This report shares how Goodwill San Diego adapted its culture and operations to enhance job quality and business performance in response to a mandated local minimum wage increase, including developing transparent career pathways, investing in leadership development at all levels, and building a culture of learning and development. Businesses and service providers seeking to get ahead of minimum wage legislation and improve job quality can learn from the practices outlined in this profile.

This report highlights pressing racial disparities in the US workforce and education systems and offers recommendations for advancing racial equity within state and federal workforce policies. This publication is primarily geared towards workforce development professionals, as training and education can help address employment, income, and wealth disparities when paired with broader job quality efforts.

This “train-the-trainer” curriculum is designed for workforce development staff to educate clients about their rights as workers and strategies for protecting those rights. Units include wage and hour regulations, hiring and termination, leaves of absence, discrimination on the job, worker health and safety, and worker organizing. Although the curriculum highlights regulations that are specific to Chicago, the curriculum can serve as a model for others across the country. In addition to workforce development practitioners, worker advocacy professionals may also find this curriculum useful.

Manufacturers looking to improve productivity and efficiency often turn to Manufacturing Extension Partnerships (MEPs), public-private partnerships supported by the US Department of Commerce that provide consulting services to support their growth and competitiveness. These partnerships often focus on implementing lean manufacturing strategies to cut waste and eliminate production bottlenecks. But what if they also adopted people strategies, focusing on job quality alongside process and product strategies to help businesses solve their problems?

Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center (IMEC) took just this approach with its Genesis initiative, working with manufacturers to implement “good jobs” strategies to improve workforce engagement, productivity, and stability, alongside process and product improvements. Launched in 2014, with the support of the Chicagoland Workforce Funder Alliance (CWFA), the Genesis initiative is based on the premise that workforce practices are central to a firm’s operations, productivity, and competitiveness. Through Genesis, IMEC fine-tuned a strategic planning approach that helped companies explore process- and product-related challenges that were deeply interwoven with people-related challenges.

This report details the process IMEC followed to implement Genesis, how it worked with manufacturers, results from the initiative, and key considerations for other MEPs, funders, and policymakers looking to learn more about this approach and how they can support similar work in their communities.

This question bank includes targeted questions that workforce development professionals can ask retail business representatives to have learning focused conversations and deepen relationships. The tool includes questions to help understand a business and its workforce, employee engagement, development and advancement in a firm, and wages and scheduling practices.

To make the business case for improving retention, employers can use this simple calculator to get a ballpark estimate of hard costs of turnover. Partners can complete this exercise with businesses to show the value of their services or talent management practices that reduce turnover. Unlike many other turnover calculators, this tool includes both direct costs, such as the cost of hiring or orientation, and indirect costs, such as lower employee morale or poorer customer service.

This report details the findings from a randomized 2019 Gallup survey of over six thousand American workers to understand their perspectives on job quality. The study offers a definition of job quality based on ten dimensions workers care about and provides useful findings and implications about who has a quality job and how job quality impacts quality of life.

This report identifies 12 evidence-based practices companies can use to help break down barriers women face in the workplace while simultaneously creating a competitive business advantage. This resource has applications for employers and the practitioners who work with them to create and implement policies that support a workplace that is gender inclusive.

In this paper, authors Karen L. Corman and Ryne C. Posey outline several key considerations for implementing a pay audit to assess pay disparities among current and incoming staff. Topics explored include the potential benefits and drawbacks of pay equity audits, the purpose and parameters of the audit, privilege considerations, practical guidance for conducting the audit, and post-audit considerations and remediation strategies. HR professionals and other individuals involved in conducting pay audits may find this resource useful. Additionally, those who work with employers may be interested in sharing this with their partners. You may access this downloadable document by clicking on the “PDF” symbol towards the top, right-hand side of the linked webpage.

What will it take to make sure everyone in the United States has quality jobs?

The Aspen Institute and Urban Institute have been exploring this issue through different vantage points, to better understand the challenges that we face and the implications for policies and practices that improve job quality. And while the issue of quality jobs is one of national importance, solutions also need to respond to the needs of different places and communities across the country and be inclusive of all, regardless of race, gender, or other factors. Governments at all levels, businesses, civic, labor, and community organizations and more, all have roles to play in addressing the need for quality work.

What do we know and what do we need to know so that we can build a world of work in which hard work truly does lead to a dignified living? This conversation brings together different experiences and perspectives to explore this question. We feature a senior researcher from the Urban Institute together with Aspen Institute Job Quality Fellows from business, community development finance, and workforce and policy development who are working to create quality jobs in their communities.