Levers are the mechanisms to advance job quality. Each lever outlines a different way to operationalize job quality. Levers can be used individually or in tandem. Agencies should choose one or two levers as a starting point.
Procurement
Influences the quality of jobs and equity of access by examining how funds are used and for what purposes. Organizations can use procurement practices to directly fund job quality focused projects, to prioritize diversity and high-quality jobs within the organizations they award, or to incentivize the creation or advancement of good jobs through the procurement process itself. Businesses can use this lever to influence job quality through all of their purchasing.
The Procurement Process
Each step in the procurement process - from research through award - is an opportunity to infuse job quality concepts.
Sample Ways To Use This Lever
- Raise Awareness: Including job quality definitions in procurement documentation to raise awareness of what job quality is and signal its importance to the agency
- Incentivize or Require Behavior: Including living wage, scheduling or other job quality practices as a requirement for vendor or subrecipient contracts and/or requiring employers to set aside a specific number of jobs for local hires.
- Focus on Evidence: Using evidenced-based scoring preferences for projects that have a demonstrated track record of influencing one or more job quality features (e.g., earnings)
- Expand the impact: Providing specialized support, education and technical assistance to underrepresented organizations wishing to participate in the agency’s procurement process to diversify the respondent pool
To get started with procurement, use the self assessment and quick start guide.
Get More Information
Empowerment
Provides employees, partners and customers of your organization with opportunities for voice, choice, representation. Empowerment practices recognize historical and systemic inequities and intentionally equip individuals to participate at the decision-making table in real and meaningful ways.
The Empowerment Approach
Agencies may play the role of educator, sharing information about an empowerment process, body or service, implementer, incorporating formal or informal opportunities for voice and power in their own work, or monitor/evaluator, making sure existing structures and regulations are being used to uplift and protect voice and power. Questions to ask:
Existence of Choice: Is choice both available and accessible?
Use of Choice: Is choice consistently and equitably used?
Achievement of Choice: Is the existence and use of choice accomplishing the desired result?
- Information gathering: Building the collection of perspectives, experiences and insights from those a program is intended to serve into the program design, operations and evaluation through surveys, focus groups, interviews or other tools
- Formal structures: Establishing a worker standards board or a dedicated workforce development board seat for worker representation
- Community representation: Providing referrals or connections to dedicated worker power organizations such as worker centers, local unions, and worker organizers
- Internal operations: Encouraging voluntary, employee-led resource groups (ERGs) based on shared backgrounds or interests that provide a platform for communication, advocacy, and support within your organization or the employers you work with.
- Employee ownership: Supporting companies looking to explore employee ownership transitions, such as through a business resource hub or the application of WIOA rapid response/layoff aversion funds to feasibility studies
To get started with empowerment, use the self assessment and quick start guide.
Get More Information
HR Practices
Help organizations "walk the talk" internally. Human resources can set the standard for how employees are treated, not only at the time of hire, but also throughout the employment life cycle. Internal human resource practices are a good place to begin the journey of improving job quality and equity; a sound foundation in human resources is essential for advanced work down the road.
The HR Practice Approach
This lever focus on making changes internal to your own organization based on your own pain points. Common pain points include cost or time to hire, turn over of staff, opportunities for internal advancement and promotion, diversity of candidates, diversity of leadership roles and productivity and engagement. Often, such changes involve close coordination with the human resources office in order to understand current benefits, pay structures, or learning and development opportunities. Change can be made at different levels of the organization including:
- Department: Direct influence on staff's sense of purpose and meaning as well as the work environment and culture
- Department/HR: Usually shared responsibility for earnings, learning and development, schedules, and voice and representation
- HR: Generally centralized responsibility for benefits and safety/security
Sample Ways to Use this Lever
- Data Collection: Reviewing existing information such as HR documentation, attraction, retention and advancement statistics or salary data and benchmarking against the market as well as organizational job quality commitments
- Implementation: Adapting or expanding benefits and resources to better align with job quality principles such as the addition of remote work options, 4x10s schedules, changes to paid leave, retirement match programs, internal tuition assistance, loan forgiveness, or other upskilling incentive programs for front-line staff
- Employee Engagement: Performance of staff surveys, focus groups, leadership coffee talks, stay interviews or similar to better understand what employees value and where opportunities for improvement exist
To get started with HR Practices, use the self assessment and quick start guide.
