April 2024
In the third episode of our “In Conversation with…” podcast series for 2024 Lucy is joined by Ben Willmott, Head of Public Policy in the CIPD.
Key Takeaways:
Good work is a shared agenda: Investing in good work practices is the responsibility of both employers and the government. Areas of recommended public policy reform include statutory sick pay reform, increased occupational health support for small businesses, and introducing skills or training levies.
Start by investing in people management training: Day-to-day people management skills are fundamental to employees’ engagement and productivity in work.
Incorporate the principles of good work into job design processes: By designing jobs that give employees flexibility, autonomy, purpose and challenge, this can both improve job quality, as well as supporting business performance and productivity.
Flexible working arrangements should benefit the whole workforce, not just those who can work from home: Employers should consider putting in place flexible working arrangements that benefit all employees, including those who can’t work from home, for example term-time working, job shares, or compressed or annualised hours.
Lucy Lewis: Hello and welcome to the Future of Work Hub’s “In conversation with…” podcast. I'm Lucy Lewis, a partner in Lewis Silkin’s employment team, and in this podcast series, I'll be hosting exclusive discussions with innovators, business leaders and thought leaders to explore their perspectives on the longer-term trends and immediate drivers shaping the world of work.
The relationship between employer and employee is changing and the “social contract” is evolving. People want more from their employer than the old industrial age “transactional idea” of an employer giving work in return for job security, fair pay and benefits. There's a growing focus on ethical behaviour, on people's individual needs and on “good work” and that means that that traditional employment relationship is looking increasingly outdated. But what's behind people's shift in expectations about work and the role it plays in their lives? And as focus builds around the need to provide “good work”, what does that mean for employers and for HR?
To help answer those questions, in this episode, I'm joined by Ben Willmott. Ben leads the CIPD's public policy team, which works to inform and shape public debate, government policy and legislation to champion better work and better working lives. The CIPD has been driving the Good Work agenda for a number of years, and recently published a Manifesto on Good Work, so Ben is brilliantly placed to share his thoughts on this, but also help us understand what good work is and why it should matter to employers and their people. Thank you and welcome, Ben.
Concept of “good work”
Lucy Lewis: I wondered just to get us started and set the context for some of the things I know we will come to talk about, can you briefly explain from the CIPD's point of view what you mean when you talk about “good work”?
Ben Willmott: Well, CIPD has been measuring good work over the last seven years or so through what we call our Good Work Index, which is a large-scale survey of employees that tracks job quality and looks at a number of different dimensions of good work. It looks at things like pay and benefits, people's contractual relationship (are they permanent, are they part time or are they on a zero hours arrangement, for example), things like work-life balance, job design, relationships in the workplace (so the relationships that people have with their manager or their colleagues), employee voice and health and wellbeing (including people's mental health and wellbeing and things like stress). So, those elements of job quality provide sort of trend data in terms of how those dimensions are developing, whether people are perceiving that changes across those areas are becoming more positive or negative and so it gives us a really good understanding of how good work or job quality is evolving in the UK context.
Key drivers shaping the good work agenda
Lucy Lewis: Thanks, Ben. We’ll come back to talk about some of those topics, as they are really interesting. There's been a lot of discussion about the concept of “good work”. You may or may not know that my fellow partner, James Davies wrote a report last year, where he talks about the term ‘PREFAB’ jobs in the context of good work. That is, people wanting purpose, fair and transparent reward, engagement, flexibility, autonomy, and a sense of belonging. What do you think is driving this good work agenda, and why do you think it's becoming so important to the workplace?
Ben Willmott: I think there's a number of drivers, certainly a really topical one at the moment, we've seen rising levels of economic inactivity since the pandemic, which is of real concern to policymakers, and we're seeing an increasing proportion of people who are falling out of employment due to ill health. So that is, again, focusing on the importance of the creation of more flexible and healthy jobs that can support labour market participation, that can help keep people healthy and in work, and also then provide more flexible jobs that can help people come back into employment. So that's certainly a key driver within the current context, but there are other areas. Obviously, another big area is around the rapid developments in technology, particularly in AI, which is really getting policymakers and businesses to think about how organisations can adopt technology in a way that is optimal for both the business but also for workers, and that doesn't unnecessarily degrade job quality, but can hopefully augment job quality in many instances. So within that, the role of HR is really important.
