Job Quality and Employer Practices: Evidence from B Corporations
A new WorkRise report explores how employer practices related to job quality differ between certified B Corporations and similar firms, revealing insights into worker benefits, firm outcomes, and strategies to improve job quality.
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A new WorkRise report explores how employer practices related to job quality differ between certified B Corporations and similar firms, revealing insights into worker benefits, firm outcomes, and strategies to improve job quality.
Grantmaking and Partnerships
Led by a cross-sector Leadership Board that is ideologically diverse and representative of often-siloed groups, WorkRise invests in research on policies, programs, and practices that have the potential to accelerate economic security and mobility for low-wage workers. We fund analyses and the creation of data that shed light on labor market barriers, trends, and opportunities. And we engage in strategic partnerships that help advance evidence-based solutions in support of our mission. Learn more about our most recent request for proposals and how you can collaborate with WorkRise.
The Latest
In Depth
Worker voice, representation, and power
Feature
Last updated on October 24, 2024
Segregation in the Low-Wage Workforce
Over the past 50 years, the composition of the low-wage workforce has changed: more than half of low-wage workers are now people of color, up from just 20 percent in 1971. Today, Black, Latino, and women workers are more likely to be segregated into worse-quality and lower-paying jobs.
WorkRise Research
Employer practices
Last updated on November 19, 2024
Video
WorkRise Shorts: Overcoming Racial Disparities in Manufacturing Recruitment and Training Programs
Can a new local manufacturing workforce development program that targets workers who are not traditionally engaged in the sector overcome racial disparities in its hiring and wage rates?
Last updated on November 19, 2024
The Latest
Skills and training
Last updated on May 07, 2024
Research Summary
Completing College is Key for Black Men to Earn Higher Wages and Close the Earnings Gap between Black and White Workers
The earnings gap in the US labor market between Black and white workers is a longstanding problem. New research shows that one way to help close that gap is for colleges and universities to help Black male students complete their college degrees.
Economic context
Last updated on April 30, 2024
Video
WorkRise Shorts: Workers’ Assessments of AI’s Impact on Jobs
Rutgers University distinguished professor Carl Van Horn, founding director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, shares insights from his research, which looks at US workers’ attitudes toward government oversight of AI technologies and its impact on jobs.
Last updated on April 30, 2024
Worker voice, representation, and power
Last updated on April 30, 2024
Research Summary
The Consequences of Signing Noncompete Agreements among Low-Wage Workers and Those without College Degrees
Noncompete agreements are commonly used by businesses when hiring highly educated, high-wage workers entrusted with sensitive information or specialized training, but new research finds that 14 percent of workers without a bachelor’s degree and 13 percent of workers earning less than $40,000 per year are also bound by these contracts. The Federal Trade Commission now wants to ban all noncompetes because they often are associated with harmful employment outcomes for workers’ career mobility and income growth, relying in part on this new research.
Skills and training
Last updated on April 23, 2024
Video
WorkRise Shorts: The Harvard Workforce Almanac
The workforce almanac is a first-of-its-kind open-source directory mapping thousands of workforce training providers across the US. The workforce training system in the US has historically been treated in fragmentation, Nathalie Gazzaneo, co-director of Harvard Project on Workforce, shares.
Last updated on April 23, 2024
Research
Economic context
Executive Summary
March 15, 2023
How Past Criminal Convictions Bar Floridians from Occupational Licensing Opportunities
In this report, the Florida Policy Institute and the DeVoe L. Moore Center at Florida State University highlight research exploring the relationship between occupational licensing and recidivism and the consequences of overregulation on workforce development. The authors also survey the landscape of Florida’s occupational licensing laws and policy reform efforts and present policy proposals to reduce professional licensing barriers for people with criminal records.
Grantee Research
Worker voice, representation, and power
Executive Summary
March 13, 2023
Nailing New Labor Models: Exploring Sectoral Bargaining and High-Road Training Partnerships in the Nail Salon Sector
This report from the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative and the UCLA Labor Center explores how partnerships and sectoral boards can build a sustainable and equitable nail salon industry, focusing on two approaches from other sectors. High-road training partnerships and sectoral bargaining approaches can be adapted for nail salons but require distinct interventions and capacities for member participation.
Grantee Research
Employer practices
Report
December 10, 2022
The National Study of Workplace Equity
The National Study of Workplace Equity surveyed just over 1,000 workplaces to find that equity is inconsistently implemented across employment systems. Researchers from the Boston College School of Social Work and Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) find that equity is strongest in recruitment and hiring, compensation and benefits, and orientation and onboarding.
Grantee Research
Employer practices
Executive Summary
December 10, 2022
Executive Summary: The National Study of Workplace Equity
In a new study, researchers from Work Equity, an initiative at the Boston College School of Social Work, and SHRM find that much progress needs to be made on equity across the employment lifecycle. Based on a survey of just over 1,000 workplaces, researchers find that equity is implemented inconsistently across 10 discrete employment systems.
Grantee Research