Quality of Work-Life among Employees of University of The Gambia

Quality of work-life (QWL) is concerned with the welfare and satisfaction of employees on the job as well as off the job. The purpose of this research is to examine the QWL among the employees of the only national higher education university University of The Gambia (UTG). Thus, our original contribution to research is that we examined an application of QWL in a context (i.e. UTG) that has not existed in extant literature. Summary of the results indicates that interestingly four aspects of QWL stand in employees’ evaluation as “moderateto-high” motivators: (1) relations and co-operations, (2) autonomy of work, (3) organizational culture and (4) working climate. However, to “moderate-to-low” level of motivation with QWL aspects has been reported (1) job satisfaction and job security, (2) training and development, (3) work environment, (4) adequacy of resources, (5) compensation and rewards, and (6) facilities. These results are indeed critical to human resources development planning of the UTG. Also, results confirm the multidisciplinary and multisectoral nature of QWL and the managerial implications are thus unique to the case under study.


INTRODUCTION
The performance and productivity of an organization depend on how effective and efficient it manages its resources (e.g. Kermansaravi, Navidian, Rigi&Yaghoubinia, 2015; Darabi, Mehdizadeh, Arefi&Ghasemi, 2013). Organizational resources vary and workforce or human resources constitute one of the most critical resources. The human resources scholars argue that an empowered and motivated workforce has significant implication on productivity (Monkevicius, 2014;Jebel, 2013). Human resource is an important asset to the organization and when they are dissatisfied, they become the organization's first enemy (Swamy, Nanjundeswaraswamy and Rashmi, 2015). Further, the noticed that to sustain in the competitive market, organizations must treat the employees as assets, not liabilities through responsible humanized job design process known as quality of work-life (QWL). philosophically, QWL is a set of principles that recognizes the importance of human resources (i.e. the people) resource in any organization. Thus, can be trusted to make responsible and valuable contributions to The continuous research consequently gave birth to the concept of QWL in the 1960s when the then General Motors employee, Irving Bluestone, used the expression "Quality of work-life" for the first time (see Goode, 1989, cited by Martel & Dupuis, 2006). However, the use of the term QWL became much more prevalent after the international conference on QWL held in Arden House, New York in 1972 that led to the formation of International Centre for QWL in 1973 to promote research and the exchange of information concerning mental health at work (Martel & Dupuis, 2006;Gani& Ahmad, 1995).
Since the introduction of QWL and despite the substantial body of research on the concept in recent years, there has not been any universally or generally accepted definition of the term. Different views exist as to what is QWL. It has become an umbrella term for a multitude of activities and different people has defined it differently at different times (Ganguly, 2010). Moreover, QWL may be addressed and analyzed according to several disciplines (Newton & Leckie, 1977). For instance, it may be considered as 1) a "goal" by focusing on work improvement through creating more involving and satisfying jobs and work environment for employees 2) a "process" by seeking the active involvement of all employees at all levels of the organization; and 3) a "philosophy" where organization recognize the fundamental human dignity of all its members and thus recognizing employees as assets to be realized and developed rather than as a cost to be controlled (Carlson, 1981). Therefore, a precise definition of the boundaries and subject matter of QWL remains a debate. Nevertheless, a review of some of the definitions given by researchers is present in table 1 -providing more comprehensive definitions of the