Tool launched to help investors consider wider impact of company employment

Introducing the Good Jobs Rating (GJR)

A powerful data analytics tool developed by The Good Economy (TGE) for investors looking to assess the contribution of company employment to wider society and their impact investing, was unveiled at a high profile event in Paris today.

The Good Jobs Rating (GJR) will, for the first time, enable investors to track their investment performance against UN Sustainable Development Goal 8, the global commitment of governments to provide “decent work and economic growth.”

Addressing a Gap in Employment Impact Analytics

The tool, developed during a two year collaboration with Sycomore Asset Management, was designed to fill a vacuum in data and analytics, which had made it largely impossible to assess the contribution of company employment beyond the number of jobs created.

Speaking at the launch event, hosted by the French Social Investment Forum, TGE director Mark Hepworth, said: “The Good Jobs Rating is a game changer for any investor serious about understanding the wider societal impact investing of a company’s employment and how their investment performance is helping to progress SDG8. It has the potential to become an essential positive screening and analysis tool within broader ESG and impact analysis.”

Strengthening Corporate Fundamental Analysis

Christine Kolb, founding partner of Sycomore AM, which is now using the tool, said the GJR will strengthen Sycomore AM’s model for corporate fundamental analysis. “Looking beyond how a company generates societal impacts through its products and services, the metric will assess how a company contributes to the communities in which it operates, as an employer and as an economic player,” she said.

Ahead of the launch, the GJR was featured in the French national newspaper Le Monde in a piece about ESG. In the article Anne-Claire Imperiale, co-head of ESG research at Sycomore explained why the company was keen to help develop the GJR.

“We wanted to support companies that contribute to economic development and the reduction of inequalities through the jobs they create, but we realised there was no tool to measure such performance,” she said.

Last year, the importance of understanding corporate job performance and its reporting was stressed by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Its report, The Intangible Workforce, said: “Workforce issues are emerging from being a niche concept to something more central and critical to investment practice for many investors.”

It continued: “In an era in which there is much debate on the quality of work – whether work is in fact ‘good’ for people and society – and in which the future of work is a topic of constant debate, we should expect investors’ interest in the workforce to grow.”

A Unique 3-D Assessment of Corporate Job Performance

GJR provides a unique 3-D assessment of corporate job performance – by job quantity, by job quality and by job geography. An overall score is supported by detailed analysis and summary graphics for a complete picture of a company’s job-creation performance and impact investing.

For further information about GJR download our Factsheet.