Good work innovations in Europe: Reimagining the social contract

Together with the Autodesk Foundation, we embarked on a period of research to understand what good work innovations have emerged in recent years.

We found close to 200 innovations across Europe, which span three broad themes: lifelong learning, economic security and worker voice. Across all themes we were particularly interested in innovations that address diversity and inclusion, opening up good work to people on the margins of the economy, regardless of age, gender, race or mental or physical health conditions.

• Skills, training and lifelong learning: programmes which equip people with the skills they need to weather oncoming technological trends or help them transition into the jobs of the future.   
• Economic security: initiatives that help workers, particularly those in the gig economy and other new forms of employment, to grow and stabilise their incomes, or offer important protections such as sick pay. 
• Worker voice and power: new kinds of trade unions, co-operatives, or organisational forms which give people greater influence over their working conditions. 

Within each theme we aimed to cluster innovations into broad ‘intervention sets’ that use similar approaches to address similar problems. Our hope is that this starts to provide a common language that policy makers and social investors can use to spot opportunities for new ways to support workers. And by showcasing emerging best practice we want to encourage people to consider kick starting similar initiatives in their own communities.

Download the report:

• English (PDF, 2.6MB)
• German (PDF, 2.3MB) 
• Japanese (PDF, 2.6MB)
• Simple Chinese (PDF, 2.6MB)