This online training addresses common questions about COVID-19 in food service settings and offers practical steps that chefs, supervisors and workers can take to keep themselves and diners safe during COVID-19 and other health emergencies. The training includes best practices for restaurants as well as a unit on creating personal health plans for workers. This guide can be used by employers as well as worker advocates and others who work closely with employers.

This resource provides guidance related to seven health and safety questions that small businesses have grappled with since the start of the pandemic. For each question, the authors include practical information, examples of steps taken by other small businesses, and links to helpful resources. Topics covered include creating an equitable and inclusive environment, recognizing and responding to workers’ caregiving responsibilities, and communicating about and ensuring workplace safety. Although written for small business owners, this resource may also be useful for larger employers as well as individuals that work with businesses, including economic development, investing and lending, and workforce development professionals.

This profile describes Linda Nguyen’s efforts to establish Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) during her tenure with Jobs to Move America, a policy advocacy organization. JMA has taken an innovative approach to CBAs, developing contracts with businesses that receive public infrastructure funding. This resource can be useful for practitioners exploring different ways to structure CBAs to support quality jobs as well as those interested in the intersection of job quality and environmental advocacy.

This profile documents how YouthBuild Philly engages retail businesses to strengthen equity, inclusion, and retention for the young people the organization serves. Key practices include identifying quality jobs and providing training and coaching to frontline managers to foster supportive supervision. Workforce organizations seeking to forge stronger business partnerships that improve worker retention can learn from these approaches.

This research report offers an overview of labor trends and systemic barriers to employment to contextualize Black women’s current economic and occupational status. The authors explore the history of Black women’s economic mobility; how occupational segregation, discrimination, and stereotypes impact Black women’s experiences in the labor market; and offer recommendations aimed at increasing economic equity. This resource may be of particular interest to individuals and organizations focused on learning about or addressing systemic barriers to race and gender equity in the labor market.

This series, informed by local job quality initiatives, can support workforce development professionals interested in beginning or strengthening engagement with employers to improve job quality. The reports are organized around three areas: 1) Strategies for Resourcing Job Quality Initiatives, with a focus on co-investment strategies with employers; 2) Practitioner competencies that can support staff engaged in job quality efforts with employers; and 3) Employer readiness characteristics to consider when determining employer partners. The last report also includes a link to a resource to help practitioners navigate employer resistance to change efforts. This series may also be useful for others interested in partnering on local job quality efforts, including economic development professionals and employers.

The Employer Engagement Question Bank is designed to help workforce professionals engage in conversations with businesses to support the job seekers they work with. This tool can be used to learn about a business with an eye toward providing workforce services, developing expertise about industry norms and practices, and building relationships that build credibility in discussions about strategies for promoting worker retention and advancement. The tool includes questions to build understanding of the business, its workforce needs, and a range of job quality factors including compensation, opportunities for advancement, and equity and inclusion. Workforce development practioners and other professionals who support workers can adapt the tool to meet their employer engagement goals.

This report examines definitions and research on job quality and provides a job quality framework based on findings. It focuses on job quality elements with the potential to support economic mobility. Designed to provide common ground for discussions around job quality, this report may be useful for practitioners and employers interested in exploring job quality frameworks and the link between job quality elements, worker well-being, and upward mobility.

This report addresses worsening job quality during the COVID-19 pandemic, using data from the 2020 Great Jobs Survey and building on the 2019 Great Jobs report. Among other insights, the report addresses how COVID-19 had a differential impact on high wage versus low wage workers, how job quality before the pandemic predicted job quality changes during the pandemic, and how COVID-19 has created new job quality challenges, such as increased remote work.

This webpage offers guidance on how to protect the health and safety of domestic workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Included are resources specifically for different domestic work occupations, such as housecleaners, nannies, and caregivers. There is guidance on how to speak with employers about returning to work and sample agreements between workers and employers to ensure safety in the workplace. These resources are geared towards domestic workers, but can also be used by worker advocates, workforce professionals, and employers to support worker safety–and can be applied to public health emergencies beyond COVID-19.