Good Work sorted, or still a work-in-progress?

Last month I was on a panel, set up for the work well pilot areas, talking about good work with Micheal Wood from NHS Confederation and  Alice Walker from the Greater London Assembly. These pilots focus on poor health as a barrier to work but there is a sizable body of evidence that suggests this relationship is two way – work affects our health too . Having a job tends to be positive for both our physical and mental health, unless, that is, it is a poor quality one.

Polling by Living Wage Foundation this year found that people paid the Living Wage are more likely (40%) than low-paid workers (24%) to say their job has a positive impact on their physical health, while a systematic review of precarious employment in 2018 found that the evidence supports an association between people holding multiple jobs or working for a subcontractor and occupational injuries. Numerous other papers tell a similar story. Poor quality work is bad for our health. 

If we are worried about the drag that poor health is having on our productivity – and we should be  – then access to ‘good jobs’  in all industries and places across the UK is of central importance for policymakers chasing growth. 

Focus groups we commissioned with Local Trust  in ‘doubly disadvantaged’ places suggest that people there see feeling secure and being paid a living wage as the foundations of a good job, on which other aspects like fairness, opportunity for progression and fulfillment are based. 

The government’s Employment Rights Bill  - which is currently being reviewed in the House of Lords – aims to tackle some of these foundational issues, and the proposed legislation  could be transformative. So does this mean that we no longer have to worry about good work?

Firstly, these new rights will need to be effectively enforced. ONS surveys suggest that 371,000 jobs are paid below the legal minimum, and while they stress that this is not a measure of non-compliance, it suggests that there is a systemic issue. The new bill recognises the importance of enforcement and will create a Fair Work Agency to investigate cases and bring them to employment tribunal. This is a really great step forward but will, of course, need to be adequately resourced.

Secondly and crucially, the bill will only be successful if it inspires broad culture change across diverse industries, including foundational sectors like retail or transport and logistics. And it is businesses themselves that need to drive this culture change.  

There are plenty of reasons for them to want to do so. The employers who attended our conference on Good Work in 2023 all emphasised the positive impact of embedding high working standards on their productivity and their business’ success. But businesses are also facing economic uncertainty, cost pressures and falling demand, all of which have potential to encourage a more toxic workplace culture.

As convenors of their local businesses and communities, local and regional government have a central part to play in fostering positive culture change. In the absence of any national direction on good work in recent years, they have been leading the way: engaging with business on the support they can provide, designing and evaluating business charters and testing out ways to harness their purchasing power to promote good work. 

The challenge now is to reflect on the progress we have seen across places like Leeds, London, Greater Manchester, and South Yorkshire and learn from what has been done. As Micheal, Alice and I discussed, the ability to learn from our collective experiences is fundamental to our ability to shift broader norms and achieve better quality jobs for people across the UK. This is something that we are really focused on at the Growth and Reform Network - how can we showcase best practice and acting as a vehicle for testing, prototyping and learning at scale alongside national government?

The government’s Employment Rights Bill is brilliant news for the campaign for better quality work and sets the tone on good employment. But widespread changes in workplace culture across industries will be required to see sustainable health and productivity benefits materialise and culture change doesn't happen on command, it happens through practice. The Work Well pilots, the efforts of local and regional government, and the conversations we’re having across networks like ours are all part of building that momentum.

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The webinar ‘On demand: Promoting 'good work' in your local economy’ is available to watch here.

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Photo by Anthony Fomin on Unsplash