Organisational Culture and Work–Life Balance: A Comparative Study Between Self-Financing and Government College.

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According to numerical order Kerala is at the first position in literacy rate. Kerala, God’s own country, spends a huge amount every year for the educational sector to build up a knowledge economy. Both the public and private sector together contribute this achievement. Public sector educational institutions also cover aided educational institutions too. Quality assurance and basic infrastructural facilities are mandatory for getting affiliation from concerned authority. Even though in the case of private sector educational institutions are well developed in physical infrastructural facilities than public educational institutions except lab and lab instruments. Teaching and non-teaching staff of self-financing educational institutions face a constraint of inequality when compared with the employees of public sector educational institutions. Work load, unfair remuneration, job security etc. are the major problems faced by the employees of self-financing institutions. Generally communication between staff, support from colleagues and supervision from the top management is common in both government and self-financing colleges.

Introduction

Educational institutions are the foundation for building a productive human capital. When a person gets education, training, health and information he becomes productive, such productive human resources is called human capital. Human capital can do a lot to the nation rather than simply human resources. Obviously human resources are transformed to human capital at educational institutions. That’s why the government spent a huge portion of GDP on the educational sector and also allows private investment in the educational sector. In a contemporary world private educational institutions play a dominant rule in Kerala’s Educational system. Many private educational institutions are now working with a better track record and potential than government institutions. Perhaps some of them are highly performed as maintaining international standards. Physical infrastructure of educational institutions are well developed in private institutions. Despite the fact that self-financing institutions are facing shortage of funds from outside such as the Central government, other academic institutions etc. Similarly majority of the self-financing colleges in Kerala does not follow the pay scale to their employees as per University Grants Commission (UGC). Of course it will affect the quality of education as well because an institution with a lower remuneration scale may find it difficult to hire efficient employees. This phenomenon also affects the work–life balance and job satisfaction of employees.

Work–life balance is the lack of opposition between work and other life roles. Work–life balance explains how job and personal life is going on through equilibrium. A person can won in society based on how he maintains his official duty without collaborating with personal life. It is the state of equilibrium in which demands of personal life, professional life, and family life are equal. Work–life balance consists of, but it is not limited to, flexible work arrangements that allow employees to carry out other life programs and practices . Work–life balance is essential for an organisation to become a fully potential knowledgeable tension free person, who can contribute more to the society than a person suffering a lot of personal as well as official problems.

Self-financing colleges are now operating with teaching staff recruited by their own management. In fact many of these organisations do not follow qualification criteria fixed by University Grants Commission (UGC) for getting benefit of lower payments. Meanwhile teaching staff of public sector educational organisations are recruited by the Public Service Commission and management (for aided college) by satisfying UGC norms. Hence there is a chance of supplying quality output in Government colleges rather than self-financing colleges. This is an attempt to study the job satisfaction of both private and public educational institutions.

Review of Literature

(McDowell, 2004) he explains demand wide-reaching variations in the ways in which enterprises and institutions run in a range of spatial scales as well as new sets of duties towards co-workers, members of households and the wider public. He arrives at a decision that considers some of the implications of such morale and believes in day to day practices within the prescribed limit.

(Ali et al., 2012) conducted a study among students about their study habits and make a comparative study between sector wise public school and private school and they arrive at a decision that the student’s interest in the study is higher in the private schools as compared to students in the public schools. However, the active concentration during the study was higher by students of the public sector schools. At the end, suggestions are provided for improvement in study habits of students for better learning in schools of both sectors. It indicates that private school teachers are more about their students because of the pressure from top management.

(Jeynes & Beuttler, 2012) conducted a study in the USA. The study focuses on the value based performance of educational institutions in the USA. He arrived at the decision that educational institutions have performed well in the last decade.

(Kim & Loadman, 1994) conducted a study on job satisfaction of teachers. Job satisfaction such as working conditions, professional challenge, interaction with colleagues, professional autonomy, and interaction with students are generally classified as intrinsic satisfiers. Intrinsic satisfiers refer to factors that make certain activities rewarding in themselves. This study has the potential of generating the achievement of individual and organizational goals through improvement in job satisfaction of teachers.

(Markovits et al., 2007) his article examines the relationships between job satisfaction and organizational commitment profiles in Greece. Greek organizations have rarely been the subject of detailed examination, so the study provides baseline information regarding levels of organizational commitment and job satisfaction in Greece. The study concludes that nationality of the employees largely affected the satisfaction level of employees.

