Overview

Employer practices such as hiring, scheduling, promotion, supervision, and on-the-job training determine workers’ day-to-day reality and long-term prospects in the labor market. The growing prevalence of independent contractors and contingent workers underscores the continued fissuring of employer-employee relationships.

Working Knowledge

African American technician worker holds part of robotic arm
Employer practices, Support during upskilling , Young workers 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
Employer practices, Young workers Last updated on October 08, 2024
Research Summary

Young Workers Need Support When They Can't Find Their Footing in the US Workforce

During recessions, young workers are less likely to find work and face lower wage growth than more experienced workers. Unemployment Insurance could be reformed to support these young workers as they navigate the labor market amid economic downturns at foundational times in their careers, alongside other policy tools that can be effective in these instances.

Madeleine Sirois

Last updated on October 08, 2024
A group of co-workers of varying genders having a meeting
Employer practices Last updated on June 04, 2024
Article

Better Business Outcomes: Here are the Basics of LGBTQ+ Workplace Policies and Practices

Business goals and worker well-being can be improved through strong LGBTQ+ workplace policies and practices, which research shows benefit workers’ well-being and firms’ financial performances.

Oluwasekemi Odumosu

Last updated on June 04, 2024
Manual workers in cheese and milk dairy production factory.
Employer practices, Workers in the South Last updated on May 28, 2024
Video

WorkRise Shorts: Racial and Gender Discrimination in the Temporary Staffing Sector

The temporary staffing industry is a $186-billion industry, widely used across sectors from food processing to product creation. Temp staffing can be used to skirt liability, and staffing agencies and the companies that use them create a second-tiered workforce, says Lorraine Sands, legal organizer at GLOW: Grassroots Law and Organizing for Workers. To advance the process of bettering temp workers’ rights, this research highlighted how racial and gender discrimination is often pervasive in the temporary staffing sector. The report explores the national context but focuses particularly on Harris County, Texas, and Nashville, Tennessee.
Last updated on May 28, 2024

Research

Employer practices, Scheduling, Paid leave, Energy transition Report Last updated on January 22, 2025

Job Quality and Employer Practices: Evidence from B Corporations

A new WorkRise report, Job Quality and Employer Practices: Evidence from B Corporations, examines differences across firms in employer practices related to job quality, and how those differences relate to outcomes for both workers and businesses.

William J. Congdon, Oluwasekemi Odumosu, Molly M. Scott

WorkRise Research

Last updated on January 22, 2025
Employer practices Last updated on December 04, 2024

Centering Workers and Advancing Business Needs: Nine Case Studies of Partnerships in the Manufacturing Sector

Last updated on December 04, 2024
Employer practices, Young workers, Support during upskilling  Last updated on December 04, 2024

Advancing Economic Mobility in Manufacturing

In today’s labor market, manufacturers, like many employers, recognize that recruiting and retaining workers often means rethinking diversity considerations and identifying new talent pools.
Last updated on December 04, 2024
Employer practices, Immigrant workers Report Last updated on October 25, 2024

The Minneapolis Small Business High-Road Labor Standards Intervention Pilot Project

The Minneapolis Small Business High-Road Labor Standards Intervention Pilot Project seeks to provide services that support immigrant, black, indigenous, and people of color owned small businesses so that they can create healthy, just, and equitable jobs through meeting and or exceeding minimum city labor standards.

Grantee Research

Last updated on October 25, 2024
Employer practices, Immigrant workers, Young workers, Energy transition Brief Last updated on September 19, 2024

Extreme Heat at Work

This research brief offers the first nationally representative estimates of how outdoor and indoor workers are affected by extreme heat, highlighting that low-wage workers, defined as adults earning less than $15 an hour, face greater risks than higher-wage earners.

Lisa Clemans-Cope, Dulce Gonzalez, Sara McTarnaghan, Michael Karpman

WorkRise Research

Last updated on September 19, 2024
Employer practices Report Last updated on May 21, 2024

IKEA Self-Scheduling Intervention: Baseline Report

Widespread unpredictability in work scheduling leads to decreased job satisfaction, higher turnover rates, economic instability, and compromised worker health. To address these challenges, IKEA partnered with The Shift Project to develop a Self-Scheduling Intervention for its hourly workers to give them greater control over their shifts. They selected intervention and comparison stores to measure its impact on worker and business outcomes, and over four years, held weekly meetings to strategize and analyze data. This report contextualizes self-scheduling research, delves into pre-intervention conditions, introduces new features, outlines the research design, and explores future directions.

Grantee Research

Last updated on May 21, 2024
Employer practices, Workers in the South Report December 13, 2023

Temporary Staffing Industry Testing Report

The temporary staffing industry is a $186 billion sector. The National Legal Advocacy Network team used matched-pair testing in Harris County, Texas, and Nashville, Tennessee, to generate evidence on potentially unlawful employment practices in this industry and found widespread racial and gender discrimination in access to work. These tests showed that agencies offered fewer job opportunities, lower wages, and less frequent follow-ups to workers who were women and/or Black than they did to Latinx workers and men.

Grantee Research

December 13, 2023
Employer practices, Paid leave Executive Summary October 18, 2023

Who Has Access to Paid Sick and Safe Leave?

A new report by Family Values at Work and World Policy Analysis Center charts access to paid sick and safe leave in the US and identifies the most equitable policies in effect.

Grantee Research

October 18, 2023
Employer practices Executive Summary June 26, 2023

A Workplace Divided: Survey Research and Stakeholder Engagement to Advance Equitable Workplaces

A national survey by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University explores workers' perceptions of discrimination and unfair treatment based on race and ethnicity. The survey reveals significant percentages of Asian-American, Black, and Latino workers experience discrimination in private-sector and government workplaces. Black workers are more likely to view workplace discrimination as a significant problem than white workers, with Black female workers reporting the highest levels of discrimination. The study highlights the impact of discrimination on career advancement and the need for government and employer interventions to promote workplace equity.

Carl E. Van Horn, Ronald Quincy, Jessica Starace, Anton House

Grantee Research

June 26, 2023
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.

Samuel L. Bradley, Jr., Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, Kathleen Christensen

Grantee Research

December 10, 2022


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