The effect of quality circles on job satisfaction and quality of work-life of staff in emergency medical services

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ienj.2012.10.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Introduction

Quality circles, as a participatory management technique, offer one alternative for dealing with frustration and discontent of today’s workers. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of implementation of quality circles on nurses’ quality of work-life and job satisfaction.

Materials and methods

In this study, two emergency medical services (EMS) of Hamedan province were selected and randomly assigned as the experimental and control groups. After the experimental group was trained and quality circles were established in this group, the levels of quality of work-life and job satisfaction were measured in the two groups. Then, the statistical analyses were performed using t-test.

Results

After the intervention, the results showed significant differences between the scores of motivational factors (p = 0.001), the total scores of job satisfaction (p = 0.003), and the scores of some quality of work life (QWL) conceptual categories including the use and development of capacities (p = 0.008), the total space of life (p = 0.003), and the total scores of QWL (p = 0.031) in the experimental group compared to those in the control group.

Conclusion

This study confirms the effectiveness of quality circles in improving quality of work-life and job satisfaction of nurses working in EMS, and offers their application as a management method that can be used by EMS managers.

Introduction

The new expert views on organizational management emphasize the use of participatory methods that originate from the needs of modern man (Giyorian and Rabieiman, 2005). Today, employees have different needs. Salary and safety needs are not the only motivational factors anymore (Zohouri et al., 2007). The needs of modern man are currently much more including the needs for consultation, participation, and opinion polls (Zohouri et al., 2007). According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, these are high-level needs that result in the flourishing of all the hidden talents of people (Suzanne and Stephen, 2003). The appropriate behavioral model of a manager in any organization causes strong spirit and motivation in the staff, and increases their satisfaction with their jobs (Kolagari and Khoddam, 2007). Nurses, as the largest human resource of health care organizations, play an important role in promoting health, so that organizations cannot achieve any success without an efficient nursing force (Mehrabian, 2002). Therefore, paying attention to their morale and motivation is of high priority (Kolagari and Khoddam, 2007). On the other hand, studies have reported nurses’ dissatisfaction with their jobs and their low quality of work-life (Dehghannayeri et al., 2008, Dargahi et al., 2005), resulting in burnout and turnover (Lu et al., 2005). Borda and Norman (1997), and Lu et al. (2005) reported high workload, management styles, motivation, and lack of respect in the workplace as the main causes of job dissatisfaction in nurses. On the other hand, empowerment (Laschinger et al., 2001) and participatory decision-making are also variables that have been recently introduced as factors affecting job satisfaction and work-life quality (Jafariayan, 2007, Javadpour, 2007). In addition, Hood and Smith (1994) believe that managers’ attention to variables of work-life quality can facilitate a more human workplace that covers not only staff’s basic needs but also their high level needs, their continuous growth, and their advanced efficiency. According to Werther’s theory (1986), staff’s participation in matters concerning their work increases their sense of responsibility, and sometimes can create this feeling in them that they are the owners of the decisions that have been made through their participation. In his opinion, one way to attract staff’s participation is applying quality circles (Werther and Ruch, 1986), which has been repeatedly proposed as a technique to increase employees’ participation in matters concerning their work, and to increase their job satisfaction (Li-Chuan et al., 2000). Quality circles are a participatory management technique in which voluntary groups (Russell and Richard, 2002) composed of the staff of an organization, usually under the leadership of their supervisor (or an elected team leader), are trained to uncover, analyze and solve work-related problems and present their solutions to management in order to improve the performance of the organization, and motivate and enrich the work of employees (Abo al-hol et al., 2006). The technique was introduced in Japan through the teaching of Dr. W. Edward Deming after World War II (Russell and Richard, 2002). There are usually 4–15 employees in a circle, and they are trained in problem identification, problem-solving, statistical control measures, and group dynamics (Russell and Richard, 2002). The group members share common interests and problems, and meet on a regular basis usually an hour a week (George, 1993). Grifin (1988) examined the effect of quality circles in an industrial setting and reported significant differences in job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and performance of the personnel in quality circle groups compared with those in the control group. Abo al-hol et al. (2006) reported significant improvement of employee’s job satisfaction in quality circle groups in five Malaysian industrial companies. Forster et al. (2000) reported that applying quality circles led to major improvements in the quality of infection control procedures in hospitals. Few studies have been conducted on the application of quality circles as a method of participatory management, and no such studies have been done in emergency medical services. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the effect of applying quality circles on the staff’s job satisfaction and work-life quality in the emergency medical services of Hamedan province.