QWL. QWL is a subsystem of socio-economic systems and as such defined it as the study of the structure and processes of the dynamic field of work relations within a complex and interdependent environment of many systems. Sinha (1982) QWL refers to the relationship between a worker and his environment, adding the human dimension to the technical and economic dimensions within which work is normally viewed and designed. Shamir and Salomon (1985) QWL covers the individual's job-related well-being and the extent to which his or her work experience is rewarding, fulfilling, and devoid of stress and other negative personal consequences. Corcoran (1986) QWL is referred to as a variety of techniques for raising productivity and job satisfaction by altering the nature of the workplace, increasing the employee's stake in the organization, and/or creating new opportunities for employee participation in decision making. Martel and Dupuis (2006) Defined QWL based on the general Quality of Life Model corresponds to a condition experienced by the individual in his or her dynamic pursuit of his or her hierarchically organized goals within work domains where the reduction of the gap separating the individual from these goals is reflected by a positive impact on the individual's general quality of life, organizational performance and consequently the overall functioning of the society. Armstrong (2006) QWL is the sense of satisfaction people obtains from their work by, so far as possible, reducing monotony, increasing variety, autonomy and responsibility, and avoiding placing people under too much stress. Kaur (2016) QWL in the education sector is defined as the bond between the teachers and working environment of the universities.
Thus, it is understood that many factors contribute to QWL, ranging from ranging from the subjective to objective dimensions, and financial to non-financial dimensions ( Levine (1983) also proposed six dimensions of QWL in his paper "Self-developed QWL measures" which include the degree to which superiors treat subordinates with respect and have confidence in their abilities; extent to which life outside of work affects life at work; challenging work; equitable promotions; variety in the daily work routine; and self-esteem. Saklani (2003) adopts thirteen dimensions of QWL: adequate and fair compensation; reward and penalty administration; job security; human relations and social aspect of life; work load and job stress; equity, justice and grievance handling; opportunity to use and develop human capacity; balance in life; opportunity for career growth; physical working environment; participation in decisionmaking; fringe benefits and welfare measures; and image of organization in the society. Finally, Corcoran (1986) study on "improving the quality of work life in public schools" suggested the seven dimensions: challenging job; autonomy to make decisions about ones work; sense of belonging to a group or community; decent physical working conditions; safety and security at work place; rewards associated with work -both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards; treating employees with dignity and respect. He however concluded that even though successful organizations have used most, or all the dimensions listed above to effectively implement QWL programs, there is no universal remedy for QWL. What works in one setting may fail in another due to poor implementation.
The review of literature shows that the debate on the concept and dimensions of QWL is far from over. Given the subjectivity of the concept, it seems the disagreement among scholars and researchers might be dragged into the future and they might never come to a common ground on the concept and determinants of QWL. The universality of the concept remains a myth. Thus, adopting Swamy, et al. (2015), this study utilized nine QWL dimensions: work environment, organization culture and climate; relation and cooperation; training and development; compensation and rewards; facilities; Job satisfaction and job security; autonomy of work; and adequacy of resources.

