Impact case study database

In 2019, there were a record 33 million people in employment in the UK (ONS 2019). However, with rising non-standard employment and the emerging gig economy, there are public policy concerns about declining job quality, with estimates of between one-sixth and one-quarter of UK workers (or 5,500,000-8,250,000 workers) in poor quality jobs. Poor job quality negatively impacts on individual workers’ wellbeing and organisational performance, including productivity (3.7). Through their research, Professor Warhurst and the IER team have been instrumental in changing understanding of job quality measurement, doing so first through the Taylor Review and CIPD, then the Measuring Job Quality Working Group. This work has directly shaped government and practitioner responses to the problem.

The Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices

In 2016, the UK Government commissioned The Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices (henceforth the Taylor Review). Its subsequent report Good Work, published in mid-2017, recommended that an explicit commitment be made by the UK Government to promote and support ‘good work’ for all (as it called good job quality) as a national priority and that “ the Government should identify a set of metrics against which it will measure success in improving work, reporting annually on the quality of work on offer in the UK” ( 5.2, p.103). Drawing on the Taylor Review, the aim of the UK’s Industrial Strategy published at the end of 2017 is to boost productivity by backing businesses to create good jobs. In 2018, the task of improving the UK job quality was added to the responsibility of the UK Government’s Minister for Business.

Prof. Warhurst and the IER team’s research was fundamental to the delivery of this policy development and continues to make a critical contribution to a significant overhaul of government employment policy, one that recognises the importance of job quality, not just job quantity. The 2015 Scottish Parliament Inquiry into Work, Wages and Well-being had drawn on Prof. Warhurst’s expertise as well as research for Oxfam involving Dr Wright ( Decent Work for Scotland’s Low-Paid Workers). After being invited to give evidence to the Inquiry, the subsequent 2016 report, Taking the High Road - Work, Wages and Wellbeing in the Scottish Labour Market, stated: “ Many of our recommendations focus on, as Professor Warhurst describes, paving the high road and blocking the low-road” (5.1, p.1 ). In 2016, Prof. Warhurst was then invited to give personal evidence to the Taylor Review. The evidence presented was based on research from QuInnE (2.1).

The subsequent recommendation of the 2017 Taylor Review report was that the UK Government adopt a new measure of job quality for the UK, stating that "… the Review has settled upon the 'QuInnE' model of job quality, developed by the Institute of Employment Research and others as part of a pan-European research programme", and dedicated a section in the subsequent Taylor Report to the QuInnE indicators of quality work (5.2, p.12-15 ). As the review Chair Matthew Taylor confirms, “ you and your team’s research was influential in shaping our thoughts on this issue. … As a result, your research on measuring job quality was of great help to the work of the Review and will be of great benefit to the work of the UK Government in proving better jobs in the future” (5.3).

In the Industrial Strategy White Paper published later in 2017, the UK Government stated that " we accept Matthew Taylor's recommendation that the government should identify a set of measures against which to assess job quality and success” (5.4, p.118 ). The Industrial Strategy cites “ good jobs” as a key component of one of its five foundations of productivity (5.4, p.10 ). In addition, in the 2018 UK Government’s formal response to the Taylor Review, Good Work: A response to the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices, it confirmed that a measure would be developed, stating that *“we will use these measures to report annually on the quality of work in the UK economy, and to hold ourselves to account.*” It also stated, " we set out the five principles that we believe underpin the quality of work … We have identified these principles in discussion with experts including the CIPD” (5.5, p.13 ). These principles were based on parallel research conducted by IER for CIPD that developed the QuInnE framework and was shared by the CIPD with the UK Government.

The CIPD and its UK Working Lives Survey

Contribution to significant UK Government employment policy change is undoubtedly a key indicator of the influence of IER’s research. However, the beneficiaries are far broader than Whitehall policymakers. Work forms a substantial aspect of people’s lives. Quality employment benefits workers, organisations and society. The CIPD champions better working lives and good practice in people management to deliver these benefits. IER’s research has had a distinct, demonstrable impact on CIPD understanding of job quality and CIPD practice.

In 2017, Dr Sarkar undertook a secondment to the CIPD to support the translation of the IER's research for the CIPD on measuring job quality (2.2) into a new survey. This survey replaced the CIPD’s existing annual employee engagement survey. The new UK Working Lives Survey was administered in early 2018 by YouGov, with 5,000 worker respondents drawn UK-wide. It is now administered annually with an even larger sample size to help the CIPD track progress in the creation of better jobs across the UK and to help inform the debate and support of the government's intention to raise awareness and understanding of good work across the economy (5.6, p.2 ). As the annual surveys accumulate, it will become a major source of data for practitioners and researchers on the state and trajectory of job quality in the UK.