Section snippets

Materials and methods

In this quasi-experimental study, which was approved by the Research Council of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamedan and Malayer emergency medical services of Hamedan province were selected and assigned randomly to the experimental and control groups (Fig. 1). The province, with an area of 19,493 square kilometers and a population of 1,703,267, is located on the west of Iran (Iranian Statistics Centre, 2011). The emergency medical service, also called Emergency 115, was established

Results

The results showed that most of the subjects were male (90%) and married (62.5%), and no significant differences were found between the quality circle and the control groups regarding age, gender, marital status, work experience, employment status, educational degree, amount of overtime, salary, and work shift (p > 0.05). The analysis of the data obtained from the job satisfaction questionnaires showed no significant differences between the two groups in terms of the mean scores for health

Discussion

The results of the study showed that, before and after the intervention, the scores of health factors and motivational factors in the quality circle group were statistically significant, showing an improvement of 5.17 scores (16.5%), and 8.25 scores (23.4%) respectively. These results are consistent with the findings of studies by Mohsenpour et al. (2002) and Jafariayan (2007) who investigated the effect of participatory management on hospital nurses’ job satisfaction. The application of

Conclusion

The findings of the study indicated that applying participatory management in the form of quality circles for three months resulted in improvements in job satisfaction and quality of work-life in the staff working in the EMS stations. Therefore, it is recommended that the managers of emergency medical services and emergency departments apply this mode of participatory management in order to facilitate employees’ participation in their working matters, and to improve their job satisfaction and

Application in nursing

The purpose of establishing quality circles is in fact an advanced attitude toward management. Since motivations and human behaviors are important in nursing, this method is a significant process for the theoretical development of nursing management, so that nursing managers can take steps to increase job satisfaction and QWL in professional nurses through the instruction and implementation of this method.

Acknowledgements

We hereby appreciate the help of the Deputy for Research of Hamedan University of Medical Sciences, authorities of Hamedan emergency medical services, and all the personnel who participated in this study.

References (37)

  • R. Borda et al.

    Factors influencing turnover and absence of nurses: a research review

    International Journal of Nursing Studies

    (1997)
  • D.H. Forster et al.

    Can quality circles improve hospital-acquired infection control?

    Journal of Hospital Infection

    (2000)
  • H. Lu et al.

    Job satisfaction among nurses: a literature review

    International Journal of Nursing Studies

    (2005)
  • W.B. Werther

    Out of the productivity box

    Business Horizons

    (1982)
  • T.R. Abo al-hol et al.

    Effects of quality circle participation on employee perception and attitude in five Malaysian companies

    Journal of Scientific & Industrial Research

    (2006)
  • M.K. Bahadori et al.

    Emergency medical services in Iran: an overview

    Australasian Medical Journal

    (2010)
  • Bruce, W., 1989. The Relationship Between Quality of Worklife and Job Satisfaction: A Study of Nation’s Municipal...
  • H. Dargahi et al.

    Evaluation the quality of life of nurses working in Tehran Hospitals

    Hayat

    (2005)
  • N. Dehghannayeri et al.

    Quality of worklife and productivity of clinical nurses and their relationship

    Nursing Research

    (2008)
  • J.R. Dienhart

    Job satisfaction, job involvement: security and customer focus of service restaurant employees

    Journal of Hospitality & tourism Research

    (1993)
  • R.G. George

    Quality circle: an update

    SAM Advanced Management Journal

    (1993)
  • Giyorian, H., Rabieiman, M.H., 2005. Decision Making and Determining Governmental Policy, second ed. Yakan, Tehran...
  • R.W. Grifin

    Consequences of quality circles in an industrial setting: a longitudinal assessment

    Academy of Management Journal

    (1988)
  • J. Hood et al.

    Quality of work life in home care: the contributions of leaders’ personal concern for staff

    Journal of Nursing Administration

    (1994)
  • Iranian Statistics Centre, 2011. <http://www.amar.org.ir115&agentType=View&PropertyID=872> (viewed...
  • Jafariayan, K., 2007. The effect of quality circles on job satisfaction of nurses working in Ghaemshahe Hospital. MSc...
  • Jamshidi, A., 2000. Assessing quality of worklife of staffs working Tehran province rehabilitation center. MSc thesis,...
  • Javadpour, M., 2007. The effect of thought participation on quality of work-life of nurses working in Lavasani...
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text