Empirical review of Quality of Work Life in the Education Sector
QWL in the education sector is defined as the bond between the teachers and the working environment of the universities (Kaur, 2016 It could be observed that from the empirical review that the findings of previous studies indicate mix results in terms of the overall level of employees' QWL in educational institutions. Despite a growing research stream on the QWL, limited studies exist in the African education institutions, particularly in the Gambia. Thus, this study seeks to investigate the following propositions: H1: There is a significant gender difference in the evaluation of QWL. H2: There is a significant difference between academic and non-academic staff in the evaluation of QWL. H3: There is a significant difference between staff earning and their evaluation of QWL. H4: There is a significant difference between the level of education and the evaluation of QWL H5: There is a significant difference between the staff on different categories of work experience and their evaluation of QWL. H6: There is a significant difference in different age category and their evaluation of QWL.

Research approach
The purpose of this research is to evaluate QWL among UTG staff in the Gambia. A survey design was adopted. Following several scholars, this study uses an online questionnaire (Leary, 2001, Ceesay, 2017. The questionnaire comprises of questions about measurement variables as the dependent variable of QWL and the independent variables about demographic factors (Bhattacherjee, 2012). Also, a correlational type of investigation is conducted to test the study's hypothesis (i.e. to determine whether QWL and demographic variables of the research subjects are related).

