WERS 2004

The 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS 2004) is the fifth in a series of surveys that aims to provide a nationally representative account of the state of employment relations and working life inside British workplaces.

The survey series is jointly sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas), and the Policy Studies Institute (PSI). Previous surveys were conducted in 1980, 1984, 1990 and 1998.

Purpose:

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

to provide a mapping of employment relations practices in workplaces across Great Britain , and to monitor changes in those practices over time;
to inform policy development, and to stimulate and inform debate and practice;
to provide a comprehensive and statistically reliable dataset on British workplace employment relations that is made publicly available for research.

Units and methods:

In broad terms, the scope of WERS 2004 extends to cover all but the smallest workplaces in Great Britain . It covers both private and public sectors and almost all areas of industry

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, WERS 2004 contained both a cross-section and a panel element.

The 2004 Cross-section Survey contained the following five components:

Self-completion questionnaire for the main management respondent about the composition of the workforce (four pages)
Face-to-face interview with a main management respondent (average two hours)
Face-to face interview with union and non-union employee representatives, where present (average 45 mins)
Self-completion questionnaire distributed to a random selection of up to 25 employees (eight pages)
Self-completion questionnaire for the financial manager about the financial performance of the establishment (four pages).

The 1998-2004 Panel Survey returned to a random selection of workplaces that had participated in the Cross-Section element of the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey. A face-to-face interview was conducted with a main management respondent (average 40 minutes), with the specific intention of identifying change since 1998.

Around 2,300 workplaces, 1,000 employee representatives and 22,500 employees took part in the 2004 Cross-section Survey. Around 950 surviving workplaces participated in the 1998-2004 Panel Survey. Response rates of 64 per cent for the Cross-section's main management interview and 77 per cent for the Panel Survey give a clear indication of the quality of the resultant data.

Further details on the methodology of WERS 2004 can be found on our dedicated pages for the 2004 Cross-section Survey and the 1998-2004 Panel Survey.

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 WERS 1998. Principal topics covered in WERS 2004 include:

Workforce composition
Management of personnel and employment relations
Recruitment and training
Workplace flexibility and the organisation of work
Consultation and information
Employee representation
Payment systems and pay determination
Grievance, disciplinary and dispute procedures
Equal opportunities, work-life balance
Workplace performance
Employee attitudes to work

Publications:

The primary analysis of WERS 2004 is reported in two stages. A free 40-page booklet of First Findings were published by the DTI in July 2005. The 400-page sourcebook of detailed findings from WERS 2004 were published by Routledge on 5th July 2006. An accompanying 120-page report provides a descriptive portrait of employment relations in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). More details.

We also maintain a database of further research based on WERS 2004 and earlier surveys in the series. Browse/search database.

Further information:

The WERS 2004 User Guide contains a number of documents giving further information on the conduct of the survey. User Guide documents which relate to the design and conduct of WERS 2004 as a whole, such as the WERS 2004 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 WERS 2004 can be found, along with the remaining documents from the WERS 2004 User Guide, by following the links below:

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.

General documentation contained within the WERS 2004 User Guide.

Volume 1 (Part 1): WERS 2004 Introductory Note and Revisions to Data (April 2007)
(23 pages; Adobe Acrobat® File: 295kb).

Volume 1 (Part 2): WERS 2004 Technical Report
(196 pages; Adobe Acrobat® File: 6.4Mb)
Note: Hard copy available (price: £20) from the WERS 2004 fieldwork contractor - National Centre for Social Research.

Volume 6: WERS 2004 Interviewer Training Manual
(98 pages; Adobe Acrobat® File: 0.5Mb)


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