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.

Working people want more power over the terms and conditions of their work. Instead of viewing this shift as a threat or incursion, enlightened employers will find the opportunity in it. The same mechanisms that make a workplace more democratic, collaborative, and fair also can support and expand existing company priorities, from improving products and adopting new technologies to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. While some business leaders have opted for the same tired tactics to undermine worker empowerment in favor of top-down control, a raft of innovations in worker voice, worker representation, and collaborations with labor unions offer an alternative path forward.

To help organizations apply these ideas, the Aspen Business Roundtable on Organized Labor and Charter, a media company focused on the future of work, have partnered to produce “The Shared Power Advantage: How to build a thriving company where workers have a seat at the table.” The playbook includes strategies for leaders hoping to strengthen their workplaces by empowering their employees.

This interactive guide helps business owners understand the role an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) could play at their company. It provides a general overview of the structure of ESOPs, links to external resources, and describes the nuances of ESOPs in different corporate structures (C-Corp, B-Corp, or other form). Users of the tool are able to customize the path through the guide in accordance with the type of corporation they want to transition to employee ownership.

The Work Design for Health toolkit, developed by researchers at MIT and Harvard, is a practical but in-depth guide on improving job quality by centering worker health. Through topic overviews and recommended practices, which include ratings indicating the strength of research evidence on these practices, the guide walks employers through potential worker needs and action steps.

The toolkit consists of a number of modules. The first, the Overview, provides an introduction to the Work Design for Health approach to worker well-being. The next three modules explore the three principles that are at the heart of the Work Design for Health approach: giving employees more control on the job; taming excessive job demands; and improving social relationships in the workplace. The final module, “Get Started,” offers key steps and resources for implementing a Work Design for Health approach.

This playbook, developed by A—B Partners, is part ot the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program’s Shared Success project. Shared Success is working with CDFIs across the US to help them integrate job quality into their financing and advising services. This playbook offers findings and recommendations on how best to communicate the importance of job quality to owners of small- and medium-sized businesses.

This guide for employers provides guidance for the intentional inclusion of transgender workers, from recruitment and hiring to fostering a supportive culture. This resource can be used by organizations to learn about and evaluate their internal practices or practitioners looking to involve partners in working toward transgender inclusion.