Sampling population
The target population for this study is the staff of the University of the Gambia (UTG). A total of 480 staff participated in this study. Out of which 148 are administrative staff (147 full time and 1 part-time) and 332 academic staff (248 full time and 84 part-time). Auxiliary staff (including security guards, drivers, cleaners, gardeners, labourers, groundsmen) with a total of 78 staff which are categorized under administrative staff either have very low or zero formal English education and since a structured selfadministered online questionnaire is used for collecting data, these people could not participate in the study because of their inability to read, understand or respond meaningfully to the questions due to their inadequate understanding of English. Thus, a probability sample was not possible because not all elements of the population have equal chances of being included in the sample. The researcher had to resort to judgement sampling which is used when a limited category of people who are best positioned to provide the information that is required for the research are selected in the sample (Sekaran, 2003).
The size of the sample depends on the research question(s) and objectives (Saunders et al., 2009). However, "survey research is generally notorious for its low response rates" (Bhattacherjee, 2012, p.80) especially when it is conducted through online questionnaires -usually, a response rate of 30% or lower is typical and reasonable (Saunders et al., 2009). Given these reasons and to boost response rate, the remaining 402 staff (i.e. the 480 total staff population less the 78-auxiliary staff) were used as the sample. 145 staff responded to the questionnaire which is a response rate of 36%.

The instrument for data collection
The instrument used for collecting the primary data was a set of structured selfadministered questionnaire which is adopted from the study of Swamy et al. (2015). The questionnaire is developed in English and is divided into two sections: section one and section two. Section one contains questions relating to personal and demographic variables. Questions regarding age, gender, work experience, employment status, monthly salary, level of education etc. were asked in this section and the data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Section two consisted of 50 item QWL scale to measure nine dimensions of QWL which include: work environment, organizational culture and climate, relation and co-operation, training and development, compensation and rewards, facilities, job satisfaction and job security, the autonomy of work, and adequacy of resources. The questions in this section were closed-ended questions designed with 5 points Likert type scale ranging from strongly disagree "1" to strongly agree "5". "To reduce response bias, questions 3, 11, 16 and 45 were negatively worded. The responses are reverse scored on these survey items to determine the status of QWL" (Swamy et al., 2015, p. 286). Each dimension has multiple questions as shown in Table 3.

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Measurement Scales adopted Number of statements 1 Work Environment 6 2 Organizational Culture and Climate 7 3 Relations and Co-operations 6 4 Training and Development 4 5 Compensation and Rewards 5 6 Facilities 5 7 Job Satisfaction and Job Security 8 8 Autonomy Adequacy of Resources 3 (1) they argued that Walton's QWL model presented difficulties to some respondents in terms of interpreting and understanding the original form of the model, due to the use of "more elaborate terms and expressions". According to them, this issue came to light during the development of some studies related to QWL, and after a lot of applications of the model, (2) they also contended that the lack of direct and specific questions or the definition of each criterion was another difficulty with Walton's model. They concluded that based on these perspectives, the need for an instrument of easy comprehension by respondents with direct and specific questions is justified.
Also, the Cronbach's alpha coefficient above 0.70 is adequate reliability (Leary, 2001

Demographic Characteristics of Respondents
The demographic profiles of the respondents including gender, education, monthly salary, employment status, designation, age, and work experience. In total 145 individuals responded to the questionnaire. The result indicates that majority of the respondents (77%) are male while 23% are female. A greater per cent of the respondents (51%) have a master's degree, followed by 40% with bachelor's degree or below. Only a smaller per cent (9%) of the respondents hold PhD. According to the employment category, the majority of the respondents (75.4%) are academic staff and the rest (24.6%) being administrative staff.
Distribution according to income shows that a less than half (40.7%) of UTG staff are earning a monthly salary of GMD 10,000 or less, most of them (53.1%) earn a staggering amount between GMD 10,001 and GMD 20,000. Only small per cent (6.2%) of respondents are earning above GMD 20,000. With a bigger per cent (93.8%) of respondents earning GMD 20,000 GMD or less, we could infer from this results that a significant majority of UTG staff are earning GMD 20,000 or less which is less than 450 USD 1 . Additionally, a bigger per cent (97.2%) of respondents are reported as full-time staff while only a smaller per cent (2.8%) reported as part-time, tenure staff of the UTG. Among the respondents, 43.6% are aged 30 years or below, 30.1% are between 31 to 40 years, and 26.3% are aged more than 40 years. Finally, a whopping 59.5% of the respondents have a work experience of 5 years or less, 19.8% with 6 to 10 years, and 20.7% with more than 10 years of work experience. With close to 60% of respondents having 5 years or fewer work experiences coupled with their age and level of salary (over 93% earning less than 500 USD).

