The report shows growing numbers of employers see decent quality jobs and commercial or organisational success as mutually supporting goals. And they understood a ‘good job’ to involve: being valued and appreciated, interest and fulfilment, job satisfaction, autonomy, decent working conditions, morale and teamwork, effective management, and staff development.
Although 78% of respondents did not mention pay, 22% cited it as an important feature. Poor quality of jobs was seen as being part of an underlying explanation for many persistent workforce issues they faced including sickness absence, retention, poor motivation levels and difficulties hiring the right people.
Organisations either agreed or strongly agreed the following were problems for their organisations: sickness absence (49%); recruitment of key staff (50%); staff retention and under performance (33%); staff ‘presenteeism’ or de-motivated/uninterested/ineffective staff (25%)
And Employers listed the major factors in organisational effectiveness as being fair pay (81%); fulfilling and interesting jobs (59%); investment in staff training (72%); a culture of trust (75%); flexible working (31%); employee engagement (51%); autonomy (58%) and keeping up with technology (54%)
Nearly half of employers surveyed (41%) saw a role for external agencies to help them with the ‘good jobs’ agenda and almost all respondents saw job quality as vital to maintaining customer satisfaction.
Stephen Bevan, managing director of The Work Foundation said: Employers grasp the link between staff wellbeing and how it can affect productivity. What is missing is how to deliver this. As organisations prepare for recovery after the recession, the need for the government to take a lead in supporting employers to tackle the root causes of lost productivity and ill-health will become more and more acute. But the responsibility for health and wellbeing of the workforce is spread across different government departments. We need one centralised body with a clear identity and a clear remit to work in partnership with employers to crack many of the UK’s persistent job quality problems.
Bevan also called for companies to be required to report job quality outcomes in their annual reports and for an increase in the scale and scope of the Challenge Fund proposed by Dame Carol Black for innovative workplace projects. He said that more investment is urgently needed to implement the Health and Safety Executive’s management standards if its aims to make a real impact were to be fully achieved.
Employers should be encouraged to share best practice through their networks and large organisations should promote good work through their supply chains as routes to higher productivity and more consistent performance, he added.
The research involved a series of workshops with UK private and public sector employers and a survey of 600 organisations.