The CIPD cites the role of IER in the genesis and development of the work, with the survey report confirming that “ we worked closely with academics and researchers, including the Institute for Employment Research at Warwick University, to draw together research on good work and define seven dimensions that affect job quality. […] We hope that the UK Working Lives survey will make an important and sustained contribution to improving job quality" (5.6, p.2 ). In deriving its seven dimensions of job quality, the CIPD report explicitly states that it is based on the earlier research for the CIPD by Professor Warhurst and the IER team (3.5 and 3.6) (5.6, p.5 ). The CIPD wrote to Dr Sarkar to acknowledge the importance of her work creating the Job Quality Index: “We consider this work very impactful for the future policy and research agenda for the CIPD … informing the re-design of the CIPD's national survey of employees” (5.7).

The statement confirms that the survey based on the work is a “ major publication for the CIPD and a constant reference point in the media and for HR practitioners and academics”. The CIPD outlined its anticipation that Dr Sarkar's work will continue to have indirect impact by feeding into its recommendations to the government on UK employment policy and into its own guidance and standards for the HR profession, which reaches over 145,000 members (5.7).

IER’s job quality research has changed both the thinking and data collection of the CIPD to be centred on job quality, and its guidance for its HR professionals membership. It also enabled the CIPD to influence the development of UK Government employment policy both through the submission of evidence to the Taylor Review, which was based on the research undertaken for the CIPD by Prof. Warhurst and colleagues and in the work of the subsequent Measuring Job Quality Working Group.

The Measuring Job Quality Working Group and ONS

The Carnegie UK Trust and the Royal Society for the Arts and Manufacturing (RSA), of which Matthew Taylor is CEO, constituted a working group to develop the recommendation of the Taylor Review to derive a measure of job quality for the UK. The group consisted of senior employer, trade union and civic society representatives and ONS officials liaising with the UK Government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Professor Warhurst joined the group as its sole academic adviser on the basis of IER's research for the CIPD, itself drawn from QuInnE. The subsequent report of the Measuring Job Quality Working Group, Measuring Good Work (published in late 2018), acknowledged the importance of IER’s research: “ we were grateful in our work to be able to draw upon … the timely synthesis and review of job quality academic literature and surveys carried out by the Warwick Institute for Employment Research for the CIPD” (5.8, p.18 ).

The report recommended that the UK Government adopt an adapted version of the CIPD measures developed by Prof. Warhurst and the IER team as national measures. The adaption centred on splitting one of the six job quality dimensions proposed to the CIPD by Prof. Warhurst and team into two separate dimensions to make seven (5.8, p.22-23 ). Measuring Good Work also recommended that the UK Government “ work closely with the ONS’ to embed the measures in the Labour Force Survey (LFS), so that the LFS ‘become[s] the home of national job quality measures, meeting the objectives of the Good Work Plan and the commitments of the Industrial Strategy” (5.8, p.9 ). The expertise of Prof. Warhurst in developing the optimal job quality metrics to prioritise in the national framework was credited by Gail Irvine of the Carnegie UK Trust, who stated: “ your expert input into the Working Group provided reassurance to the other participants from the business and charity sectors and was essential to the group’s work” (5.9).

In 2019, following the Measuring Good Work recommendation, the ONS piloted the measures for the UK’s first exploratory analysis of job quality. Using the available data, the ONS stated that its measures “ were part of the recommended approach by Measuring Good Work: The final report of the Measuring Job Quality Working Group” (5.10, p.48 ). This development and its link to Prof. Warhurst’s work for the Carnegie and the relevant UK Government Minister is also reported on by Gail Irvine: “following the then Business Secretary’s endorsement of the contribution Measuring Good Work has made to the debate about national measurement of good work, we are pleased that the Office for National Statistics has now tested a number of recommended metrics for inclusion in future labour force surveys. […] As Secretariat to the Working Group, […] I would like to thank you again for your contribution to our work and to policy thinking” (5.9).

Based on the research of Prof. Warhurst and colleagues at IER, the Taylor Review recommendation that a UK measure of job quality be developed and, through the subsequent working group recommendation, that the measure be adopted for official use, has been realised and will support the work of the UK Minister now responsible for improving job quality in the UK. The measures will enable a statistical benchmark of job quality (or good work) for the UK and the development of policies to improve job quality. The measures will also enable assessment of the interventions by the Minister. The outcome will be continuous, affecting government policy and thereby influencing millions of workers in poor quality jobs, whilst improving the performance of thousands of firms.