Principal Investigator Zeynep Ton
Project Website http://goodjobsinstitute.org/
Project Start Date June 2017
The non-profit Good Jobs Institute was founded in 2017. The mission is to help companies thrive by creating good jobs and to redefine what it means to run a successful business. We work with leaders or executives across industries interested in bringing the Good Jobs Strategy to their organizations. We have worked with companies across a variety of industries including retail, hospitality, restaurants, call centers, and healthcare.
The case for good jobs seems easy to make: how can any organization win without having a great team that’s set up to succeed? But many leaders -- especially in service businesses -- think they can’t afford to create that team. They have been taught that labor is just another cost, market pay is the right pay, lean and mean is what drives efficiency, and spreadsheets tell the truth. Now they feel trapped in a vicious cycle of low pay, high turnover, lots of problems, and poor performance.
The Good Jobs Strategy is a system that creates superior value for employees, customers, and investors by combining investment in employees with operational choices that increase employee productivity, contribution, and motivation. Successful Good Jobs Strategy implementations have resulted in higher customer loyalty, higher sales, higher productivity, and lower turnover.
The Good Jobs Institute has worked with dozens of companies, including owners of convenience stores, retailers, call centers, restaurants, and pest control businesses. Companies that adopt the system report big drops in employee turnover -- between 25 and 52 percent -- along with significant increases in productivity and sales.