The economic value of employment satisfaction has been widely acknowledged amongst economists and social scientists and yet very few employment evaluation systems exist compared to the extent of geographic social evaluation systems. Most of the employment indicators that exist were developed by commercial organisations for employers that choose to participate. The lack of public investment in employment satisfaction indicators is shocking considering the significance of employment to socio-economic status. This is a reflection of the lack of social accountability in commercial enterprise.
In general commercial organisations that evaluate employment do so using platforms built to measure commercial engagement and give employers the tools to pursue employee satisfaction or authenticate their claim to ethical practice and corporate social responsibility. One example is the b-Heard survey, foundation of The Sunday Times Best Companies to Work for List. It incorporates 70-point questionnaire based on ‘8 factors of workplace engagement’. Best Companies offers businesses accreditation alongside national public relations opportunities. A similar service comes from the Great Work Place Institute’s Trust Index Assessment, with 58 core statements, covering 120 key areas. Qualtrics offers a technical service and is listed at number 6 in the Forbes’ Cloud 100 because of their 4-dimensional approach to experience based electronic assessment covering: customer, brand, product and employee experience. It advertises the service as a progression from traditional ‘key performance indicators’ that identifies ‘key metrics’ within any business or industry. Like the surveys stated above it collects data to track commercial engagement and presents information using graphs and charts.
These organisations market their service to their customers by drawing attention to the value of a workforce that feels engaged with their work and employer. In 2003 the management consultants Gallup estimated that disengagement cost the US economy between $450 billion and $550 billion in lost productivity each year. The Happiness Survey, is another questionnaire, produced by Engaging Works with senior John Lewis executive, Mark Price. Engaging Works have developed their survey alongside a recruitment platform. The Engaging Works’ business model is the closest in relation to Glassdoor, a dedicated recruitment website that provides job hunters with basic information on experience alongside reviews on the interview process and leadership.
Apart from Glassdoor each of the organisation provide a platform and service for organisations to review commercial engagement. Glassdoor's review system is designed to increase traffic to it’s recruitment platform.
In comparison TOK Corporation intends to analyse commercial activity with socio-economic indicators through community-based participatory research using our 12 Pillars of Harmony and Cohesion. We view commercial engagement as an inferior aspiration to social cohesion. Cohesion fosters harmony between different interests within a selected scope. The breakdown of social cohesion can often lead to conflict, war and mass migration. We approach commercial evaluation in terms of the social impact with our main goal being the development of social cohesion. At a time when corporations have the potential to dominate governments we believe medium to large commercial enterprises should be taking greater responsibility for the welfare of their workforce and have a duty to ensure their activities maintain cohesive societies. Public authorities often lack the resources to effectively protect the wellbeing of the most vulnerable members of society and devote little time to defending the rights of people neglected by employers. In order to pursue our aspirations we need to give everyone the freedom to analyse their employer irrespective of whether their organisation seeks to take corporate social responsibility or build an engaged workforce.
We argue that the world needs a body dedicated to community-based monitoring that gives working people accurate information on the best and worst organisation in which to invest their time and effort.