Inequality at work and employees' perceptions of organisational fairness

• Published date: 01 November 2021
• Author: Duncan Gallie,Alan Felstead,Francis Green,Golo Henseke
• Date: 01 November 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12346

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Inequality at work and employees' perceptions

of organisational fairness

Duncan Gallie

1

|Alan Felstead

2

|Francis Green

3

|

Golo Henseke

3

1

Nuffield College, Oxford, UK

2

School of Social Sciences, Cardiff

University, Cardiff, UK

3

LLAKES Centre, UCL Institute of

Education, London, UK

Correspondence

Duncan Gallie, Nuffield College, Oxford,

UK.

Email: duncan.gallie@nuffield.ox.ac.uk

Funding information

Welsh Government, Grant/Award

Number: ES/P005292/1; Department of

Education and Training; Cardiff

University; Economic and Social

Research Council (ESRC)

Abstract

The need to promote fairness at work, as a way of both

enhancing employee well-being and raising productiv-

ity, has become increasingly central to political dis-

course. There has been little research, however, on

perceptions of fairness across the diverse spectrum of

employees in the workforce—the extent to which they

regard their organisations as fair and the work experi-

ences that most strongly inform their judgements about

fairness. The paper draws on a representative national

sample of British employees to examine the distribu-

tion and potential determinants of their views about

the overall fairness of their organisations and how

these differ by occupational class and sex. As well as

pointing to the central importance of employee voice

and the quality of supervisory treatment, it shows that

the level of work intensity and job security are strongly

associated with evaluations of fairness. In contrast, the

effects of pay policies are relatively modest.

1|INTRODUCTION

The notion of fairness is increasingly cited as a key objective that the UK government, devolved

administrations, combined local authorities and local councils aim to promote. The HM Gov-

ernment's (1998) White Paper Fairness at Work depicted it as the key to replacing conflict with

partnership in industry and to stimulating innovation. Two decades later, the UK government's

response to the Taylor Review report Good Work strongly endorsed the need to enhance fairness

DOI: 10.1111/irj.12346

© 2021 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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at work (HM Government, 2018). There also have been initiatives by both the Scottish and

Welsh governments to promote Fair Work. In the European Union, creating fair working condi-

tions also has come to be a central tenet of the European Pillar of Social Rights.

The definition of fair work adopted by most such policy initiatives is explicitly concerned

with fairness in objective work conditions (Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, 2018;

Sisson, 2019)—in particular whether or not workers are accorded adequate rights and condi-

tions with respect to pay, voice, security and healthy work conditions. Adequacy is defined in

terms of legal or conventional criteria of the quality of work conditions considered important

for employee well-being. There is however another significant aspect of fairness—namely,

whether conditions of work are perceived by employees as fair. An important issue is whether

the objective conditions of fairness informing policy objectives correspond to workers' own

views about what constitute fair practice. How far are the disadvantages experienced by

employees in objective work conditions reflected in different views about the fairness of their

organisations? Do these responses differ between different types of employee? These questions

have been difficult to address hitherto due a lack of good evidence about how fair employees

consider their organisations to be and the factors that affect their judgements.

The article draws on new evidence on workers' perceptions of fairness from the British Skills

and Employment Survey 2017. It examines three principal issues: whether specific disadvan-

tages in work are associated with differences in perceived organisational fairness among British

employees overall; whether there are differences between occupational classes in their views

about the fairness of their organisations and the factors that affect these; and, finally, whether

there are gender differences in fairness perceptions and their determinants.

2|THEORETICAL ISSUES AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Research on job quality has demonstrated the high degree of persistence of inequalities at work

both at European level (Green et al., 2013) and more specifically for the United Kingdom

(Gallie, 2015). It has also highlighted disadvantages in work conditions between specific types

of worker that are likely to frame perceptions of fairness. It has focused particularly on the dis-

advantages experienced by those in less skilled class positions and by female workers. Although

there has been increasing recognition of other forms of labour market disadvantage (for

instance of ethnic minority workers), there is still a lack of good representative data on their

workplace experience.

One principal focus has been on inequalities in participation in decision-making, which are

seen as fundamental to people's capacity for self-realisation and self-development at work. The

issue relates both to workers' ability to take decisions with respect to the immediate work task

and the influence they can have over wider organisational decisions that may affect them. The

evidence points consistently to major differences between occupational classes in the ability to

take decisions with respect to the job task, although there has been considerable debate about

long-term trends—with some emphasising a progressive growth of disadvantage

(Braverman, 1974; Friedmann, 1946) and others some restoration of employee initiative as a

result of new forms of technology and a greater concern for product or service quality

(Appelbaum et al., 2000; Lawler, 1992). While views vary about the extent to which task discre-

tion has been eroded, there is relative consensus that there remain persistently sharp differen-

tials between occupational classes in influence over wider organisational decisions. Although

the rise of human resource management policies may have led to more active informational

INEQUALITY AT WORK AND EMPLOYEES' PERCEPTIONS OF ORGANISATIONAL FAIRNESS551