Leisure Activities and Quality of Work Life among General Shift BPO Employees

INTRODUCTION

Gathered evidence shows that leisure activities have a positive impact on the general functioning of an individual. Leisure activities means a person has time free from all the compulsory activities such as demands from work or duty, it also includes when one can rest, enjoy hobbies or sports. Stress and reduction of occurrence of depression can be better managed by involving in leisure activities. Quality of work life refers to the effective management of multiple responsibilities at work, at home, and in the other aspects of life. The full form of BPO is Business Process Outsourcing which is a today developing industry which is receiving substantial consideration from all other sectors such as government, business, as well as from the academe. The main function is to outsource the processes to a third party that are not a part of the core company but are needed in its everyday operations. With the sustained growth of this industry, these days the BPOs are getting sizable academic consideration and are now dealing with various aspects like work environment, organizational atmosphere and specific organization and work-related issues.

ChallaMadhavi (2017) conducted a research on the Quality of Working Life of BPO employees. This focuses on the QWL from a viewpoint of the employees and accomplishment of their needs rather than concentrating on the segregated work culture from the place of actual work. The persistence was to identify negative effects of the work culture and difficulties confronted by the techies of BPOs in Hyderabad. BPO employees in Hyderabad, Telangana were considered for the study. Jopp et al (2016) studied in a life span sample the Importance of Leisure Activities in the Relationship between Physical Health and Well-Being. The study examined the associations among the leisure activities, health and well-being by seeing the role by applying a cross-sectional database. In addition to this the linear regression models and mediation models were tested. Regression analyses indicated that physical health was related to leisure activities and leisure activities were related to well-being. using the subjective ratings, the physical health was measured, in which the age had a stronger connection with leisure activities. Though the physical health was showed by health boundaries, bodily health had a stronger relationship with relaxation activities than the age did. Leisure activities were a limited moderator of the relationship between physical health and well-being. The results verified that the decrease in leisure activities with age has more to do with physical healthiness limits than with older age itself. Carrington, Kerry & McIntosh, Alison (2013) A Literature Review of Wellness, Wellbeing and Quality of Life Issues as they impact upon the Australian Mining Sector. Valuable employees are getting expensive and more difficult to hold on to. A case in the Australian mining sector, precisely to review the literature is sourced on the basis of - effect of obesity, alcohol, tobacco use on establishments; and relations between employee engagement and satisfaction and company productivity. Accordingly, the review has tried to determine as to what are the factors an organization should be focusing on in order to lessen absenteeism and turnover and the intensification of organizational commitment, satisfaction, safety and productivity, with specific reference to the mining industry in Australia. Silverstein et al (2002) considered the Leisure Activities and Quality of Life among the Oldest Old in Sweden. Portrayal on Rowe and Kahn's (1998) notion that "engagement with life" is a critical component of successful aging, in which the study verified whether change in leisure activities over a ten-year period was linked with retrospectively evaluated the changes in quality of life among older people in Sweden. A nationally representative sample of 324 older Swedes living in the community were considered for the study which was surveyed in 1981 and 1992. For which Fifteen leisure activities were divided into six domains: culture-entertainment, productive-personal growth, outdoor-physical, recreation-expressive, friendship, and formal-group. Ordered logit analysis showed that those increasing their activity participation across domains tended to remark an enhancement in their life conditions. This was predominantly strong among older adults who became widowed, individuals who had relatively low contact with family and also who developed functional impairments. This outcome suggests that maximizing activity participation is an adaptive approach taken by older adults to recompense for social and physical shortfalls in their later life.

The aim of the study is to find relation among general shift BPO employees on leisure activities and quality of life.

1. To study the relation between leisure activities and quality of life among general shift BPO employees 2. To study the significance of leisure activities among general shift BPO employees

―There is a significant relation between leisure activities and quality of life among general shift BPO employees.‖

The current study is exploratory in nature.

Independent variable: Gender Dependent variable: leisure activities and quality of life

A total of 60 BPO employees both (30 men and 30 women) aging between 19-30-year, individual who are single were a part of the research. Urban BPO s located in Bengaluru city were only considered for the research. The sample were selected using simple random sampling technique. The average experience of the subjects were 1.2 years. Materials: An information schedule along with The Victoria Longitudinal Study Activities Questionnaire developed by Jopp & Hertzog (2010) to measure the leisure activities was administered.

Reliability: split-half method corrected for full length by applying Spearman-Brown prophecy formula, the coefficient is 0.89.

This section consists of statistical analysis of the study. Pearson correlation was computed for the data using SPSS 20.

Table 1 shows the correlation coefficient values among female BPO employees between leisure activities and quality of work life is 0.19 which is statistically significant at 0.05 level and is positively correlated to each other. This is because women now-a-days are striking a balance between their professional and personal life. Their personal space includes attending lunch / dinner or sometimes even may be associating themselves with any sports club like badminton, swimming classes, dance or Zumba and also in addition connecting with recreational clubs with other people who have similar or same interest. BPO offices these days provide help their employees through achieving better work-life balance and advancements in their career. BPO employees can avail flexible working hours, childcare Men scores are negatively correlated and not significant at 0.05 level. Reviews on leisure activities and quality of life between men and women suggests contrary findings, for example, a contrary study by Qidwai et al (2010) reports that Female respondents were more depressed than male respondents and also had more sleep problems. The use of Substances abuse and other addictions were recognized more in males. Watching TV or spending time listening to songs or melody was specified as the most shared late-night activity (61.8%) and hence was also mentioned to as the causative factor for less than eight hours of sleep each day. (41.5%) of the respondents who felt depressed sought treatment for it. Currently about 35 adolescents out of all the participants were smoking cigarettes, and about 7% of the respondents chewed paan (areca nut). One of the most popular reasons given was Peer pressure (37.1%) to start smoking. The findings of this study prove the above review that men employees are negatively utilizing their leisure time by indulging in negative activities which is directly affecting their quality of life. This is vice versa in women employees.

SUMMARY OF THE RESULTS

Results indicate that there is a significant relation between the leisure activities and the quality of life among the general shift BPO employees • Male scores are negatively correlated. • Female scores positively correlated. • The difference found between the male employees and female employees is due to the difference in their utility of the leisure time which includes their activities that they indulge in.

Agahi, N., & Parker, M. G. (2005). Are today's older people more active than their predecessors? Participation in leisure-time activities in Sweden in 1992 and 2002. Ageing & Society, 25(6), pp. 925-941. Carrington, K., & McIntosh, A. (2013). A literature review of wellness, wellbeing and quality of life issues as they impact upon the Australian mining sector. Dhar, Dhar and Roy (2008). ―Quality of work life scale‖, Manual for Quality of work life Scale(QWLS). Jopp, D and Hertzog, C (2010) ―Victoria Longitudinal Study Activities Questionnaire‖. Psychological Assessment, Vol 22, No.1, pp. 108-120. Jopp, D. S., Park, M. K. S., Lehrfeld, J., & Paggi, M. E. (2016). Physical, cognitive, social and mental health in near-centenarians and centenarians living in New York City: findings from the Fordham Centenarian Study. BMC geriatrics, 16(1), pp. 1. Qidwai, W., Ishaque, S., Shah, S., & Rahim, M. (2010). Adolescent lifestyle and behaviour: A survey from a developing country. PloS one, 5(9), pp. e12914.

Research Scholar, Department of Psychology, Bangalore University brinda.sunshine@gmail.com