Get More Information
Policy
Helps to set the tone for the organization and also defines the processes, structures and requirements that influence job quality and equity outcomes. Organizations can directly influence what is mandated, incentivized or prohibited through regulations. Further, this lever can be a powerful signal to the community of the value of job quality and equity, encouraging change within other organizations.
The Policy Approach
There are two key considerations in using policy to drive change - What level of policy are you trying to change? and What type of policy do you plan to use?
Policy Level
Level 1 - Program Policies: Formalized processes and procedures dictating how funds are used, who is eligible for the program, how the program operates, compliance guidelines, funding stream requirements, and other formalized rules, regulations, and priorities influencing a specific program.
Level 2 - Department Policies: Formalized processes and procedures guiding the priorities and operations of the department that oversees multiple funding streams and programs.
Level 3 - Organizational Policies: Charters, by-laws, strategic plans, operation manuals, code of regulations, and other policy documents that govern how an entire state, county, city, or other government entity operates.
Level 4 - Jurisdiction Policies: Laws, ordinances, regulations, and other policy tools that may impact all of the people living or organizations operating in the community. Jurisdiction often refers to city, county or state but may also be applied to a specific neighborhood or zone such as a Justice40 community.
Policy Type
- Carrots refer to economic incentives
- Sticks refer to requirements and regulations
- Sermons on information, values, and processes.
Common policies that can be targets for the inclusion of job quality principles include on the job training, customized training, business licensing and renewals, permitting, consumer protection, procurement and purchasing, tax, loan or capital access, environmental protection and infrastructure use.
Sample Ways To Use This Lever
- Raise Awareness: Including job quality definitions in local policy documentation to raise awareness of what job quality is and signal its importance to the agency
- Incentivize or Require Behavior: Including living wage, scheduling or other job quality practices as a requirement in order to participate in or access certain processes or resources. Encouraging or requiring Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) to protect workers.
- Community Involvement: Using Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) to understand, uplift and protect community needs and ensure that a portion of the benefits of an investment are accrued to the local community.
- Expand the impact: Holding inter-agency dialogues to align around job quality principles and how they can be upheld across a local jurisdiction
To get started with policy, use the self assessment and quick start guide.
Get More Information
Education and Enforcement
Ensures that workers are protected through existing laws, employers understand changes and are accountable for legal protections. This includes equipping employers as well as monitoring job quality protections and contract requirements related to procurement policies, incentive programs, wage subsidy programs and other policies that go beyond federal, state and local labor law.
The Education and Enforcement Approach
This lever generally consists of efforts to raise awareness around worker rights and protections, evolving labor laws, and the resources that exist in the community to support both workers and businesses. While workforce development agencies are not the primary entity responsible for labor enforcement, they are often seen as a trusted intermediary for both workers and businesses and can use their programs, facilities, and messaging to make critical information available to those who need it.
Sample Ways to Use this Lever
- Awareness/Learning: Helping job seekers understand their rights and employers their responsibilities through training, messaging campaigns and other outreach
- Technical Assistance: Hosting or partnering on technical assistance for employers that want help complying with the law such as a hotline, individual coaching sessions, or process improvement support
- Monitoring: Providing safe channels for participants to report alleged labor violations and reviewing investigation/enforcement data on companies that have violated local ordinances, informing partner, procurement and subsidized wage funding decisions
- Partnership: Providing referrals to enforcement or co-enforcement organizations
- Enforcement: Enforcing living wage ordinances and other job quality requirements and standards for contractors, service providers and recipients of wage subsidies, establishing dedicated staff/office to worker protections
To get started with education and enforcement, use the self assessment and quick start guide.
