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Research

Good Work and Productivity Data Development

This project focuses on the development of a database to enable analysis of the links between good work and productivity. Following the recommendations of the 2018 Taylor Review, the UK Government’s Good Work Plan (2018) signalled job quality (or what it calls ‘good work’) as a key potential contributor to productivity. The Plan aims to create more good work in order to boost productivity, particularly at the sector level.

Initial broad analysis by Professor Warhurst’s team at Warwick Institute for Employment Research using the dimensions of Good Work recommended by the 2018 Taylor Review provided tentative evidence of a link between good work and productivity. These dimensions are: terms of employment; pay and benefits; job design and the nature of work; social support and cohesion; health, safety and psychosocial wellbeing; work–life balance; and voice and representation. Each has a different set of indicators, with job design including training and skill use. However, data problems meant that the relationship and, in particular, causality could not be established with sufficient accuracy. The earlier work found that the analysis of the relationship is hampered by inadequacies of the data identified to date. Thus, the purpose of this project is to help develop a new integrated dataset that enables analysis of the relationship between good work at worker-, firm- or industry-level.

Lead researchers Chris Warhurst, Derek Bosworth (University of Warwick)