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Improving Job Quality In The UK

Source: UK Work Foundation
Posted on: 22nd November 2009

Employers are committed to improving the quality of jobs in the UK but lack guidance about how to achieve it.

Far from seeing decent quality jobs and commercial or organisational success as conflicting objectives, the report shows that growing numbers of employers see them as mutually supporting goals. And, there is also a broad consensus among these experts about the characteristics which define ‘Good Jobs’.

In a speech to celebrate the centenary of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in 2004, Gordon Brown, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, argued that the UK should aim for both ‘full and fulfilling employment’.

Implicit in this aspiration is the notion that just ‘having a job’ – regardless of its quality – is not sufficient. The objective must be to ensure that for as many people as possible, work in the UK is a source of wellbeing, personal growth, fulfilment, autonomy and meaning – in other words, that the jobs available in today’s labour market should offer ‘Good Work’. A significant weight of evidence supports the argument that job quality, employee health, and an employee’s ability to perform productively at work, are closely linked.

This evidence comes from a range of academic and professional disciplines. We have good epidemiological data to support the Good Jobs principle, we also have data from occupational health specialists, labour economists, educationalists and, health and safety specialists and HR/IR specialists.

Even more encouragingly, there appears to be a broad consensus among these experts about the characteristics which define ‘Good Jobs’. When we refer to ‘job quality’ in this report, this term should be defined as the extent to which the factors outlined below are in place a job role.

The important factors can be summarised as follows:

  • Employment security;
  • Whether the work is characterised by monotony and repetition;
  • Whether employees have autonomy, control and task discretion;
  • The extent to which there is an appropriate balance between the efforts that workers
  • make and the rewards that they receive;
  • Whether workplace procedures are seen to be fair;
  • The strength of workplace relationships – or social capital.

Despite consensus over the important factors that constitute Good Jobs, and the evidence underpinning it, however, it is clear that a large number of jobs in the UK fail to conform to the core criteria of a Good Job. Indeed, it seems that many organisations have either not been convinced by the case for Good Jobs and have difficulty turning its principles into practice, or do not feel the need to offer anything but ‘bad jobs’.

For government, as for other employers, there are considerable benefits to be gained from making more jobs, Good Jobs, in the UK. They include higher labour productivity, a healthier working age population, higher workforce stability and more engaged and committed employees. Improving the performance of the UK economy is a political priority for the government, particularly because the UK workforce has been shown consistently to lag behind France, Germany and the USA in terms of productivity per hour worked.

One factor that often goes unrecognised by many organisations is the impact of sickness absence and presenteeism on organisational performance. In 2006 it was estimated that around 175 million working days were lost due to sickness absence in the UK.9 The cost of presenteeism is more difficult to quantify, but according to research by the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, presenteeism, ie underperformance at work due to illness, caused by poor mental health, can lead to a loss of working time nearly 1.5 times greater than that due to sickness absence.

Dealing with the underlying causes of workplace ill health and sickness, and underperformance in the workplace, are therefore vital to maximising the productivity of the UK economy.

For the Treasury, the Good Jobs agenda is vital because improving employee productivity at work will aid the desire for sustainable growth. For the Department of Health, promoting health and wellbeing at work can help to reduce the burden on the NHS. The most recent Health and Safety Executive (HSE) data show that 2.1 million people are suffering from an illness they believed was caused or made worse by their current or past work. Encouraging employers to take measures to prevent ill health in the workplace is therefore vital. For BIS, meanwhile, promoting health and wellbeing at work is an important way of ensuring that UK businesses are engaging their employees, promoting employee autonomy, making the best possible use of tacit knowledge and consequently fostering innovation.

BERR, the predecessor to BIS, commissioned a review of employee engagement in September 2008, which is kee to explore ways to support business to improve performance and overcome the barriers to better employee engagement. For the DWP, ensuring that people on the margins of the labour market get the opportunity to engage in good quality jobs, for example, is vital in supporting rehabilitation from a long-term incapacity, reducing sickness absence and developing new skills and competences in employees that will enhance their long-term employability.

There is strong evidence from a study of low income families with children, of a link between the quality of work offered to an individual by a first job when they come off benefits and the likelihood that the individual will sustain employment (Table 1).

Social capital, an individual’s relationships with their employer, colleagues and family, seems to be particularly important, as does the quality of the workplace environment. The ‘nature of the job’ embraces the idea that work is sustainable when it is ‘interesting’, ‘stimulating’, ‘challenging’ or just ‘varied’. The quality of the relationship with the employer includes features such as whether the employee believes they are respected or treated as an individual. Pay appears as a critical factor for both re-entry to the labour market and sustainability, supporting the idea that effort and reward should be in balance.

The HSE, meanwhile, is already engaged with the Good Jobs agenda, and it is vital that it continues to lead the way, acting as an example to other government departments. It has already gathered a compelling evidence base that demonstrates that poor job quality cancompound a range of workplace risks, such as those surrounding a ‘safety culture’ the likelihood of work-related stress occurring, and on the negative impact that inflexible or onerous job demands can have on the risk of developing, and recovering from, a range or work-related musculoskeletal conditions.

The HSE has also been prominent in arguing that preventative measures – including positive adjustments to job quality – can make a significant difference to work-related health and performance outcomes. It is vital that the HSE continues to light the way for other government departments, with the end goal being the establishment of a more joined up approach across government, which echoes the broad remit of this agenda.

Contrary to the views of some pessimistic commentators, rising unemployment and the onset of recession are two good reasons why the government should pay even greater attention to the quality of employment. A reasonable hypothesis is to suggest that employees are less likely to exhibit behaviours normally associated with bad job quality when there is less job security – they are less likely to be sick from work, for fear of losing their job, and they are less likely to leave a bad job because of less external labour market pull factors, such as a supply of better quality jobs to draw them away.

If this is right, then it is government’s responsibility to remind employers that job quality matters, because symptoms of bad job quality, such as motivation and retention problems, which might otherwise have alerted employers to the underlying difficulties, may not be as visible.

There are two major challenges for policy-makers, researchers and practitioners. The first is to make a more compelling and accessible case for Good Jobs to businesses, especially among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are often hard to reach and offer less training than their larger counterparts, and also to organisations in sectors where low skill
demand is widespread and which are therefore less likely to be offering Good Jobs.

The second challenge is to provide these employers with practical support to improve job quality in a way that cuts with the grain of business expectations. The role for policy makers is not to accumulate more evidence about the benefits of Good Jobs to individuals, firms and the wider economy – this evidence is already plentiful. Rather, it is to gather evidence that will persuade, supportor incentivise employers to translate their tacit understanding of these ideas and benefits into tangible changes to work organisation and job design at workplace level.

If policy-makers are to devise instruments, toolkits or support mechanisms which promote the growth of Good Jobs then it is important to understand both the barriers to adoption in some firms and factors which have led to Good Jobs being embraced by others. More specifically, it is important to build up a picture of the kinds of external support by government which would be likely to have most sustainable impact. These are the issues that this project was designed to address.

See the full report here

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