Helping Employers Along Their Journey
Workforce and economic development agencies can play an important role in assisting employers as they tackle job quality within their organization or sector.
Recognition and Rewards
- Recognizing businesses who are committed to job quality and equity through local certifications, awards, or other recognitions that encourage individuals to spend their dollars with organizations who care about their workers
- Assigning priority points through the procurement process to uplift businesses who have implemented or are working to implement job quality standards, local hire practices and the like
- Providing reduced interest rates (e.g. model used by ICA, Social Capital Partners) or floor and ladder approaches - which assess where a business currently is in a number of categories and provides action steps that will allow the company to climb the quality “ladder” over time (e.g. HCAP) or other preferential terms for access to capital in exchange for results in advancing job quality commitments
Services
- Contracting or partnering with local organizations to provide HR services or a hotline to small business who don’t have in house staff
- Helping businesses design their job descriptions and onboarding in ways that promote equity and inclusion
- Providing initial screening services, job shadow, mentoring and other opportunities as a mechanism to help meet their job quality and DEI goals
- Supporting pilots such as stable scheduling (see Gap study), benefits pooling (see example), equity commitments (see High Roads Kitchens), employee ownership (see Project Equity) or measurement (See example)
- Helping businesses take advantage of existing tax credits or federal bonding
Knowledge and Resources
- Introducing businesses to the Talent Pipeline Management approach for sector work as a way to look at needs across a group of employers
- Sharing business focused measurement tools such as the Good Job Score Assessment Tool, Good Jobs Institute diagnostics, and Working Metrics
- Sharing Labor Market Information (LMI) and worker perspectives (through regional surveys or focus groups) to inform business planning
- Providing educational sessions on changing regulations that may impact compliance/worker rights
- Delivering DEI, anti-racism, and related training to frontline management staff
- Sharing information on how employers can make jobs more accessible for working parents, reentry populations, those in recovery and new Americans.
Funding
- Funding business process improvement efforts to help provide specific expertise - development of pulse/employee survey, creation of a mentoring program, implementation of job-shadow, benefits or wage assessments, or employee ownership feasibility study, among others
- Prioritize funds (e.g. OJT, CT) for employers that are meeting some of the job quality standards OR who are actively engaging in work to close a gap. This can include building specific pathways with an employer or set of employers
- Supporting the development of worker standards boards as part of a sector strategy to provide a mechanism for worker voice to inform both organizational and business policies and processes (See example in Harris County, Texas)
Promising Practices from the Employer Community
Learn more about how employers have implemented different aspects of job design to address their pain points and support their workers.
Employer Specific Resources
- Talent Pipeline Management Curriculum - Course developed by the US Chamber of Commerce to help businesses save time, money and resources in accessing the talent they need.
- Good Jobs, Good Business Toolkit - Set of resources developed by Pacific Community Ventures to help small businesses create jobs that boost the bottom line.
- Opportunity Navigator - Helps companies understand understand how to support their employees and strengthen their business by operationalizing your values of equity, anti-racism, and economic opportunity. Includes an assessment tool.
- JV Boston Job Quality Benchmarking Survey - Provides employers insights on their wages, benefits, scheduling, career ladders and overall environment.
- Good Job Score Assessment Tool - Mechanism for companies to measure the quality of their jobs across four dimensions - leadership, purpose, growth and fairness- developed by the Two Sigma Team.
- Good Jobs Institute - Set of diagnostics, assessments, and tools to help businesses design a good jobs strategy for their organization.
- Job Quality Tools Library - Actionable tools, resources and guidance for business leaders, curated by the Aspen Institute.
- Job Quality Toolkit - Set of drivers and case studies focused on business needs from the Department of Commerce. Developed in partnership with NIST and their Baldridge assessment.
- OECD Job Quality - Set of tools, frameworks and reports developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
- Competency Model - Model developed by the National Fund for Workforce Solutions to be used by workforce practitioners in supporting employers.
- Employer Perspectives - A panel of cross-sector employers, hosted by Worklife partnerships, talks about how they are investing in job qualities, in ways that make sense for their businesses and their employees.
- Manufacturing Job Quality Toolkit - Strategies and actions help small to medium-sized manufacturers achieve job quality, created by Polaris MEP.
- Job Quality through Employer Transparency - Piece by the Urban Institute on three models of job quality transparency efforts: voluntary self-assessment tools, mandated public reporting or disclosures, and public rankings or ratings.