This article discusses EOP’s research and lessons learned on how philanthropy, employers, practitioners and policymakers can support good jobs for young adults.

HCAP Partners – a fund providing debt and equity growth capital to lower-middle market companies – has developed this operational impact approach to assess job quality standards and improvements in portfolio companies through a quantitative measurement system. HCAP has identified five key attributes of job quality that fall within the categories of economic opportunity and health and wellness. HCAP engages with businesses to collect data, develop a baseline assessment, and build a strategic roadmap to implement and improve workplace initiatives for creating and maintaining high quality jobs. While this bespoke measurement system is designed to meet HCAP’s needs, other investors, lenders, and practitioners who work with businesses to improve job quality may find HCAP’s job quality definition and measurement framework useful in developing their own tools.

In this event, Zeynep Ton, author of “The Case for Good Jobs: How Great Companies Bring Dignity, Pay, and Meaning to Everyone’s Work,” discusses the components of a “good jobs” system, which ensures a living wage, dignity, and opportunities for growth to employees, and helps to foster shared success for both workers and organizations. Ton — a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and president and co-founder of the Good Jobs Institute — explores the benefits of this approach; the disadvantages of low-paying and high-turnover jobs; how labor investments can pay for themselves; the obstacles to creating a good jobs system; and how leaders can break free and overcome these challenges to create good jobs.

In this event, Rick Wartzman, author of “Still Broke: Walmart’s Remarkable Transformation and the Limits of Socially Conscious Capitalism,” considers the experience and history of Walmart moving toward a more conscious capitalism and the recent efforts the company has made to provide higher wages and better benefits and opportunities for its employees. Wartzman raises important questions about how much an individual company can do on its own to improve the quality of jobs and people’s ability to earn a living through their work; the degree to which business imperatives encourage companies to improve jobs and when those incentives conflict with that goal; and whether public sector action, through either labor market regulation or the provision of social supports, needs to be strengthened to ensure that work in today’s economy is contributing to an inclusive economy in which all can thrive.

In this event, panelists discuss the promise of work-based learning. When designed well, work-based learning provides a number of benefits to workers and businesses. Approaches such as apprenticeship, on-the-job training, and other forms of employer-sponsored training can offer workers the opportunity for upward mobility and the chance to earn and learn at the same time, while employers gain a more engaged and skilled workforce.

This issue brief reviews the history and current state of job design, highlights the benefits workers and businesses receive when jobs are designed with worker well-being in mind, and notes emerging issues and practices in job design related to technology, work-based learning, and employee ownership. We hope this brief sparks new thinking and conversations about how we can all encourage and contribute to designing work and workplaces that promote quality jobs.

This piece features video excerpts from interviews with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment Northwest Workforce Area, as well as Carpet One Floor and Home, to hear about their partnership in a small business advising pilot aiming to improve job quality.

This publication compiles seven lessons for small business prospecting, recruitment, and ongoing engagement. The lessons outlined in this tool are based on our experience working with Pacific Community Ventures and workforce partners to conduct job quality-focused business advising pilots with small businesses across the country. Although there is no one-size-fits-all approach to developing relationships with employers, we have found that asking lots of questions and tailoring engagement to the local context is key.

This article discusses the growing use of subcontracting work in the tech industry and the negative consequences this “fissuring” has had on job quality for workers.

This guide is designed to help employers and managers identify signs of mental health distress and develop a plan of action to help support employees. This guide, with tools embedded throughout, presents the business case for supporting employee mental health and outlines steps to support employees and improve company culture. Employers may find this resource useful to use internally, and organizations that work with businesses may want to share it with their employer partners.