Get More Information
Influences the quality of jobs and equity of access by examining how funds are used and for what purposes. Organizations can use procurement practices to directly fund job quality focused projects, to prioritize diversity and high-quality jobs within the organizations they award, or to incentivize the creation or advancement of good jobs through the procurement process itself. Businesses can use this lever to influence job quality through all of their purchasing.
The Procurement Process
Each step in the procurement process - from research through award - is an opportunity to infuse job quality concepts.
Sample Ways To Use This Lever
- Raise Awareness: Including job quality definitions in procurement documentation to raise awareness of what job quality is and signal its importance to the agency
- Incentivize or Require Behavior: Including living wage, scheduling or other job quality practices as a requirement for vendor or subrecipient contracts and/or requiring employers to set aside a specific number of jobs for local hires.
- Focus on Evidence: Using evidenced-based scoring preferences for projects that have a demonstrated track record of influencing one or more job quality features (e.g., earnings)
- Expand the impact: Providing specialized support, education and technical assistance to underrepresented organizations wishing to participate in the agency’s procurement process to diversify the respondent pool
To get started with procurement, use the self assessment and quick start guide.
Get More Information
Provides employees, partners and customers of your organization with opportunities for voice, choice, representation. Empowerment practices recognize historical and systemic inequities and intentionally equip individuals to participate at the decision-making table in real and meaningful ways.
The Empowerment Approach
Agencies may play the role of educator, sharing information about an empowerment process, body or service, implementer, incorporating formal or informal opportunities for voice and power in their own work, or monitor/evaluator, making sure existing structures and regulations are being used to uplift and protect voice and power. Questions to ask:
Existence of Choice: Is choice both available and accessible?
Use of Choice: Is choice consistently and equitably used?
Achievement of Choice: Is the existence and use of choice accomplishing the desired result?
- Information gathering: Building the collection of perspectives, experiences and insights from those a program is intended to serve into the program design, operations and evaluation through surveys, focus groups, interviews or other tools
- Formal structures: Establishing a worker standards board or a dedicated workforce development board seat for worker representation
- Community representation: Providing referrals or connections to dedicated worker power organizations such as worker centers, local unions, and worker organizers
- Internal operations: Encouraging voluntary, employee-led resource groups (ERGs) based on shared backgrounds or interests that provide a platform for communication, advocacy, and support within your organization or the employers you work with.
- Employee ownership: Supporting companies looking to explore employee ownership transitions, such as through a business resource hub or the application of WIOA rapid response/layoff aversion funds to feasibility studies
To get started with empowerment, use the self assessment and quick start guide.
Get More Information
Help organizations "walk the talk" internally. Human resources can set the standard for how employees are treated, not only at the time of hire, but also throughout the employment life cycle. Internal human resource practices are a good place to begin the journey of improving job quality and equity; a sound foundation in human resources is essential for advanced work down the road.
The HR Practice Approach
This lever focus on making changes internal to your own organization based on your own pain points. Common pain points include cost or time to hire, turn over of staff, opportunities for internal advancement and promotion, diversity of candidates, diversity of leadership roles and productivity and engagement. Often, such changes involve close coordination with the human resources office in order to understand current benefits, pay structures, or learning and development opportunities. Change can be made at different levels of the organization including:
- Department: Direct influence on staff's sense of purpose and meaning as well as the work environment and culture
- Department/HR: Usually shared responsibility for earnings, learning and development, schedules, and voice and representation
- HR: Generally centralized responsibility for benefits and safety/security
Sample Ways to Use this Lever
- Data Collection: Reviewing existing information such as HR documentation, attraction, retention and advancement statistics or salary data and benchmarking against the market as well as organizational job quality commitments
- Implementation: Adapting or expanding benefits and resources to better align with job quality principles such as the addition of remote work options, 4x10s schedules, changes to paid leave, retirement match programs, internal tuition assistance, loan forgiveness, or other upskilling incentive programs for front-line staff
- Employee Engagement: Performance of staff surveys, focus groups, leadership coffee talks, stay interviews or similar to better understand what employees value and where opportunities for improvement exist
To get started with HR Practices, use the self assessment and quick start guide.
