Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. The Workplace Employment Relations Study, 2011 (also known as WERS6) is the sixth in a series of national surveys of employment relations at the workplace level. Earlier surveys were conducted in 1980, 1984, 1990, 1998 and 2004 (the series was originally known as the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, or WIRS). The aim of each survey in the WERS series has been to provide large-scale, statistically reliable evidence about a broad range of employment relations and practices across almost every sector of the economy in Great Britain. The data were collected to serve three purposes: to map British employment relations over time; to inform policy and practice, and stimulate debate; and to provide a comprehensive and statistically robust dataset on British workplace employment relations for public use. The 1990, 1998 and 2004 WERS comprised a freshly selected cross-section sample and a separate, more limited panel sample consisting of workplaces who participated in the previous cross-section survey. The key design innovation of the 2011 WERS was the integration of the two elements so that workplaces in the panel sample were eligible for all four components of WERS 2011. Weights were devised to enable the panel sample to be combined with the fresh sample to form a combined cross-sectionally representative sample. The WERS 2011 has four components: a Survey of Managers comprising the Employee Profile Questionnaire (EPQ) and the Management Questionnaire (MQ); a Survey of Worker Representatives (WRQ); a Survey of Employees (SEQ); and a Financial Performance Questionnaire (FPQ) which detailed the financial performance of trading sector establishments in the 12 months before the survey. The FPQ data, alongside region identifiers, detailed industry codes for the MQ and other anonymised but potentially disclosive data will be available through the UK Data Archive's Secure Data Service (see...