UTG Staff's Level of Satisfaction with their Overall QWL and its Dimensions
Descriptive statistic was conducted to determine the level of satisfaction of UTG staff with regards to their overall QWL and its dimensions. Based on a five-point Likert scale used to measure QWL, the minimum and maximum rating of QWL and each of the nine dimensions were computed as well as the mean and standard deviation to determine the satisfaction with the overall level of QWL and its dimensions. The result reveals that the respondents are moderately dissatisfied with their overall evaluation of QWL with a mean of(2.96) and a standard deviation of(0.47). Similar results were found by Baleghizadeh 2015) who have conducted a study on occupational stress and quality of work-life in private colleges of Oman (Muscat) and found that respondents were moderately satisfied with their QWL. It is also not in line with the findings of Rehan and Arora (2014) who also found that Punjubi University Teachers were moderately satisfied with their QWL. The geographic setting and the respondent under which the study is carried out could affect the study result. Therefore, we need to be courteous when we compare the results because as pointed out by Bustillo, Macías, Antón, Esteve, and Contreras (2009, p. 16) "when we try to apply the characteristics of work and employment that affect the wellbeing of the worker internationally, great difficulties arise because there are structural and cultural differences, as well as different levels of economic development, that make those "characteristics" likely to differ from country to country". The respondents reported the highest level of satisfaction in their evaluation of relations and co-operations with a mean (M) score of (3.56) and a standard deviation of (0.58) and lowest values in facilities with a mean score of (2.49) and a standard deviation of (0.82). It also shows that the respondents are moderately satisfied with only three dimensions of QWL: relations and co-operations(M = 3.56 and SD = 0.58),autonomy of work(M = 3.33 and SD = 0.60) and organizational culture and climate(M =3.17 and SD = 0.62).The following contentions can be deduced from these results: (1) the respondents have a harmonious and cordial relationship with their colleagues and superiors and thus leading to a strong sense of community at UTG; (2) they perceived that they have freedom, independence and discretion in determining the pace and procedures of their work. This means employees express flexibility in their job. This might be a fact that part of the work could be completed at work. For instance, academic staff can grade examination and assessment scripts at home. Also, working hours are flexible; (3) they also perceived the norms and values (i.e. culture) existing in UTG to be satisfactory. They feel they are involved in decision making by providing comments and suggestions, do not experience gender discrimination and are proud to be working for UTG. . Therefore, we could infer the following impressions to these perceptions: (1) the respondents do not feel satisfied with or secured about their job. The dissatisfaction with their job may be due to a combination of factors such as working conditions, pay and benefits etc. However, their job insecurity is evident in the fact that even full-time UTG staff are appointed on a contract basis. This means the end of the contract could lead to the termination of one's employment. This could lead to a high level of turnover and a low level of commitment and it may be the reason why UTG is not attracting highly experienced individuals as a majority of the respondents (up to 60%) have a work experience of 5 years or less; (2) they are not satisfied with the level of training and development they are getting from UTG to perform their job well. In other words, they feel that the training programs provided by UTG are not enough to gain the required skills and qualifications to achieve their objectives. This is not surprising as the greatest number (up to 91%) of respondents including academic staff do not have a PhD; (3) the working conditions of UTG are not favourable to the respondents. This could be explained by the fact that at UTG, most of the offices and classrooms are not properly ventilated in the sense that only a few offices are equipped with air conditioning (AC) even though some are equipped with ceiling fans.
However, some of these ACs and fans are not functioning and thus making it unbearable for lecturers to stay in their offices sometimes due to high temperature -given that The Gambia is a very hot country. In addition to this, the conditions of the toilet facilities are often inhumane hence making it very unconducive to use them. Worse than these is the fact that some staff especially academic staff don't even have office space. These conditions together with other issues might be responsible for their dissatisfaction with their (respondents) working conditions; (4) the respondents feel that the resources provided to facilitate the performance of their duties are not enough. This is very much expected because at UTG even the most basic resources such as white A4 size papers, white-board markers, projectors, cartridge for photocopying and printing machines etc. are not enough.
Furthermore, most of the staff especially the academic staff are not provided with computers to facilitate their work. Also, no limited internet facility across its campuses make it even worst. Thus, since the primary channel of communication at UTG is through email, some staff do not get information at the right time and hence leading to ineffective information dissemination (ineffective communication channels) (Ceesay and Sanyang, 2018). Besides, without computers and the internet, research becomes very difficult. Moreover, libraries are ill-equipped and classroom spaces, classroom furniture remain inadequate. Thus, adequacy of resource was expected to occupy the last position when it comes to satisfaction of QWL of UTG staff.; (5) respondents feel that they are not adequately and fairly compensated for the work that they do. Moreover, they feel UTG does not pay salary by considering responsibilities at work neither are their rewards linked to performance. This might be explained by the fact that the greatest number of the respondents (up to 93.8%) including those with PhD are paid less than USD 450 (less than USD 5,400 per annum) which could be one of the lowest salaries paid to university staff in the world. For instance, in Uganda, University lecturers are paid an average gross annual salary of USD 8,998; in Kenya, USD 16,959; in Tanzania, USD 11,750; in Zimbabwe, USD 17,378; in Botswana, USD 31,279; in Namibia, USD 28,542 and in Swaziland, USD 22,532. This does not include the remunerations of senior lecturers, associate professors and professors as they are paid higher (pay increases as qualification increases) (Mushemeza, 2016, p. 243); (6) finally, they are not satisfied with welfare facilities such as transportation, social security benefits, health insurance, food etc. Despite the university's contribution to towards employee's social security, other welfare services such as food and health insurance are not provided to employees. Also, transportation is only provided in one of the campuses and for the remaining campuses, employees must struggle on their own to get to work which is quite hectic during rush hours.

