Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. The Workplace Employment Relations Survey, 2004 (also known as the Workplace Employment Relations Survey, WERS 2004, or WERS5) was a national survey of people at work. The survey was jointly sponsored by the then Department of Trade and Industry, ACAS, the ESRC and the PSI. (In June 2007, DTI became the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) and then in June 2009, merged with the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills to become the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).) WERS5 followed in the footsteps of earlier surveys conducted in 1980, 1984, 1990 and 1998, when the series was originally known as the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, or WIRS - the name was changed in 1998 to better reflect the contemporary content of the series. The WIRS/WERS series from 1980 onwards is held at the UK Data Archive under GN 33176. The purpose of each survey in the WERS series has been to provide large-scale, statistically reliable evidence about a broad range of industrial relations and employment practices across almost every sector of the economy in Great Britain. This evidence is collected with several objectives in mind. It aims to provide a mapping of employment relations practices in workplaces across Great Britain, monitor changes in those practices over time, inform policy development and permit an informed assessment of the effects of public policy, and bring about a greater understanding of employment relations as well as the labour market. To that end, the cross-section element of WERS 2004 collected information from managers with responsibility for employment relations or personnel matters; trade union or employee representatives; and employees themselves. Therefore, it included the Cross-Section Survey of Managers (MQ), Cross-Section Survey of Employee Representatives (ERQ), and Cross-Section Survey of Employees (SEQ). The...