However, the [International Labour Organization] ILO at its Asian Regional Conference, defined labour welfare as a term which is understood to include such services, facilities and amenities as may be established in or in the vicinity of undertakings to enable the persons employed in them to perform their work in healthy, congenial surroundings and to provide them with amenities conducive to good health and high morale.
Welfare includes anything that is done for the comfort and improvement of employees and is provided over and above the wages. Welfare helps in keeping the morale and motivation of the employees high so as to retain the employees for longer duration. The welfare measures need not be in monetary terms only but in any kind/forms. Employee welfare includes monitoring of working conditions, creation of industrial harmony through infrastructure for health, industrial relations and insurance against disease, accident and unemployment for the workers and their families.
Labor welfare entails all those activities of employer which are directed towards providing the employees with certain facilities and services in addition to wages or salaries.
Labor welfare has the following objectives:
:-: To provide better life and health to the workers
:-: To make the workers happy and satisfied
:-: To relieve workers from industrial fatigue and to improve intellectual, cultural and material conditions of living of the workers.
The basic features of labor welfare measures are as follows:
:-: Labor welfare includes various facilities, services and amenities provided to workers for improving their health, efficiency, economic betterment and social status.
:-: Welfare measures are in addition to regular wages and other economic benefits available to workers due to legal provisions and collective bargainin.
:-: Labor welfare schemes are flexible and ever-changing. New welfare measures are added to the existing ones from time to time.
:-: Welfare measures may be introduced by the employers, government, employees or by any social or charitable agency.
:-: The purpose of labor welfare is to bring about the development of the whole personality of the workers to make a better workforce.
The very logic behind providing welfare schemes is to create efficient, healthy, loyal and satisfied labor force for the organization. The purpose of providing such facilities is to make their work life better and also to raise their standard of living. The important benefits of welfare measures can be summarized as follows:
:-: They provide better physical and mental health to workers and thus promote a healthy work environment
:-: Facilities like housing schemes, medical benefits, and education and recreation facilities for workers’ families help in raising their standards of living. This makes workers to pay more attention towards work and thus increases their productivity.
:-: Employers get stable labor force by providing welfare facilities. Workers take active interest in their jobs and work with a feeling of involvement and participation.
:-: Employee welfare measures increase the productivity of organization and promote healthy industrial relations thereby maintaining industrial peace.
:-: The social evils prevalent among the labors such as substance abuse, etc are reduced to a greater extent by the welfare policies.
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