What does it mean to create a good job?

A Good Job is a job that has a combination of features that contribute
to employees’ economic stability, economic mobility, and dignity.
Why should good jobs matter to you, the business owner?

We offer tools to help you to improve the quality of the jobs you offer. This ‘Creating Good Jobs Module,’ gives an overview of the eight resources that help you learn what a good job actually is, what it means to offer a good job, why it is important, and where you can get started.

All resources were developed by Northern Initiatives in partnership with the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program as part of the Shared Success demonstration.

Learn what to include in an effective employee handbook for your small business. A well-crafted handbook acts as a roadmap for your team—outlining how your business operates, what’s expected of employees, and what they can expect in return. It covers everything from company policies and workplace culture to benefits, resources, and how to handle concerns. This guide will help you protect your business and set clear expectations for your employees by walking you through the purpose of a handbook, the steps to create one, and the key policies to consider including.

Investing in employee benefits is a smart strategy for attracting and retaining the employees your business relies on. Benefits address key needs in your employees’ lives, providing stability, security, and peace of mind. When your team feels supported, they’re more focused, dependable, and able to help your business thrive. Use this tool to explore different types of benefits you can offer—and get a clear picture of what to budget to make them a reality.

Start to learn about how good jobs can lead to great returns for your small business. Created as part of the Shared Success demonstration by Northern Initiatives in partnership with the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program, this video introduces small business owners to the importance of creating good jobs at their businesses. It discusses how investing in employees is good for business, good for workers, and good for communities.

Too many jobs in the US simply do not provide what workers need to support their families and build stable lives. Workers often face low pay, unpredictable schedules, insufficient benefits, dangerous working conditions, and few opportunities to advance. Addressing these job quality challenges — fixing work — is essential to building a fairer and stronger economy that works for everyone and creates shared prosperity among businesses and workers. While organized labor has been and continues to be foundational to the work of improving job quality, over the last few decades, we have seen a variety of organizations join this effort.

To better understand this emerging field of job quality practice, the Aspen Institute’s Economic Opportunities Program interviewed 22 practitioners across sectors from around the country who are leading efforts to improve work. Their organizations ranged from worker centers and labor unions to community development financial institutions and workforce development organizations. Our interviews explored how they define job quality, the motivations behind their work, what strategies and tactics they use to improve jobs, how issues of equity appear in their work, and the challenges they face.

In this report, Fixing Work: Lesson from Job Quality Practitioners, we make the case for why job quality work is so important, present insights and lessons learned from the practitioners we interviewed, and offer recommendations to investors and practitioners about how to engage in and support job quality efforts. We hope this paper helps job quality practitioners improve upon their work and inspires others working to improve economic opportunity to find a way to contribute to building an economy where all jobs are good jobs.

How good are the jobs in your small business? Use this tool to check what you’re doing well and where you can improve in six categories: hiring and onboarding, compensation, benefits and perks, workplace culture, employee development and advancement, and operations. To help both your employees succeed and your business grow, use this tool to find out which elements of a good job you already have and get ideas for making your jobs even better in the future. The results will guide you in adding features that attract and retain a strong workforce, ultimately strengthening your company.

Are you a small business hiring a new employee? Use this checklist to help you welcome and engage employees from day one. This resource offers a road map and checklist for a new employee’s Orientation, an important feature of a good job. Orientation can help a new employee feel welcome, teach them the ins and outs of their job, and share your company’s culture and expectations. By taking the time to properly welcome and prepare your new hire, you’re investing in both their future and the future of your business.

Job quality is vital not only for workers, but also for small businesses and communities. Yet too many jobs today miss the mark on one of the key characteristics of a good job: providing enough pay to live on. Only 56% of full-time workers in the United States make enough money to cover their families basic needs. This problem is particularly acute at small businesses. Nearly 60% of low-wage workers work at businesses with fewer than 100 employees, and 35% of low-wage workers work at micro-businesses with fewer than 10 employees. Small businesses also struggle to address other characteristics of a good job, like providing adequate benefits, stable scheduling, and a positive work culture.

Recognizing this context, in 2022, the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program (EOP) launched the Shared Success project, funded by the Gates Foundation. The project supports 11 community development financial institutions (CDFIs) across the country to integrate job quality support into their small business services with the goal of improving job quality for small business employees and building business resilience. Three years later, EOP has seen how grantees have used innovative approaches to recruit, advise, and incentivize small businesses to improve job quality.

In this event recording, leaders of CDFIs, their small business clients, philanthropic supporters, and other experts discuss the lessons learned from Shared Success, ranging from practical tips about strategies for engaging small businesses in discussions of job quality to the range of job quality improvements CDFI clients helped their businesses make.

Developed as part of the Shared Success Demonstration, this tool offers guidance for business advisors at CDFIs on how to have conversations with small business owners on job quality improvements. It centers business value and includes a variety of information and resources to assist business owners in addressing poor job quality.

For a guide of resources that complement this tool, see our topic guide on Small Business Job Quality Advising.

As part of the Good Jobs, Good Business Toolkit, this tool guides small business owners to explore which healthcare options are right for their business, bottom line, and workers. It outlines what is needed for legal compliance along with an array of options to begin to offer health insurance coverage.