:

Quality of work-life: Quality of work life refers to work environment (favourable or unfavourable) in keeping employees motivated. Quality of work life impacts per capita productivity. Major emphasis of maintaining quality of work life is to maintain effective work place environment that supports and satisfies employee’s needs, promote their well-being, and ensue their job satisfaction, security and development.

A sustainable program to support quality of work-life is highlighted as follows:

· HR of the organization must lay emphasis on employing participative or employee-centered leadership.

· Leaders must be responsible for defining group objectives, motivating teams, and providing directions to subordinates, monitoring and evaluating behaviour.

· Parallel Structure like quality circles must be generated to ensure higher levels of involvement.

· Special emphasis must be laid on improvement of interpersonal skills,

· Effective initiatives must be taken by organizations to ensure health, well-being and safety of employees.

· Initiatives must be taken on maintaining work-life balance to ensure better quality of work-life.

· Culture of respect & leadership must be maintained.

In order to maintain sustainability of program regular monitoring and evaluation must be conducted on regular basis.