Government welcomes publication of the NESC’s report Towards a National Better Work Strategy

The Government welcomes the publication of the National Economic and Social Council’s (NESC) report, Towards a National Better Work Strategy. The ‘Better Work’ agenda involves a commitment to improving the quality of work across all sectors of the economy.

This commitment is fully aligned with the Programme for Government 2020 and the White Paper on Enterprise 2022-2030. This NESC report highlights how Better Work, by providing benefits to our economy and society, can deepen economic and social resilience.

The Council emphasises the importance of a more coordinated and balanced approach to Better Work that improves competitiveness and employee well-being. The report acknowledges that the benefits of Better Work are not always directly captured by the company or public sector organisation. In addition, the costs of low-quality work may be external to the firm or organisation.

This means that targeted State intervention and supports will be required to support the Better Work Agenda. It also means that there needs to be more overlap between social policy, productivity and competitiveness and skills development and training.

The Council outlines a National Better Work Strategy that can help target Government action and coordinate these wider areas of policy. It recommends that the Strategy contain a suite of actions, including the following:

• Establish a series of sectoral taskforces focused on building more productive and resilient sectors with the capacity to support Better Work;

• Ask the social partners to take a central role in the co-design and co-delivery of a national strategy for Better Work;

• Develop a comprehensive and coordinated programme of research designed to generate robust and timely evidence to support Better Work. This could include a national survey on Better Work, potentially on an all-island basis; and

• Reinvigorate a strategic focus on workplace innovation in Ireland as a key vehicle for improving skills, as well as the productivity and performance of firms.

The full list of recommended actions and the underpinning research can be found in the full NESC Report No.165, Toward a National Better Work Strategy at www.nesc.ie.