Relationship Between QWL and Demographic Factors
To answer the third research question -is there any relationship between UTG staff's QWL and their demographic variables of 6 different hypotheses were drawn: Hypotheses One: There is a significant difference between men and women concerning their QWL. To test these hypotheses an independent t-test is conducted, and the results of the t-test revealed that on average, female (M =3.0544, SD=0.46709)have bigger mean than their male counterparts (M=2.9553, SD= 0.47088)in their evaluation of.However, this difference, 0.09905, at 95% confidence interval (-0.08822, 0.28631), is not statistically significant, t-value(137) = 1.046, p = 0.297. Thus, we can say that there is no significant difference between men and women concerning their QWL. Hence hypotheses one is not substantiated. The present study replicates the findings of Al-Zboon et al. (n.d.) whose results also indicate no significant mean difference in QWL between male and female Jordanian special education teachers. The results are also consistent with the findings of Manju (2014) but it contradicts with the findings of Mehdipour et al, (2012).

Hypotheses two:
The results of the t-test reveal that on average, non-academic staff (M = 3.1011, SD =0.48754) are more satisfied with their QWL than academic staff (M = 2.9174, SD = 0.44293). Furthermore, this difference, -0.18378, at 95% confidence interval (-0.35880, 0.00891), is statistically significant, t-value (140) = -2.078, p = 0.040. Thus, we can say that there is a significant difference between academic staff and non-academic staff in their evaluation of QWL. Hence hypotheses two is substantiated. Nanjundeswarawamy and Swamy (2013) also found a significant difference between teaching and non-nonteaching staff and in their case too, non-teaching staff were more satisfied with their QWL than teaching staff in technical institutions. However, Elamparuthy and Jambulingam (2016) found no significant difference between the designation of the respondents and their observed levels of overall quality of work life. However, his comparison was between lecturer, senior lecturer, assistant professor and professor and not between academic and non-academic staff as is the case for the present study.
Hypotheses Three: There is a significant difference between the staff on different levels of monthly salary concerning their QWL. To test this hypothesis, a one-way ANOVA is conducted. Levene's test is not significant. Therefore, we have not violated the assumption of homogeneity of variance. The results of the ANOVA test found a statistically significant difference between staff with different levels of monthly salary in their evaluation of QWL (F = 3.208; p = 0.043). Therefore, hypotheses three is substantiated. Staff earning GMD 10,000 or less are more satisfied (M = 3.0824; SD = 0.48082), followed by those earning more than GMD 20,000 (M = 2.8978; SD = 0.46438) and then those earning between GMD 10,001 to GMD 20,000 (M = 2.8816; SD = 0.45330).These results mirror the results of Almalki et al. (2012) who also found a significant mean monthly pay difference among primary health care nurses in the Jazan region, Saudi Arabia with regards to their QWL.
Since ANOVA test could only tell us that a significant difference exists among the different groups but could not determine which groups the true differences lie, a posthoc test was administered using Hochberg's GT2 procedure to find out which monthly salary group of respondents differs significantly from other groups. It is observed from the Post Hoc analysis that when the respondents earning GMD 10,000 or less are compared to those earning between GMD 10,001 to GMD 20,000, a significant mean difference in their evaluation of is revealed (sig. is less than 0.05). Respondents earning GMD 10,000 or less are more satisfied in their evaluation of than those earning GMD 10,001 to GMD 20,000. However, when respondents earning GMD 10,000 or less are compared to those earning more than GMD 20,000 and those earning between GMD 10,001 to GMD 20,000 are compared to those earning more than GMD 20,000, no significant mean differences in their evaluation of QWL is revealed in both cases (sig. is greater than 0.05). Therefore, we could conclude that the true difference lies between respondents earning GMD 10,000 or less and those earning between GMD 10,001 to GMD 20,000.
Hypotheses Four: There is a significant difference between the staff with different level of education concerning their QWL. To test this hypothesis, a one-way ANOVA is conducted. Levene's test is not significant. Therefore, we have not violated the assumption of homogeneity of variance. The results of the ANOVA test find that a statistically significant difference exists between staff with different levels of education and their evaluation of QWL (F = 3.851; p = 0.024). Therefore, hypotheses four is substantiated. Staff with bachelor's degrees or less are more satisfied (M = 3.0931; SD = 0.49009), followed by those with master's degree (M = 2.8884; SD = 0.43552) and then those with PhD (M = 2.8215; SD = 0.49575). Thus, we can infer that as the respondents' level of education increase, their QWL falls (i.e. an inverse linear relationship exists between the respondents' evaluation of QWL and their level of education). Bhavani and Jegadeeshwaran (2014) also found a significant mean difference between women teachers in higher education have different levels of educational qualification in their opinion on QWL. On the contrary, Ogungbamila&Idemudia (2016) did not find any significant relationship between educational qualifications and QWL of police personnel working in selected states in south-west Nigeria.
Again, a posthoc test was administered using Hochberg's GT2 procedure to find out which educational group of respondents differs significantly from other groups. It is observed from the Post Hoc analysis that when the respondents with bachelor's degree or below were compared to those with master's degree, a significant mean difference in their QWL is revealed (sig. is less than 0.05). This confirms our earlier findings. However, when respondents with bachelor's degree or below were compared to those with PhD and those with master's compared to those with PhD, no significant difference in their QWL is revealed in either case (sig. is greater than 0.05). Therefore, we could conclude that the true difference lies between respondents with bachelor's degree or below and those with a master's degree.

