The Good Employment Charter

Research Summary

Dr Sarah Crozier and Professor Ben Lupton are working with Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) on a programme of work to evaluate the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter. Over three years, this project has involved a two-phase evaluation that examined the impact of the introduction of the Good Employment Charter on participating organisations.

Phase 1 (led by Professor Ben Lupton) utilised surveys and focus group to examine the experiences of those responsible for the implementation of the charter within their organisations. It captured the motivations to participate and the perceptions of impact on employment practices during the first year of the charter.

Phase 2 (led by Dr Sarah Crozier) examined employee and manager perceptions during year 2. This part of the evaluation captured data from over 500 employees and managers from 67 organisations engaged with the charter. Together the data sources provide a detailed account of employee and manager experiences of good employment within their participating organisations. It builds on the findings of Phase 1 by exploring employee and manager perceptions about the impact of the charter on employee perceptions of good employment. This provides a ‘baseline’ measure of participating organisations’ engagement across each charter characteristic. The project also enables organisations engaged in the charter to share learning and best practice.

The data also explored differences in employee experiences of good employment across organisation size and sector in order to provide industry comparisons, and provides rich narratives and exemplars to showcase good practice and areas for further development. The project provides recommendations for building good employment practices across all charter characteristics and provides some statistical modelling to map which of these are most important in shaping employee perceptions of good employment.

In addition to the evaluation project, Dr Crozier has designed an innovative toolkit (October 2022) as part of a commissioned report that will share Greater Manchester’s story of the development of the Good Employment Charter. The report draws on analysis from focus groups and interviews with those involved in the design and implementation of the initiative. The toolkit provides a range of resources focused around a visual model of the charter development – this acts as a broad framework to help navigate the different steps and to act as a sense-checking tool to support those involved in similar initiatives to explore and plan for each stage.