Get More Information
Helps to set the tone for the organization and also defines the processes, structures and requirements that influence job quality and equity outcomes. Organizations can directly influence what is mandated, incentivized or prohibited through regulations. Further, this lever can be a powerful signal to the community of the value of job quality and equity, encouraging change within other organizations.
The Policy Approach
There are two key considerations in using policy to drive change - What level of policy are you trying to change? and What type of policy do you plan to use?
Policy Level
Level 1 - Program Policies: Formalized processes and procedures dictating how funds are used, who is eligible for the program, how the program operates, compliance guidelines, funding stream requirements, and other formalized rules, regulations, and priorities influencing a specific program.
Level 2 - Department Policies: Formalized processes and procedures guiding the priorities and operations of the department that oversees multiple funding streams and programs.
Level 3 - Organizational Policies: Charters, by-laws, strategic plans, operation manuals, code of regulations, and other policy documents that govern how an entire state, county, city, or other government entity operates.
Level 4 - Jurisdiction Policies: Laws, ordinances, regulations, and other policy tools that may impact all of the people living or organizations operating in the community. Jurisdiction often refers to city, county or state but may also be applied to a specific neighborhood or zone such as a Justice40 community.
Policy Type
- Carrots refer to economic incentives
- Sticks refer to requirements and regulations
- Sermons on information, values, and processes.
Common policies that can be targets for the inclusion of job quality principles include on the job training, customized training, business licensing and renewals, permitting, consumer protection, procurement and purchasing, tax, loan or capital access, environmental protection and infrastructure use.
Sample Ways To Use This Lever
- Raise Awareness: Including job quality definitions in local policy documentation to raise awareness of what job quality is and signal its importance to the agency
- Incentivize or Require Behavior: Including living wage, scheduling or other job quality practices as a requirement in order to participate in or access certain processes or resources. Encouraging or requiring Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) to protect workers.
- Community Involvement: Using Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) to understand, uplift and protect community needs and ensure that a portion of the benefits of an investment are accrued to the local community.
- Expand the impact: Holding inter-agency dialogues to align around job quality principles and how they can be upheld across a local jurisdiction
To get started with policy, use the self assessment and quick start guide.
Get More Information
Ensures that workers are protected through existing laws, employers understand changes and are accountable for legal protections. This includes equipping employers as well as monitoring job quality protections and contract requirements related to procurement policies, incentive programs, wage subsidy programs and other policies that go beyond federal, state and local labor law.
The Education and Enforcement Approach
This lever generally consists of efforts to raise awareness around worker rights and protections, evolving labor laws, and the resources that exist in the community to support both workers and businesses. While workforce development agencies are not the primary entity responsible for labor enforcement, they are often seen as a trusted intermediary for both workers and businesses and can use their programs, facilities, and messaging to make critical information available to those who need it.
Sample Ways to Use this Lever
- Awareness/Learning: Helping job seekers understand their rights and employers their responsibilities through training, messaging campaigns and other outreach
- Technical Assistance: Hosting or partnering on technical assistance for employers that want help complying with the law such as a hotline, individual coaching sessions, or process improvement support
- Monitoring: Providing safe channels for participants to report alleged labor violations and reviewing investigation/enforcement data on companies that have violated local ordinances, informing partner, procurement and subsidized wage funding decisions
- Partnership: Providing referrals to enforcement or co-enforcement organizations
- Enforcement: Enforcing living wage ordinances and other job quality requirements and standards for contractors, service providers and recipients of wage subsidies, establishing dedicated staff/office to worker protections
To get started with education and enforcement, use the self assessment and quick start guide.
Get More Information
Looking for more information on the levers? Check out case studies, trainings and materials in our Resources page.
STEP 3
Selected your lever(s)? Now move on to documenting your goals.