Good work and job design
Lucy Lewis: That's fascinating. I think we'll come back to some of those issues. In particular, I would love to talk to you about the productivity puzzle and associated policy issues because I know that's a big part of your job. But before we get to that, there's a couple of things I wanted to pick up on. One of the things you talked about was job design, and that's one of those terms we hear used quite a lot. As plenty of the people listening to this podcast will be HR professionals, they’ll be familiar with the concept of job design. But for those that aren't, it would be really helpful if you could talk about what you mean by job design and then a little bit about how employers can go about starting to incorporate some of these principles of good work into their job design projects.
Ben Willmott: Well, I suppose at a top line level, job design is the process of establishing employees’ roles and responsibilities. So, setting out the tasks in the job and how an employee completes the tasks. Job design will look at things like the purpose of the job, and how that relates to the organisational purpose. It looks at things like health and safety, of course, to make sure that the tasks and the pace of work is not going to undermine people's health and safety, for example. It looks at things like productivity, so is the job focusing on the things that matter? And then will also include a focus on job quality, so things like flexibility, how much autonomy people have in the role, what sort of breadth and challenge there is and so collectively, brings those elements together to try and create a job that is both high quality, but one that also supports business performance and productivity.
Good work and returning to the office
Lucy Lewis: Thanks, Ben. That’s really interesting, particularly when we look at some of the ways that jobs, as you say, are evolving through technology, and particularly the acceleration of technology, and the need to be reflecting on these things when we’re looking at roles now. Before we come on to policy, which I definitely want to get to, there are a couple of tensions that we see employers facing when they come to look at the broader concepts of good work.
One of those goes to work-life balance and flexibility, which we were just talking about, because we obviously all know that since the COVID pandemic we have been a lot more flexible, and we see a significantly greater number of remote working arrangements. But more recently, probably in the last six months or so, one of the things that we are seeing is a shift in employers wanting to mandate some sort of office return, not necessarily a full office return, but wanting to be a bit more directional about employees coming into the office. Do you think there's an inherent tension there, or can you still embrace this idea of flexibility whilst having a degree of mandating office attendance?
Ben Willmott: I don't think there's necessarily a one-size-fits-all approach to this, I think it's really about employers trying to find that sweet spot where the flexibility works for both employees and the business. That balance will be established very much employer to employer, workplace to workplace. So, I think that's the key thing; that employers shouldn't lose sight of the benefits that flexible working can deliver in terms of recruiting and retaining a more diverse workplace, so it's trying to really find that sweet spot, I think that's the important thing.
The other thing that businesses really need to think about when they're thinking about flexibility, is trying to ensure that it's not just those who can work from home or those who work in a hybrid way can benefit. We know there's a real unmet demand for flexible hours arrangements, things like term-time working, or job share, or annualised hours or compressed hours. We know, from our research, that there's a real unmet demand amongst employees for those type of flexible working arrangements which can benefit people who have to be physically present in the workplace. I think that's another really important dimension, to try and find flexible working options that can benefit the whole workforce and not just those who can work from home.
The role of employers and the government in promoting good work practices
Lucy Lewis: Thanks, Ben. I think that's really sensible and practical advice and it's good, in any capacity, to be focusing on why you need people to be in the office, what is the reason you need them back. That’s also the advice we give when we’re looking at legal risks, and helpful that you picked up on those people that are not so easily able to work from home and what flexibility means for those people. Because I think one of the tensions that we see is employers concerned when they're implementing a strategy, particularly around flexibility, that there might be challenges with fairness, and your comments about that, what's fair in one role might not be fair in another, doesn't mean that you can't have a sensible good work strategy focused on some of these key themes that you talked about - particularly flexibility and autonomy - so really great that you touched on that as well because I think that is an area of tension when people are thinking about what a return to the office should look like.
We'll get on to the policy related questions because it's obviously a really big issue and it’s an interesting year but there's a couple of things to pick up on. If we start with a more general question before we get to the idea of an election year, one of the things I think is challenging but really interesting in this area, is where the balance should lie between employers and the competitive advantage that comes from doing all the good work piece and government legislation. You know, the “carrot and stick” approach. Do you have a view on where that balance should be between employers and government and legislation?
