The Good Work Framework: A New Business Agenda For the Future of Work | The World Economic Forum

Last week, I posted how Chief People Officers play a prominent role in shaping their companies’ responses to ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) issues. And with the S (Social) component of ESG receiving much focus, HR leaders must have people strategies with clear and measurable goals that enable the S component. This new 30-page report provides a five-pronged framework for organizing HR-related goals in support of the Social aspect of ESG. This “Good Work Framework” proposes five objectives: 1) promote fair pay and social justice; 2) provide flexibility and protection; 3) deliver on health and well-being; 4) drive diversity, equity and inclusion; 5) foster employability and learning culture. As shown in Figure 5 on page 12, each pillar of the framework comprises a set of goals — a core goal that is the most immediate imperative for action and an expanded set of goals that are also needed to create good work. And as illustrated in Figure 6 on page 13, each of the core goals includes a metric that organizations can use to set time-bound and quantifiable targets. For example, Objective #2 is to “provide flexibility and protection” and its core goal is to “enable all workers to benefit from flexibility, where possible and appropriate.” To support this core goal’s three expanded goals, there is a metric “jobs with flexible options (%)” — the proportion of jobs offering flexibility across key dimensions (place and time). This five-component framework provides a useful tool for developing, implementing, and reporting HR-related goals supporting ESG.