About the series

The Workplace Employee Relations Survey is the longest-running survey series that Natcen is involved in. It was first carried out the year after the 1979 winter of discontent as the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (WIRS).

The next survey will take place in 2010/11 – the previous five were in 1980, 1984, 1990, 1998 and 2004. (A counterpart of WERS, known as ‘Réponse’, takes place France.)

You can read about the 2004 survey and how to access the findings here.

What the study covers
The survey looks at ways in which management of employing establishments communicates with the workforce.

Trades Unions have always been a key focus of the study, with other forms of representation growing in prominence over the research’s 25-year span.

However, WERS has always covered a wide range of employment topics, including disputes at work, pensions and share schemes.

Potential policy impact

WERS has tracked the decline in the recognition of trades unions and in membership among employees. It has monitored the implementation by employers and employees of key aspects of government policy. It has sought to identify links between management practices and business performance.

Methodology

WERS has been an important survey for the introduction of technical innovations. The implications of sampling establishments were worked out for the 1980 survey and have subsequently been used as the basis of many other surveys of establishments.

A particular innovation was the procedure of first contacting head offices of certain organisations with centralised management, such as banks and the public sector.

In 1990, the main sample was the basis for a follow-up survey called the Employers’ Manpower and Skills Practices Survey, resulting in an even broader range of subject material, and with a response rate of 90 per cent among surviving workplaces.

A follow-up ‘panel’ survey has also taken place alongside each WERS, in which establishments in the previous cross-section sample were re-visited to identify changes.

While the main interview involves a senior manager responsible for personnel or human resources, the survey has also sought shorter interviews with representations of bodies representing members of the workforce. A sample of employees was added in 1998 and 2004, based on self-completion questionnaires, which extends the scope for analysis.