Measuring job quality: a study with bus drivers

There is growing interest in the contribution which job design can make to worker health; also a desire to better understand the multidimensional notion of ‘job quality’ and to develop approaches to measuring this. This paper reviews concepts of ‘job quality’ and ‘good jobs’ and examines these issues in the work of bus drivers, an occupational group commonly reported as having poor health and poor working conditions. The DGB-Index (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund Good Work Index), a tool used recently in Germany for measuring job quality, was translated and administered to a sample of UK bus drivers (n = 381). It found job quality to be significantly lower than that for a group of non-drivers in the same organisation; and better than that for a sample of German bus drivers. We conclude that the DGB-Index is an effective tool for measuring job quality and providing feedback to employers; and could be used to compare job quality between organisations or internationally.