Employer experiences of the Living Wage in the higher education, hospitality and construction sectors

This chapter explores the experiences of three separate case study employers across the UK in both their initial decision to adopt the living wage, and the consequences of doing so for their organizations and workforce. A key focus is placed on the decision-making processes within each firm which led them to become accredited Living Wage employers, and the organizational ripple effects that this decision created through a series of internal and external impacts for the employers in question. It examines both the benefits and the challenges of implementing the living wage for each, determined in part by the geographical and industry-related circumstances that each operates within, and the wider ramifications of the implementation process for both individual workers and fellow organizations within each accrediting employer’s orbit. The chapter concludes with a discussion of what the decision-making processes of these organizations, and their experiences of implementation of the living wage, tell us about the ways and means in which ethically led organizational change occurs and progresses across the British employment landscape in the twenty-first century