MOTIVATING TO PERFORM IN THE WORKPLACE

Motivating to Perform in the Workplace



Motivating to Perform in the Workplace

Introduction

There has been much debate about the role that Intermediate Labour Markets (ILMs) could play in the Government's welfare to work strategy. Some advocate that the wage-based work experience offered through ILMs provides a tested model to facilitate an effective route into work for many of the disadvantaged groups furthest from the labour market. Others stress the unique capacity of ILMs both to improve the employability of the long-term unemployed and contribute to the social and physical regeneration of poor neighbourhoods. Critics, however, suggest that the achievements claimed for ILMs are over stated, arguing instead that ILM employment is expensive and could deflect the unemployed from looking for regular jobs.

ILM 3.12 Motivating to Perform in the Workplace

Following the election of the Labour Government in 1997 there has been a significant increase in ILM activities in Great Britain and the wage-based approach has been adopted by a wider range of organisations delivering the New Deals and other employment and regeneration programmes, often funded in part by the European Union. The Government is also further exploring the potential of a coherent transitional employment programme through its 'StepUP' pilots. These target the growing number of New Deal participants who are re-qualifying for a second or third spell in the programme. The pilots aim to test whether a wage-based work experience programme will be more effective in getting this group into regular jobs. In twenty selected localities up to 5,000 participants are to be offered a temporary job at minimum wage for up to 50 weeks. It was in this context that the Department for Work and Pensions sought to improve its knowledge base of ILMs and transitional employment programmes by commissioning research from the University of Portsmouth and the Centre for Economic & Social Inclusion.

The first British ILMs were created in the 1980s just as the then Government brought to a close the large scale Community Programme that had provided temporary jobs for the long-term unemployed. The Wise Group of companies in Glasgow pioneered the combination of a variety of grants and contracts that enabled it to provide temporary jobs that paid wages to the long-term unemployed in a regular work environment (McGregor et al, 1997). The aim was to create an 'Intermediate Labour Market' that could act as a bridge between long-term unemployment and the mainstream labour market. The Wise Group provided training but placed most emphasis on the role that wage-based work experience played in facilitating the transition to a regular job, often for very long-term unemployed people who had already been recycled through mainstream employment programmes. Wise Group projects also delivered goods and services, such as heat insulation, to low income households in the most disadvantaged parts of the city.

ILMs are now found in most high unemployment areas in Britain but, crucially, there is no national ILM programme. There is instead a network of diverse organisations that provide temporary wage-based employment, usually to the ...