WERS98 Data Dissemination Service

THE 1998 WORKPLACE EMPLOYEE
RELATIONS SURVEY

The 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS98) is a national survey of British workplaces, in which key role-holders at each workplace provide information on the nature of employment relations at their place of work. The survey is jointly sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, the Economic and Social Research Council and the Policy Studies Institute.

WERS98 is the fourth, and most recent, survey in the internationally-regarded Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (WIRS) Series. The series itself is named after each of the three earlier surveys, which took place in 1980, 1984 and 1990.

Purpose:

The purpose of each survey in the series has been to provide large-scale, systematic and dispassionate evidence about a broad range of industrial relations and employment practices across almost every sector of the economy in Britain. This evidence is collected with the following objectives in mind:

-> to factually map the patterns of employment relations practice in Britain
-> to monitor changes in those practices over time
-> to permit an informed assessment of the effects of public policy, and
-> to bring about a greater understanding of the labour market.

The survey findings are intended to stimulate and inform debate among policy-makers and practitioners alike, so as to promote the formulation of better policy and practice in the future.

Units and methods:

The principal unit of analysis is the establishment or workplace. A workplace is defined as comprising the activities of a single employer at a single set of premises. Examples include a single branch of a bank, a car factory or a school.

In keeping with its predecessors, WERS98 contained both a cross-section and a panel element.

The 1998 Cross-section Survey contained the following three components:

-> Face-to-face interview with a main management respondent
-> Face-to face interview with a worker representative, where present
-> Self-completion questionnaire distributed to a random selection of employees
    (new in WERS98).

The 1990-98 Panel Survey returned to a random selection of workplaces that had participated in the 1900 Workplace Industrial Relations Survey. A face-to-face interview was conducted with a main management respondent, with the specific intention of identifying change since 1990.

Over 2,000 workplaces and nearly 30,000 employees took part in the 1998 Cross-section Survey. Around 900 surviving workplaces participated in the 1990-98 Panel Survey. Response rates of 80 per cent for the Cross-section's main management interview and 82 per cent for the Panel Survey give a clear indication of the quality of the resultant data.

Survey scope:

In broad terms, the scope of WERS98 extends to cover all but the smallest workplaces in Great Britain. It covers both private and public sectors and almost all areas of industry.

Greater detail can be obtained by following the links to the 1998 Cross-section Survey and the 1990-98 Panel Survey below.

Topic areas:

The central focus of the survey series has been the formal and structured relations that take place between management and employees at the workplace, although this focus softened somewhat in WERS98. Principal topics covered in WERS98 include:

-> Management of the personnel function
-> Recruitment and training
-> Consultation and communication
-> Employee representation
-> Payment systems and pay determination
-> Grievance, disciplinary and disputes procedures
-> Equal opportunities
-> Flexibility
-> Workplace performance
-> Employee attitudes to work.

Further information:

The WERS98 User Guide contains a number of documents giving further information on the conduct of the survey. Those general User Guide documents which relate to the design and conduct of WERS98 as a whole, such as the WERS98 Technical Report, are listed in the table at the end of this section.

Each file in the table can be viewed using the Adobe Acrobat® Reader. Users without this software can download it free of charge from the Adobe web-site by following the pictorial link below the table.

Further detail on particular elements of WERS98, and the remaining documents from the WERS98 User Guide, can be found by following the links below:

• 1998 Cross-section Survey

• 1990-98 Panel Survey

The primary analysis of WERS98 was published by Routledge in September 1999:

M Cully, S Woodland, A O'Reilly and G Dix (1999) Britain at Work. As depicted by the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, London: Routledge.

Price: £20 paperback (ISBN: 0-415-20637-5); £60 hardback (ISBN: 0-415-20636-7).

References to further research based on WERS98 and earlier surveys in the WIRS series can be found by following this link to Publications based on WERS98 and WIRS.

To view a document below, follow its hyperlink. To download the document, right-click on the hyperlink and this will give you the Save As option.

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WERS98 Data Dissemination Service
National Institute of Economic and Social Research, 2 Dean Trench St, London SW1P 3HE
URL: http://www.niesr.ac.uk/niesr/wers98/     E-mail: wers98@niesr.ac.uk

This site is maintained by Simon Kirby
Page last updated: 16 November 2001