Grateful to the 4 Day Week Campaign for inviting me to speak at the launch of their manifesto today. It was a n excellent event, and I was very pleased to be part of it.
Work in the future can't simply follow the same patterns as we have seen in the past. Everything changed with Covid, and we can more easily see the potential to make work more flexible and fairer. Importantly, research indicates that this benefits both businesses and employees. We need to reflect upon how more flexible work might look like in a whole range of job roles - it can't just be for those who work in desk based roles, for instance.
The Scottish Government has Fair Work as a central theme, with Neil Gray MSP as Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy. Whilst Scotland does not have power over employment, the Scottish Government’s remains committed to making Scotland a leading Fair Work nation by 2025.
An example of a Fair Work success story is the Living Wage in Scotland. In 2014, there were just 14 living wage employers in Scotland, as of 2022, the number of employers paying the living wage had jumped to 2,900. Proportionately, this is five times more than the rest of the UK. That means over 59,000 workers have seen a pay rise because of Living Wage accreditation.
Comments