Research from Durham University Business School says current dignity-at-work frameworks are failing to reflect the realities of multiple employment, leaving a growing section of the UK workforce exposed to poor treatment, weak protections, and rising pressure on physical and mental health.
The study, carried out by Professor Jo McBride of Durham University Business School, Dr Andrew Smith of the Centre for Decent Work at the University of Sheffield, and Professor Miguel Martínez Lucio of the University of Manchester, examined the experiences of more than 50 low-paid workers across Yorkshire and the North East of England. Some interviewees were holding as many as seven roles at once, across sectors including cleaning, catering, care, administration, education, retail, security, and IT.
The researchers argue that dignity-at-work frameworks are still largely built around the assumption that a worker has one role with one employer. That model, they say, no longer holds for many people trying to manage insecure hours, irregular shifts, rising living costs, transport constraints, and caring responsibilities across several jobs. The result is a system that can miss cumulative strain altogether.
Professor McBride said, “These workers are often part-time, temporary, outsourced or zero hours workers who are (incorrectly) viewed by management as being ‘peripheral’ to organisations, and as such are largely invisible, missing out on basic considerations that make employment fair and reasonable. Our major argument is that DAW discussions need to be renewed and broadened to examine the growth of multiple employment to protect a highly valuable section of the modern workforce.”
The paper identifies growing work intensity, fragmented days, poor management, and cases of exploitation, including rising expectations, reduced hours, and missed breaks. It also records the stigma and shame attached to accepting what interviewees described as “dehumanising” working arrangements, alongside in-work poverty and foodbank use caused by volatile pay and fluctuating hours. The researchers say these workers are often carrying burdens from one job into the next while remaining under-recognised in each role.
Dr Smith said, “The search for dignity for these workers in multiple precarious employment is complex and fraught with stress regarding pay, working hours and unfair treatment. Yet the great irony is that these workers are doing essential jobs, they clean the schools and offices, they provide meals for children at school and care for the elderly. They are the backbone of the community and deserve so much better.”
The paper is available to read in Human Relations.
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