The Good Jobs Strategy, Zeynep Ton
The Good Jobs Strategy, Zeynep Ton
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The Good Jobs Strategy
How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profits

Author: Zeynep Ton

Narrator: Tanya Eby

Unabridged: 7 hr 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download (DRM Protected)

Published: 01/14/2014


Synopsis

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.

About Zeynep Ton

Zeynep Ton is an adjunct associate 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, and The New Yorker, Bloomberg TV, and MSNBC. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and four children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Anne on February 28, 2023

Interesting and believable premise. The world would be a better place if more companies followed this approach. The book was heavy on anecdotes and I felt the lack of data. As with 90% of the business nonfiction I read, I wish I had consumed this as a long form article or podcast instead of a book......more

Goodreads review by Emily on January 07, 2014

Trader Joe's and Costco are a couple examples of good jobs strategy companies. Read the book and find out how they do it, then support businesses who use this strategy, and avoid others until they comply. Here's a blueprint for a better tomorrow, which is threatening to come too late for many of us......more

Goodreads review by Paige on December 30, 2019

I initially read this in order to better inform my work and understand my organization's philosophy on workforce development. This book completely changed my perspective as a consumer, worker, supervisor, and general participant in the economy and workforce. Ton's thorough research lays out a clear......more

Goodreads review by Samuel on August 13, 2023

I found this book to be very helpful in framing how the operational decisions for an organization can greatly influence the quality of a job, especially for an industry like retail. The positively reinforcing relationship between values and operations will stick with me. It gives practical advice su......more

Goodreads review by Carlos on May 09, 2021

I liked it. Very insightful. Although the overall Idea extends to every business and operators. The examples are very focused on specifics industries. I will definitely read it again just because there are many good things I am extracting for my employees benefit and there fore for the company too.......more


Quotes

“In the last few years, [Zeynep] Ton has become a revolutionary force in a field that would seem unlikely to generate many—the Kafkaesque-titled Operations Management. Her central thesis is that many of [the] big-box retailers have been making a strategic error…but she believes her core findings are relevant in nearly every industry. After re-evaluating the relationship between worker management and profit, she argues that many corporate leaders will realize that paying their workers more and treating them better will actually make everyone better off. And this, indeed, would foment a small revolution.” The New York Times Magazine“…At a time when the complexity of workers’ jobs is increasing and labour force investment declining, [The Good Jobs Strategy] is a methodically researched riposte to cutting staff and wages.” Financial Times“In this brilliantly conceived and written book, Zeynep Ton shows that companies that view their workforce as an asset to be maximized rather than a cost to be minimized, have both happier workers and better business results. This book is a “must read” for anyone that wants to think creatively about how they manage their workforce.” —Marshall Fisher, professor at The Wharton School and co-author of The New Science of Retailing