DIGGING DEEPER INTO THE 10 BIG IDEAS
Table of Contents
Introduction
The 10 Big Ideas
Digging Deeper
- Measure what matters to workers, capturing a full range of job quality indicators
- Center equity in measurement
- Increase mandatory human capital data disclosure
- Link public and private data to gain new insights into the quality of jobs
- Leverage business data to demonstrate the return on investment from good jobs
- Revise data systems to include and support the non-W2 workforce
- Strengthen workforce system metrics to deliver results for workers and businesses
- Use public and private spending to measure and strengthen equity and good jobs
- Strengthen state and local capacity for data-driven decision-making to advance good jobs
- Invest in strengthening job quality measurement
Understanding the Impact
Appendices
Acknowledgements
#5: Leverage business data to demonstrate the return on investment from good jobs.
These actions are intended for…
Monitoring and improving job quality requires data and buy-in from employers, who ultimately design jobs and hire workers. Historically, few businesses have released job quality data, hampering decision-making by workers, policymakers, and training and workforce development providers. Government data on job quality are generally aggregated by industry, employer size or other group characteristics rather than provided at the firm level, and while publicly-traded companies provide limited data for various U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, there are no standardized templates and many smaller or privately held companies are excluded.
Today, as we emerge from the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic and enter into a tight labor market coupled with high inflation, employers are increasingly looking for new strategies to attract and retain talent. By sharing their data with trusted nonprofit partners, businesses can learn how they stack up with peer firms and how to strengthen their workforce policies and practices to improve profitability and operational resiliency.
To put this into practice, the federal government, workforce providers, commercial platforms, researchers, and investors can partner with business to:
1. Encourage submission of job quality measures through voluntary disclosure tools and incentives.
The “great reshuffle” – in which more than 47 million people 1 quit their jobs in 2021, and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data showed a record five million more job openings than unemployed people 2 in March 2022 – prompted many companies to question their talent management practices and consider new approaches. These companies can leverage the growing availability of voluntary job quality self-assessment tools, 3 which enable businesses to learn about how their workforce practices stack up to peers, and access technical assistance to proactively course correct where needed. Through tools like Working Metrics and JVS Boston’s Job Quality Index, 4 companies can submit workforce data in exchange for benchmarking information that allows them to compare their performance to competitors, and learn about opportunities to improve job design in ways that reduce the cost of turnover and drive profitability. Nonprofit and government partners can direct employers to these tools to scale use, encourage the public release of data wherever possible, and help connect businesses to resources and technical assistance where needed, such as through consultants like the Good Jobs Institute and WorkLife Partnership.
2. Use data-driven employer scorecards to spark disclosure and a race to the top
Organizations like JUST Capital and the Drucker Institute – along with the multi-partner American Opportunity Index – have developed widely-utilized company rankings that aggregate data to, in part, compare human capital practices across large, publicly-traded firms. JQMI members proposed building on these tools by developing a public scorecard for measuring firm-level job quality performance. This would require developing a standard set of employer-level job quality indicators and identifying a methodology by which to gather data from firms and aggregate data into a composite score to easily measure and compare company performance. Such a scorecard could be developed in partnership with a cohort of “high road” companies committed to providing quality jobs, to ensure that the ultimate product is user-friendly and useful to firms seeking to analyze and improve their practices.
One proposed path forward would be to partner with widely-used payroll processing companies (e.g., ADP, UKG, etc.) to create a standardized template for reporting job quality data that these companies commonly hold. The payroll processing companies would be positioned to collect, dynamically calculate, and report on data in a consistent format across all clients, thus reducing the reporting and disclosure burden on any individual company and increasing the reliability of the information. To incentivize completion, participating companies could receive aggregated data on their peers as well as detailed matches by industry, geography, or size, providing useful insights into the competitive landscape. Federal, state, and local government entities could also motivate participation through provision of incentives to small and mid-sized businesses who adopt the standardized reporting template for job quality data, such as favorable business loan terms, subsidized marketing, and public recognition. Such data could be utilized and rewarded in workforce programs such as sector strategies and high road training partnerships. 5 See Appendix 3 for more information on proposed scorecard methodologies and implementation pathways.
Endnotes
- Jennifer Liu, CNBC. Roughly 47 million people quit their jobs last year: ‘All of this is uncharted territory’ (February 1, 2022).
- TED: The Economics Daily, The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Number of unemployed people per job opening is 0.5 in March 2022 (May 09, 2022).
- Molly Scott, Batia Katz, and Jessica Shakesprere, Urban Institute. Increasing Job Quality through Greater Employer Transparency – Models to Inform Future Action at Scale (April 2022).
- JVS Boston. The History of JVS’ Job Quality Index.
- Ana Luz González-Vásquez and Magaly N. López, High Road Training Partnership. The High Road to Economic Prosperity (May 2021).