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Fair Work & Living Wage

Overview

Fair work has two main areas that we have experienced
1. Language (and how poorly it works in this area)
2. Fundamental understanding of what Fair Work is

2021

Tested 5 Themes

Themes

  • Effective voice
  • Opportunity
  • Security
  • Fulfilment
  • Respect
We also asked them:
  • Can people commit to this.
  • Can a company answer yes or no based on this description. (Why Not)
  • Would they be able to say they meet each of the 5 criteria
    or
  • Will they commit to work towards the criteria

  • Do people understand why we are embedding the 5 criteria


  • XXXXX

Asked them to suggest percentage compliance with 7 statement
  • % of staff paid RLW (i.e. less than 50% or more than 50%)
  • % of staff on zero hour contracts (i.e. less than 50% or more than 50%)
  • % Gender pay gap (less than 50% or more than 50%)
  • % of females in leadership roles (0-10%; 10-30%; 30-50% over 50%)
  • % of young people employed (0-10%; 10-30%; 30-50% over 50%)
  • % of staff trained in the past 12 months
  • % of staff consulted in past 12 months (i.e. staff survey)

Findings

  • People do not understand Fair work Well.
  • Industries experienece/welcome/implement Fair Work and Living Wage very differently.
    Some common pain points are:
    • Job defined wage hierarchies (ripple effect)
    • Low Automation / High levels of low paid jobs
    • Low Margins
    • Fluid workforce (can easily leave for the same job elsewhere)
    • BONUS paying industries (May priorities Bonus paying work over Development)
    • Low Audit environments
    • Highly competitive markets with low cost to switching supplier/vendor (paying staff more may make your products too expensive)
  • Some positives are:
  • In Some industries it is prevalent and viewed positively
    • In regulated industries these things are usually mandated.
    • In other (usually better paid) industries, there is often a staff based push towards tfulfilling these social initiatives. It helps with recruitment.
      It heklps with Staff retention.
  • In some industries it is viewed extremely poorly
    • Tourism, Hospitality, Food and Drink have major issues with Fair Work and Especially with Real Living Wage.
    • They cause problems within their wage Hierarchies. This means that raising wages of lowest paid staff may make them equal with the next job up. This then makes staff in that job request more money, and this ripple effect goes all the way to the top.
    • In industries with small margins, this can be severly damaging.
    • The impact is higher in industries that have many staff on minimum wage and where there is a pay hierarchy based on defined roles.