Research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on how fringe benefits can better support low earners and help tackle in-work poverty.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation commissioned this research to understand how fringe benefits could improve the reward package for low earners and help alleviate in-work poverty. Focusing on retail and social care, it formed part of JRF's wider work on job quality, productivity in low-wage sectors and solving poverty in the UK.
Employers increasingly see benefits as part of the total reward package and of high-performance working. But benefits are inconsistently defined, which can hold back their take-up and use.
We found that low earners value most the benefits that ease their highest living costs, such as food, travel, childcare, housing and utilities, along with financial education and support. Paid breaks, sick, compassionate and parental leave, and training also matter a great deal, and are better seen as fundamental to reward rather than "fringe".
With no "silver bullet", we developed a seven-step good practice framework for employers, from securing leadership commitment and building the business case, to tailoring schemes, promoting them effectively and measuring their impact. We also called for a new baseline of benefits for low-paid roles, backed by incentives that reward businesses offering good work.
Improving fringe benefit schemes for low earners
Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2018
Heather Carey and Lesley Giles, Work Advance
Helen Sheldon and Monica Andriescu, Work Foundation
Revisiting job quality in creative work, three years on from the Good Work Review