Abstract:
High employee turnover among sewing machine operators is one of the critical problems
facing the apparel industry in Sri Lanka as it creates high cost to the organizations. The
purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of Quality of Work Life on turnover
intention among the sewing machine operators in apparel industry in Sri Lanka.
This study was descriptive and correlational in nature. The population of the study
covers. sewing machine operators in Sri Lanka with the sample size of 350. The simple
random sampling method used to select the sample. The study collected data by
distributing a structured questionnaire among the sample and the overall response rate
was 94% (N=332).
The study used the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to analyze the data.
The descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages and graphs used to analysis
the demographic profiles of the respondents while the hypothesis testing was done with
ANOYA, t-test, Pearson Correlation Coefficient ancl regression analysis.
ii
Results revealed that the majority of the respondents were females (88%, N=292) and
nearly 91% of the respondents were young. The results illustrated that there is a
relationship between QWL and turnover intention and the study further indicated that
most of the respondents were dissatisfied with their work life and showed their
willingness to leave.
According to the results of Pearson's Correlation analysis. it was found that QWL were
negatively and significantly correlated with turnover intention of SMOs. The study
further indicated that there is a strong negative relationship (r=-.749) between these two
variables. Regression analysis shows that 56% of the turnovcr intcntion among SMO's
was explained by QWL. The study idcntified that thcre was a significant relationship
between demographic variablcs oj" education level and agc.
Finally, the study concluded that satisfied employees will positively contribute to the
organizational goals and assured that the qual ity of work life will not only attract young
and new talent but also retain the existing talent.
