Social Sciences

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    The Impact of Physical Work Environment on Job Satisfaction: The Perceptions of the Clerical Staff at the University of Kelaniya
    (5th National Conference on Applied Social Statistics (NRCASS) - 2019, Department of Social Statistics, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2019) Hapuhinna, H. K. D. W. M. S. K.; Kumar, S.
    The workforce within the service sector is rapidly increasing. Service sector employees spend much of their time in indoor office environments, which affect employee performance and employee wellbeing. Nonetheless, little empirical evidence is available from Sri Lanka to demonstrate the link between the physical work environments and job satisfaction. The present study is conducted to identify the different elements of the workspace and their association with job satisfaction. The environment comfort model postulates that environmental comfort can be conceptualised to include the three aspects, physical, functional and psychological comfort. Physical comfort is the minimal level of comfort required, followed by functional and psychological comfort in affecting employee satisfaction. Thus, the model is hierarchical in nature. Demographic characteristics of employees are expected to affect perceptions of comfort. The investigation was carried out through two studies, using qualitative and quantitative approaches. University of Kelaniya was selected as the study site and clerical and allied grade employees were selected as the population for both studies. Focus group discussions were used for data collection and relative levels of comfort for the three aspects were assessed. The highest satisfaction was with physical comfort, followed by functional and psychological comfort, which is consistent with the hierarchical nature of the environmental comfort model. The study used stratified random sampling. Demographic characteristics affected experiences of comfort; specifically, results showed male respondents reported higher environmental satisfaction than female employees. The results indicated a significant relationship between physical work environment and job satisfaction, but not with functional and psychological comfort. The findings were generally supportive of the environmental comfort model. The results support the hierarchical nature of environmental comfort and the significance of physical comfort in the job satisfaction of employees. The study highlights through qualitative data that all three levels of comfort are nevertheless important. The implications of the findings to managerial applications are also discussed.
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    Green Library Initiatives in India: Reshaping the Future
    (Department of Library and Information Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Duraipandi, R.
    Around the world Green library practices are witnessed and impressed for improved library services. The “greening” initiatives of India’s building construction industry received heighten and ranked at 3rd among the top 10 counties in the world outside USA. While the emerging concept of green library or sustainable library in India has to travel long road to reshape the library buildings to meet out the next generation user’s behavior and expectations. A library has to plan and built with ecological aspects of any new/renovation of buildings of libraries to prevent the negative environmental impacts of carbon footprint and to ensure the improved future library services at the maximum of available resources efficiently, effectively with user friendly within the building. The paper mainly focuses on few green library initiatives in India under the green library movement and highlighted the main parameters which involved for location selection, water and energy conservation, building materials and indoor and outdoor air quality etc, under Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), LEED-Leadership in Energy and Environment Design. The paper has also selected and limited with the following with: 1.Anna Centenary Library (ACL), Chennai, 2. PermaKarpoSchool Library atthe Indian Himalaya, 3.National Library, Kolkata, 4. Karnataka University Library, Dharwad, 5. Mumbai University Library, 6.Indian Institute Technology (IIT) Library, Roorke, 7. Chaudhary Braham Prakash Ayurved CharakSansthan (Institute) Library, New Delhi, 8. Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Silchar and 9.The Energy Research Institute (TERI) under GRIHA. Finally, it suggests the feasible idea of buildings with locally available with less costs materials. The trend in India is not only growing in numbers but also extends breadth and lengthily across the country is an notable to reshape the buildings to save the mankind which India is facing recently the environmental problems of climate change, global warming and air pollutions severely.