The Case for Good Jobs

From MIT professor and pre-eminent voice on Good Jobs comes a leadership guide for choosing excellence and providing good jobs that offer a living wage, dignity, and opportunities for growth.

Imagine you are a leader in a large company, and you volunteer at a local soup kitchen, helping the needy who can't afford warm meals. On your way out, the director stops you and says, "I just need you to know that many of the people visiting our services are actually your employees."

This really happened. The leader was shocked. He assumed that because the company paid market rate, the company was doing right by its employees. But market rate isn't a living wage. Market rate doesn't make good jobs.

Many leaders want to provide good jobs. They want to pay more, provide dignity and meaning in people's work, and give them opportunities for growth. But they don't know how to start, or they don't think it can be done without hurting the bottom line. Most want to win with customers but are hobbled by a host of service and operational problems largely driven by high employee turnover—and that is partly driven by the low pay. It is indeed a vicious cycle, and Zeynep Ton is here to show the way out: why good jobs combined with strong operations always lead to good outcomes for the business. And why, more than ever in a post-pandemic world, failing to provide good jobs will catch up with you and threaten your business.

Ton, the preeminent voice of the good jobs strategy, lays out plainly what most companies and leaders are doing wrong—and how to get it right. She shows that by choosing good jobs, companies are positioning themselves for future success.

Practical, prescriptive, and often provocative, The Case for Good Jobs is essential reading for leaders of any company that wants to—needs to—choose excellence.