Leading Practices

Leading Practices

• 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 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.

• 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.

• Cupcakin' Bake Shop is a Northern-California-based business with multiple locations. The company is committed to maintaining job quality as it grows. The owner offers her workers a living wage, career-building opportunities, wealth-building opportunities and a fair and engaging workplace. Cupcakin’ partnered with Pacific Community Ventures and their Good Jobs, Good Business program to implement job quality practices, including tracking and measuring changes over time, as well as to receive access to capital to scale operations efficiently and prepare the business for the future while supporting quality jobs.

• 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.