(Bhatti et al., 2012) conducted a study on the impact of leadership style in job satisfaction of public sector and private sector teachers. Effective leadership is the extent to which a leader continually and progressively leads and directs his/her followers to the agreed destination which is defined by the whole group. The study concludes that leadership style influences job satisfaction of teaching staff.

Statement of the problem

Reviews clearly explains that work–life balance is associated with leadership style, nature of organisation, job security, salary, opportunities for advancement, professional challenge, professional autonomy, working conditions, interaction with colleagues, and interaction with students. In fact the majority of the organisations are difficult to maintain the harmonised work–life balance. It is varying under different conditions.

Objective of the Study

To study the similarities and dissimilarities in job satisfaction of teachers in Government and self-financing colleges.

Scope of the Study

Data collected for this article from employees’ especially teaching staff of the Government colleges (including aided college) and self-financing colleges in Thiruvananthapuram district in the state of Kerala. Sampling area is limited to Thiruvananthapuram district only.

Methodology of the study

The study is analytical in nature. Data collected from Government and self-financing colleges equally. Teaching staff is chosen as populations of the study. Both primary and secondary data is used for the study. Primary data is collected from teaching staff through structured questionnaires and secondary data is collected from all available sources such as journals, articles and books.

Sampling Technique

Convenient sampling technique is used for collecting data from the populations.

Sample Unit

A sample comprises of 160 teaching employees 80 government employees (40 males; 40 females) teachers, and 80 self-financing college teachers (40 males; 40 females).

Data Analysis and Interpretation

Table no-1 indicates demographic classification of sample units. It is clear that the sample covering 50% of the employees are male and remaining members are female. 68.5 % of the sample are married persons and remaining members are unmarried. Status of the job consist of guest lecturer, assistant professors, associate professors and professors. Among these, the majority of the teaching staff taken for the study comes under the designation of assistant professors with a percentage of 41.25%. Majority of the teachers have an experience up to 5 years.ie, 35.5% employees come under that category followed by an experience of 11-15 years with 27.25 %. 25.25% of the employees have experience in between 6-10 years. Majority of the staff have the qualification of a master degree and only 10% of the teaching staff have Ph.D. degrees.

The result of the study the mean difference in Job Satisfaction between teachers from Government College and self-financing college explains that significant difference was found between Public and self-financing college teachers on the variable of scale of Pay (t=-3.138, p <.05); Promotion (t=-2.174, p <.05); Contingent Rewards (t= 3.823, p <.05); Operating Conditions (t= -2.247, p <.05); Fringe Benefits (t=-2.554, p <.05) and Nature of Work (t=-2.482, p <.05). Apparently, no difference was found in the variable of formal and informal Communication (t=.315, p >.05); Colleague (t= -.878, p> .05); and Supervision (t=-.595, p >.05).

Findings

There is a significant difference in job satisfaction between self-financing and government college teachers.There is a significant difference in variables like scale of pay, promotion, fringe benefit, contingent reward, and working condition between self-financing and government college teachers.There is insignificant difference between self-financing and government college teachers on the variables like communication between colleagues and supervision from the top management.

Conclusion

Teachers working in self-financing and government colleges are doing the same duty with different pay scales. Employees working in self-financing colleges are facing so many problems. Underpayment, lack of promotion, lack of adequate fringe benefits, no reward for additional duty, improper working conditions etc. however communication between staff, supervision from the top management and support from colleagues are generally unique in both government and self-financing colleges. The study concluded that job satisfaction is more in Government colleges than self-financing colleges.

References

Ali, A., Ali, Z., & Naz, R. (2012). Study habits and education planning: A case study of comparison of private and public sector schools. The Dialogue, 7(3), 309–318.
Bhatti, N., Maitlo, G. M., Shaikh, N., Hashmi, M. A., & Shaikh, F. M. (2012). The impact of autocratic and democratic leadership style on job satisfaction. International Business Research, 5(2), 192.
Jeynes, W. H., & Beuttler, F. (2012). What private and public schools can learn from each other. Peabody Journal of Education, 87(3), 285–304.
Kim, I., & Loadman, W. E. (1994). Predicting Teacher Job Satisfaction.
Markovits, Y., Davis, A. J., & Van Dick, R. (2007). Organizational commitment profiles and job satisfaction among Greek private and public sector employees. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 7(1), 77–99.
McDowell, L. (2004). Work, workfare, work/life balance and an ethic of care. Progress in Human Geography, 28(2), 145–163.