Importance of Employee Welfare

According to Bolton, (2002) “Welfare is the physical and mental well-being of employees, and the provision of help for those in need of assistance. Welfare embraces: physical working conditions, such as hygiene, sanitation, temperature, humidity, ventilation, lighting, physical comfort, and refreshments; occupational health or wellness promotion; counseling and advice on personal problems and working time, covering matters.”

According to Davar (1992) “Welfare is the voluntary efforts of the employers to establish, with is the existing industrial system, working and sometimes living and cultural conditions of employees beyond what is required by law, the customs of the industry and the condition of market.”

Categories of Welfare                                                                                     

Statutory welfare - Composed of those areas of welfare work which depend for their implementation on the coercive power of the Government such as

·         Safe hygienic drinking water             

·         Facilities for sitting

·         First aid appliances

·         Sanitary facilities

·         Spittoons (ware house, store places) are to be provided in convenient places

·         Proper and sufficient Lighting

·         Washing places 

Non – Statutory Welfare - Includes all those activities which employers undertake for their workers on a voluntary basis. Such as,

·         Personal health care

·         Employee assistance programs

·         Harassment policy

·         Transportation facilities

·         Insurance scheme

·         Loan facilities

·         Maternity leave

Benefits of Employee welfare

Employee welfare refers various benefits at all level of the organization. Opatha (2009), explains that much organization expected to achieve following objectives by providing employee welfare.

·         To enhance employees’ loyalty to the organization

·         To increase employee morale.

·         To improve employee motivation.

·         To improve job satisfaction of the employees.

·         To reduce employee absenteeism.

·         To reduce turn over.

·         To improve employee productivity.

·         To express feelings and values of philanthropy and paternity.

·         To increase goodwill and public image.

·      To minimize the degree of government intervention with managing people at work through Labour laws.

·         To give some relief for economic difficulties being faced by employees owing to higher inflation.

·         To improve personnel and industrial relations.

·         To make recruitment function more successful by increasing job appeal.

Different authors’ emphasis impact of employee welfare on overall organizational performance in world in context and Sri Lankan context. Following are some of them.

According to Singh et al., (1995) “HRM functions of employee welfare should not be treated as a function of less importance. The organization has to spend a considerable amount of money and other resources. Employee welfare is often an investment that is conductive to organizational success. It should be noted that expenditure on labour welfare is a profitable investment the long run as it motivates the workers for higher job satisfaction and productivity.”

According to Opatha (2009), “Always welfare is not because improved productivity. However, it is arranged that it leads to improve job satisfaction of the employees, through loyalty of the employees, and then to reduce employee absenteeism and turnover that will result in improving employee welfare improves employee productivity.”

References

Bolton, T. (2002). Human resource management. USA: Blackwell publishers Inc.

Davar, R.S. (1992). Personnel management & industrial relations. (10th Ed). Berkeley, Viskas Publishing House (pvt) ltd.

Opatha, H.H.D.N.P. (2009). Human resource management. Sri Lanka: Published by author.

Singh, B.P., Chhabra, T.N., & Thaneja, P.L. (1995), Personal management and industrial relations, New Delhi: Dhanapat Pai and Sons.