The Good Jobs Strategy: How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profits
Written by Zeynep Ton
Narrated by Tanya Eby
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Almost one in four American working adults has a job that pays less than a living wage. Conventional wisdom says that’s how the world has to work. Bad jobs with low wages, minimal benefits, little training, and chaotic schedules are the only way companies can keep costs down and prices low. If companies were to offer better jobs, customers would have to pay more or companies would have to make less.
But in The Good Jobs Strategy, Zeynep Ton, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, makes the compelling case that even in low-cost settings, leaving employees behind—with bad jobs—is a choice, not a necessity. Drawing on more than a decade of research, Ton shows how operational excellence enables companies to offer the lowest prices to customers while ensuring good jobs for their employees and superior results for their investors.
Ton describes the elements of the good jobs strategy in a variety of successful companies around the world, including Southwest Airlines, UPS, Toyota, Zappos, and In-N-Out Burger. She focuses on four model retailers—Costco, Mercadona, Trader Joe’s, and QuikTrip—to demonstrate the good jobs strategy at work and reveals four choices that have transformed these companies’ high investment in workers into lower costs, higher profits, and greater customer satisfaction.
Full of surprising, counterintuitive insights, the book answers questions such as: How can offering fewer products increase customer satisfaction? Why would having more employees than you need reduce costs and boost profits? How can companies simultaneously standardize work and empower employees?
The Good Jobs Strategy outlines an invaluable blueprint for any organization that wants to pursue a sustainable competitive strategy in which everyone—employees, customers, and investors—wins.
Zeynep Ton
Zeynep Ton is a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Previously, she was on the faculty of the Harvard Business School. Ton received numerous awards for teaching excellence at both schools. Her work has been featured widely in the media, including the Washington Post, the Atlantic, The New Yorker, Bloomberg TV, and MSNBC. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and four children.
Related to The Good Jobs Strategy
Related audiobooks
Irresistible: The Seven Secrets of the World's Most Enduring, Employee-Focused Organizations Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Leader's Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Organizations Need and Employees Want Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Effective Hiring: Mastering the Interview, Offer, and Onboarding Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Motivation Toolkit: How to Align Your Employees' Interests with Your Own Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Idea-Driven Organization: Unlocking the Power in Bottom-Up Ideas Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Buy-In: Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Down Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Committed Teams: Three Steps to Inspiring Passion and Performance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Insider's Guide to Culture Change: Creating a Workplace That Delivers, Grows, and Adapts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Virtual Leadership: Practical Strategies for Getting the Best Out of Virtual Work and Virtual Teams Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leading in the Global Matrix: Proven Skills and Strategies to Succeed in a Collaborative World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why CEOs Fail: The 11 Behaviors That Can Derail Your Climb to the Top - And How to Manage Them Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nine Lies about Work: A Freethinking Leader's Guide to the Real World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em, Sixth Edition: Getting Good People to Stay Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Reimagining Collaboration: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and the Post-COVID World of Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thinking Remote: Inspiration for Leaders of Distributed Teams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Best Team Wins: The New Science of High Performance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5People Strategy: How to Invest in People and Make Culture Your Competitive Advantage Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Alive at Work: The Neuroscience of Helping Your People Love What They Do Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Virtual Teams and Remote Working: How to Successfully Work Remotely and Lead Virtual Teams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Talent Wins: The New Playbook for Putting People First Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Move: How Decisive Leaders Execute Strategy Despite Obstacles, Setbacks, and Stalls Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Great Leaders Think: The Art of Reframing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leading with Gratitude: Eight Leadership Practices for Extraordinary Business Results Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leading Out Loud: Inspiring Change Through Authentic Communications Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Next Level, 3rd Edition: What Insiders Know About Executive Success Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Employee Experience: How to Attract Talent, Retain Top Performers, and Drive Results Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Human Resources & Personnel Management For You
Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Developing Coaching Skills: A Concise Introduction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Strategic Relationships at Work: Creating Your Circle of Mentors, Sponsors, and Peers for Success in Business and Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unspoken Truths for Career Success: Navigating Pay, Promotions, and Power at Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why Simple Wins: Escape the Complexity Trap and Get to Work That Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shared Sisterhood: How to Take Collective Action for Racial and Gender Equity at Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nine Minutes on Monday: The Quick and Easy Way to Go From Manager to Leader Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gold Standard: Giving Your Customers What They Didn't Know They Wanted Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The First-Time Manager Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Corporate Confidential: 50 Secrets Your Company Doesn't Want You to Know - and What to Do About Them Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/550 Top Tools for Coaching, 3rd Edition: A Complete Toolkit for Developing and Empowering People Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Summary Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Belonging: The Key to Transforming and Maintaining Diversity, Inclusion and Equality at Work Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNo Ego: How Leaders Can Cut the Cost of Workplace Drama, End Entitlement, and Drive Big Results Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Who: The A Method for Hiring Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5DEI Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Zconomy: How Gen Z Will Change the Future of Business—and What to Do About It Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inclusive Conversations: Fostering Equity, Empathy, and Belonging across Differences Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Running Remote: Master the Lessons from the World’s Most Successful Remote-Work Pioneers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Finding the Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Talent Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The 5 Disciplines of Inclusive Leaders: Unleashing the Power of All of Us Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Good Jobs Strategy
16 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent read on so many levels! Will help you see things from a totally different standpoint.