Conclusion
The present study is set out to investigate how satisfied UTG staff are with regards to their QWL and its dimensions. It investigates whether there are significant differences in the evaluation of the quality of Work-Life at the University of The Gambia (UTG). This study leverages a cross-sectional survey method of data collection was used to collect primary data with the help of a set of structured self-administered questionnaire which is adopted from the study of Swamy et al. (2015). Data were analyzed with SPSS 24 and several tests have been conducted ranging from descriptive statistics to determine the overall QWL, independent T-test to compare the mean differences for some demographic factors and one-way ANOVA for others. Several key findings have been revealed by the study.
Our study finds several interesting results. Firstly, the descriptive statistics revealed that UTG employees who participated in the research are moderately dissatisfied with their overall QWL on a five-point Likert scale. Furthermore, it also indicates that the respondents are moderately satisfied with only three out of the nine dimensions of QWL investigated in this study: relations and co-operations, the autonomy of work, and organizational culture and climate. Moreover, the respondents reported the highest level of satisfaction in the category of relations and co-operation, followed by the autonomy of work, organizational culture and climate, job satisfaction and job security, training and development, work environment, adequacy of resources, compensation and rewards, and the lowest in facilities. Thirdly, results indicate a significant mean difference in QWL between academic staff and non-academic staff. From the results, it is concluded that non-academic staff who participated in this research are more satisfied with their QWL than their academic counterparts. Finally, the ANOVA results revealed that evaluation of QWL differs significantly among staff with different educational qualification and monthly salary. Post-Hoc tests were conducted to determine between which groups the true difference lie and the results shows that in terms of monthly salary the difference lies between those earning GMD 10,000 or less and those earning between GMD 10,001 to GMD 20,000 with those earning GMD 10,000 or less being more satisfied with their QWL. In terms of educational qualifications, the test indicates that the true difference lies between holders of bachelor's degree or less and master's degree holders with those with bachelor's or below being more satisfied.
This result is logical given that at UTG, staff with bachelor's degree or less are usually the ones earning less than GMD 10,000, and given that most of them are fresh graduates and newly entering into the labour force with little experience, their options in the job market might be limited. Staff expressed content for the employment opportunity than their counterparties with higher qualifications and better opportunities in the job market. This is also consistent with the fact that even though the results of the study did not indicate any significant difference in the respondents' QWL in terms their experience, but the means of the different experience groups show that as the respondents' experience increase, their QWL fall. However, despite the mix results in related literature, our findings remain consistent with several studies, too.

Managerial implication
The findings of this study have several implications for UTG decision-makers and management. Improving the UTG staff's QWL will improve the psychological wellbeing of the staff and will make them more committed and satisfied with their jobs. Improving QWL stimulates employee's performance and productivity. Therefore, UTG's management should endeavour to improve their staff's QWL to benefit from these positive effects of QWL. The following recommendations are proposed: (1) UTG management should scrap the policy of employing staff on a three-year contract basis. They can instead put new employees on a 6-month probationary period to assess their competence.
After this period, if the employee's performance is satisfactorily barring some minimum performance requirements, s/he should be employed on a full-time basis which will lead to improved job security for the staff and reduce labour turnover (2) UTG management should also endeavour to collaborate with universities in Europe, America, Asia and other African countries to have their employees (especially academic staff) trained by those universities to higher educational levels such as PhD. Short-term training facilities for staff is essential QWL.
Also, collaboration with journal publishers would stimulate work particularly learning and research. (3) To improve the working conditions, offices and classrooms should be properly ventilated. Additional classrooms and office spaces should be constructed to curb classroom shortage and to provide office space to those staff without one. Sanitation facilities should be addressed as a matter of urgency. (4) The management of UTG should ensure that basic teaching and learning materials are provided for. Internet facilities makes a big difference in QWL. (5) To strengthen the co-operation among the general staff body as well as between the staff and the management through team building and socialization programs. (6) Finally, restructure UTG pay and remuneration in line with the universities in the sub-region. This would greatly limit staff turnover rate while attracting more qualify staff.

Limitations
The limited scales on QWL hinders the research on QWL. Through researchers' discretions, several dimensions of QWL have been used. This could impact the true result of the study. Also, the sampling method adopted in this study is a judgmental sampling. This limits the generalizability of the result. Finally, the number of respondents could be improved. Other universities in The Gambia have not been included in this research. Since UTG is the only public University in The Gambia, future research could observe these weaknesses for improved research quality.