Leading Practices

The US Department of Energy incorporated requirements into the Battery Materials Processing Grants program to create good-paying clean energy jobs such as those at or above prevailing wage, recruiting and hiring "local workers especially from underserved communities, properly classifying workers as employees, providing permanent jobs and predictable schedules, and delivering skilled workforce training.”

The US Department of Transportation incorporated job quality and equity requirements into the RAISE (Rebuilding America's Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity) discretionary grant program. This program includes language urging applicants to (1) support the creation of good-paying jobs with the free and fair choice to join a union; (2) provide opportunities for all workers including workers underrepresented in construction jobs to be trained and placed in good-paying jobs directly related to the project; (3) use project labor agreements and/or local hire provisions, training and placement programs for underrepresented workers and (4) adopt an "equity and inclusion program/plan" focused on "procurement, material sourcing, construction, inspection and hiring.”

TriHealth, a $2,000,000,000 hospital system in Ohio, was experiencing continued pressure on reimbursements, requiring it to drive down cost, which was impacting its suppliers’ workers. To combat this, TriHealth began collecting job quality and equity data as part of their procurements. The company used the bidders’ scores and results as part of its selection process, adding to its evaluation of long-term supplier reliability and worker equity. Going forward Tri-Health is asking suppliers to continue to use the working metrics tool as a key performance indicator in its quarterly business reviews.

Triversity is a Cincinnati, Ohio, based construction company that has established a mandate to “build a better way.” It accomplishes this mandate by measuring equity and job quality in both its recruiting and its advancement process through the working metrics tool, which allows tracking and analysis of data such as job growth, retention, earnings and benefits by race and gender.

A 2013 Kentucky law established the Center for Education and Workforce Statistics, which collects and links high-quality actionable data from five state agencies in order to improve education and workforce programs in the state. By providing data sets, publishing reports and fulfilling research requests, the center provides state-specific insights with appropriate data privacy and data access measures.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tracks a variety of employment- and job-quality-related components including hires, separations, turnover rates and schedules as well as race and ethnicity data. Some data sets are available nationally and others can be broken down by state. The data sets themselves as well as accompanying reporting are available for download from the BLS website.

In 2022, in partnership with the Families and Workers Fund, the US Department of Labor launched the Job Quality Measurement Initiative as part of the Good Jobs Initiative to begin measuring not just how many jobs are created in the US economy, but also how many of those jobs have stable schedules, pay a living wage and offer benefits, as well as how they measure against other key indicators. Several research efforts are currently underway, including defining job quality standards for public sector procurement, exploring options for an employer job quality index and developing survey questions to capture workers' voices.

The Racial and Social Justice Initiative of Seattle, Washington, published this toolkit in 2012 and is advancing a 2022 strategic plan to help city programs and agencies set goals and measure progress to advance specific racial equity goals within government agencies.

In 2020, the mayor’s office of Providence, Rhode Island, issued an executive order to set the stage for gathering and analyzing the necessary data to understand the current state of inequities in the community.

In 2020, the San Diego Workforce Partnership, the local workforce board, set aside $10,000,000 of funding over four years through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Title I youth funds to serve youth with the highest rates of youth disconnection, including Black youth, based on the results of local research and public input.

In 2016, Travis County purchasing offices adopted the Better Builder Certification that defines job quality standards for public construction projects. These standards were defined by workers themselves through grassroots organizing with low-income construction workers of color, many of whom spoke limited English.

In 2020, the CA Workforce Development Board launched the High Road Training Partnership that includes a job quality framework that connects job quality and equity initiatives, highlighting how women and Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Color are overrepresented in low quality jobs.

The National Fund for Workforce Solutions is a collaboration of partner organizations that contribute resources, test ideas, collect data and improve public policies and business practices to help all workers succeed and to ensure that employers have the talent they need to compete. The job design framework centers the fund's perspective on equity and inclusion and outlines four key pillars for good jobs: core, support, opportunity and voice.

In 2022, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) provided a comprehensive overview with detailed examples of how local governments are protecting workers’ rights by establishing local labor standards offices to enforce workers’ rights laws, establishing worker boards and councils, passing local worker protections laws, setting job quality standards for contractors and internal employers and championing workers issues through local public leadership.

The San Diego Workforce Partnership, which is the local workforce board, structures its framework (job necessities, job opportunities and job features) based on how different aspects of job quality relate to the individual worker. The framework also includes specific job quality indicators that make up a good job as well as a guide for building job quality into workforce development.

The California Workforce Development Board job quality framework combines case making, local data, specific components and benefits of more quality jobs for each key stakeholder (workers, worker organizations, employers, communities). This framework specifically addresses how job quality can be brought to life through High Road Training Partnerships.

The Colorado Workforce Development Council structures its job quality framework on the basis of actions (elevate, create, attract) that are then tied to specific stakeholders. The framework also addresses why job quality is important, what features make up a good job and what actions different stakeholders can take.

In 2022, the U.S. Departments of Labor and Commerce published eight “Good Jobs Principles” as a shared vision of job quality for workers, businesses, labor unions, advocates, researchers, state and local governments and federal agencies.

The Office of Equality Assurance of San Jose, California, implements, monitors and administers living wage requirements for city contractors, the prevailing wage law for public construction projects and the minimum wage ordinance. The office also contracts with a number of neighboring localities to provide minimum wage enforcement services for their own local minimum wages, working together with smaller cities to enforce laws across the regional labor market.

In 2016, Minneapolis, Minnesota, created the Labor Standards Enforcement Division within its Department of Civil Rights. Through a team of five employees, the office enforces the city’s paid sick and safe time, minimum wage, wage theft and freelance worker protection laws.