Ben Willmott: I think it's very much a shared agenda and what we know I suppose, from looking at indicators, like the OECD indicators around employment protection, is that overall, the UK is fairly lightly regulated when it comes to employment regulation and, for example, the protections that individual workers have. But we also have relatively higher levels of employment, and we have a relatively low proportion of people in secure work by international standards. So, understanding the top line impact of employment relations frameworks is important. However, it doesn't mean that there are not real challenges around people who are treated unfairly and who face discrimination. We know that there's a real problem with the labour market enforcement system, for both the individual route through the tribunals and through our enforcement bodies which are significantly under-resourced. So, there is a real challenge for individuals if they are treated unfairly or if they are being discriminated against to actually find access to justice and a route to compensation. We need a functioning labour market enforcement system if we're going to have a functioning floor for employment rights and a level playing field to ensure that employers can't undermine good employers by breaching these standards. It's a really important area and I think that's an area that you would hope that an incoming government would really look to fix. That means an enforcement system that’s also more progressive, with a stronger role for ACAS to help, particularly SMEs improve their people management development capability. We know that there's a real difficulty there because they often lack the time and resources and the knowledge to meet their legal responsibilities. So, we think that there's a real case for a stronger role for ACAS to support that push to improve overall employment standards.
Investing in skills
Lucy Lewis: Thanks, Ben. I know the other thing that the CIPD have talked about from a policy perspective, and it would be great if you could say something about this, is the skills agenda and the extent to which that's a policy or government issue. It obviously needs to be one that's in partnership with employers, but the extent to which there needs to be a policy imperative around skills?
Ben Willmott: I think what we have seen over the last 20 years is a decline in employer investment in skills development and training, which is, without doubt, linked to our stagnating productivity levels. So, I think there is a real need for a change in policy in key areas. For example, the apprenticeship levy, which since it was introduced in 2017, we've seen a collapse in apprenticeships being created amongst SMEs and we've also seen a significant decline in apprenticeships going to young people. We think if there was a more flexible skills or training levy, that could help free up more funding for apprenticeships to go to young people and to address genuine technical skills shortages, and also to be used more flexibly to upskill existing employees through other forms of accredited training and development.
Healthy work
Lucy Lewis: Thanks, Ben. The last aspect that the CIPD talks about in relation to this, is one that you talked about right at the outset, I think it's really interesting; that's the idea of “healthy work”. Given the increase in the number of people that are not in work for health related reasons, that also feels like a policy issue as well as an employer issue. Are there policy things that we should expect to see people calling for as we come into an election year in relation to making work more healthy for people and keeping people in work?
Ben Willmott: I think we need much more ambition around public policy to support healthier work and workplaces. We certainly need greater investment in occupational health support for small firms. One thing the CIPD has been involved in, in the last few years is running a number of HR support pilots to small firms in different parts of the UK. That has shown there is real value in providing a limited amount of pump priming HR consultancy support to small firms to help them build their core basic HR and people management capability. This is associated with improvements in workplace relations and labour productivity. And we know key areas of HR practice such as reasonable adjustments, flexible working, making sure that people can make a phased return to work; those areas are really important to keeping people healthy and in work and preventing people from falling out of employment. So, we think that there is a real opportunity to look at what type of business support is available and also, crucially, making sure that there is better access and better signposting to occupational health support, particularly for SMEs.
The cost of improving productivity
Lucy Lewis: And of course for all policy change, particularly support for businesses, there is a cost that, in an election year no doubt, is going to be under scrutiny. Presumably, the CIPD response is that without addressing these things and without actually investing that cost, we won't address the productivity puzzle; we won't improve productivity in the UK for all of the reasons that you said unless we’re willing to invest. In other words, this is a sort of package of policy measures that has a cost associated with them, but if we don't spend that money, we won't achieve the kind of productivity that we need to aspire to in the UK.
