This six-step guide can help employers assess their employees’ financial stability and make an actionable plan to strengthen financial wellness. The foundational step includes assessing employee wages and benefits to ensure workers are earning a livable wage. The following steps guide employers through various financial wellness solutions, including how to implement and evaluate strategies and solicit feedback. This guide is written for employers, but it could also be used by workforce development professionals or worker advocates who work closely with employers.

This simple, user-friendly calculator serves as a tool to measure the income needed by a family to maintain an adequate standard of living in a specific community. It can calculate costs based on all counties and metro areas in the US and for 10 family types (one or two adults with zero to four children). Family budgets are calculated using seven components: housing, food, transportation, childcare, healthcare, taxes, and “other necessities.”

This calculator is a tool for estimating the living wage by US metro area, county, state, region, or at the national level. The living wage is defined as the wage needed to cover basic family expenses including housing, food, childcare, transportation, health, and other necessities, plus relevant taxes. The calculator estimates the living wage needed to support families of 12 different compositions (one to two adults with up to three children). Practitioners across fields can use this tool to benchmark compensation in local communities or firms against a wage rate that allows residents to meet minimum standards of living. Because the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a nonpartisan research institution, practitioners report that this tool has credibility with a range of audiences including businesses.

This tool is designed to guide workforce practitioners through the development and growth of industry partnerships that bring together employers, service providers, and workers. While industry partnerships may form to address talent needs, as the National Fund notes, these partnerships can become an important avenue for addressing job quality and workplace inequities over time. The toolkit includes an assessment to help strengthen partnerships as well as guidance and resources related to five areas: employer and industry engagement, stakeholder engagement, data-informed strategy and continuous learning, operational capacity, and racial equity and inclusion. Workforce and economic development professionals may find the toolkit useful for embedding job quality in industry partnership approaches.

This assessment is a tool to help employers (primarily >150 employees) benchmark their talent management strategies against those other employers are undertaking and to determine where to focus practice change efforts. The topics covered in the survey include recruiting, hiring, retention, advancement, and more. A separate resource section also provides a variety of business-facing tools. Practitioners who work with businesses could direct them to this tool and even walk them through it.

This PDF provides a helpful model for assessing business practices. Employers are asked questions about the quality of their jobs through factors such as diversity, benefits (e.g., paid leave), health support, and flexible scheduling. Although some questions are specific to New Mexico’s policies, this application may be used as a model for organizations interested in assessing job quality for current and potential employer partners. This tool could also be used internally for employers who would like to assess their own practices.

This detailed assessment is a tool to help employers generate a report about their social and environment impact, including impact on workers, and to benchmark against peer companies. It includes measures of job quality, including compensation, benefits, safety, and worker ownership. Practitioners who work with businesses could direct them to this tool or even walk them through it.

The US Private Sector Job Quality Index (JQI) is intended to reflect job quality in the United States, using data on weekly wages and hours for high wage jobs versus low wage jobs. Released each month on the same day as the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ US Employment Situation Report, it captures a distinct view of labor market health and offers monthly tracking of the composition of high quality to low quality jobs, using pay as a proxy for overall job quality. Historical data also documents a shift from jobs in manufacturing to services, as well as a shift within services from higher to low quality jobs.

In late 2023, Lee Health, one of the largest public health systems in Florida, began a virtual nursing pilot designed to understand the opportunities and implications of shifting this vital role into a virtual environment. I sat down with three Lee Health leaders responsible for the design and implementation of the virtual nursing pilot — Kim Gault, MSN, RN, business system analyst for virtual health and telemedicine; Max Rousseau, supervisor of virtual health and telemedicine; and Jonathan Witenko, system director, virtual health and telemedicine — to learn more about why this was a priority for the organization, the considerations they made, and the outcomes they’re seeking. This conversation took place over two interviews and has been edited for clarity.

This guide to conduct worker surveys posits amplifying worker voice as a viable business strategy. It was developed as part of the Economic Opportunities Program’s Reimagine Retail job quality research, in response to growing recognition of the importance of listening to workers. The tool for conducting worker surveys includes practical tips, sample opening survey language, and sample survey questions that address topics such as job satisfaction, growth opportunities, and workplace relationships and culture. This tool may be helpful for employers looking to use worker expertise and engagement to strengthen job quality, equity, and the business bottom line. Workforce development and worker advocacy organizations may also find it helpful to share these tools with employers in their networks.