Ben Willmott: Yeah, absolutely. The other thing I didn't mention Lucy, the other really important area of policy around health and wellbeing, would be statutory sick pay reform. We know that the level of statutory sick pay is very low in the UK by international standards and it's also very inflexible. We need to make statutory sick pay more flexible so people can be paid statutory sick pay in a flexible way, for example, if they are coming back to work in a phased way. We absolutely need to increase the rate of the level of statutory sick pay, and that's an area we absolutely need an in-depth consultation to work out how that's going to be paid for, is that going to be shared between government and businesses? I think that point around some of these policies, like a more effective and progressive labour market enforcement system, better access to occupational health, a reformed statutory sick pay, that will cost money. I think part of this is that these policies need to be seen as part of an industrial strategy that is seeking to improve overall employment standards across the economy to support improvements in productivity and labour market participation.
I think also, there are areas of spending that maybe the next government could look at. For example, in R&D tax incentives, we rightly invest a lot of public funding in R&D incentives, but I think there is a case to potentially reallocate what would be a relatively small proportion of the R&D tax incentive budget to support sub-policies that would boost innovation adoption. So, the adoption of better quality management, the adoption of technology, and investment in skills. We know that together, these elements are fundamental to efforts to improve productivity. But at the moment, there's not many policy mechanisms to actually incentivise, encourage and enable more businesses to invest more in those areas which are real areas of weakness in terms of business investment currently.
Importance of management training
Lucy Lewis: Thanks Ben. Really interesting ideas and particular thinking about how these things are paid for and clearly, they're a critical piece in solving this productivity puzzle. I'm going to take you back to our HR audience, and one of the things I often think when you listen to these podcasts, is that you come away really inspired about the value of changing. I know there are a lot of organisations, charters and alliances out there. For example, the CIPD is working with Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter, and the World Economic Forum and Institute of Future of Work also have charters and alliances. Those are all focused on trying to get people to take some action now. So, if you are listening to this and think, I'm really committed to embedding this idea of good work into the way that we do things, what are the three or four tips you could give as places to start, things to look at, to go away and think about?
Ben Willmott: I think the most important consideration for employers and HR teams if they're thinking about improving job quality and also business performance, I would focus on training your line managers to manage people properly. We know from our Good Work Index and from other research we've carried out, that how managers manage and support people on a day-to-day basis is fundamental to their job quality, to their level of engagement, whether they say they're going to go the extra mile for their organisation, whether they say that their work has a positive or negative effect on their mental health, how much stress they're under; all these factors are affected or mitigated by their relationship with their line manager. We know the core, so-called soft people management skills; the ability of managers to manage their emotions, not pass stress on, to proactively manage problems like conflict at an early stage, and to use their judgment to try and deal with things informally where they can but use the formal processes when they need to. Things like constructive feedback, clear clarity of communication over people's objectives and, critically, managers who know their people, who demonstrate they care about them, who know the things that matter to them and provide flexibility and support. Those elements are critical to creating trust in the employment relationship. I think without trust, then it's very difficult to develop a productive work culture and sustainable work culture where people will want to stay with you as an employer and be resilient under pressure.
Priority actions for employers
Lucy Lewis: Thanks, Ben. I'm going to end by asking you the question I'm asking all our podcast guests in this 2024 podcast series, and it may be that you've already answered that question, but considering everything we've discussed, what do you think the two priority action points for employers and their HR teams that are trying to build organisational resilience? So, maybe the answer to that is effective training, in which case that's totally fine.
Ben Willmott: I think it is to equip your line managers to manage people properly. I think the other thing is to be able to build the business case for investment in people management, so really highlighting the data that will influence senior leadership teams and boards as to why investment in HR and people management and development is critical to the delivery of business strategy. I think that's an area where, if we're going to see greater investment in skills to support workplace productivity, it's those discussions at board level and within senior leadership teams that need to be informed by a real understanding of the value of the workforce.
Lucy Lewis: Thanks so much for joining us, Ben. It's been really interesting, particularly the discussion around some of the policy things and what we can expect to see in what is likely to be an election year. It's been a fascinating discussion. I'm sure everybody listening will feel the same. If you're listening and you'd like to know more about some of the things Ben's been talking about, or more generally about the CIPD's work, its manifesto, or their Good Work Index, you can visit their website, www.cipd.org. Thanks, Ben.