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.

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.

This report presents six easy-to-read charts about differences in the average dollar value of employee ownership by the annual earnings, gender, and race of employees. As averages, this gives a snapshot from random samples from employee surveys from the US General Social Survey across the entire US population. It answers the question: How broadly has employee share ownership’s financial benefits spread among working people?

The focus is on employee equity ownership plans and Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs), separately. Employee equity ownership plans involve grants of restricted stock, performance shares, Employee Stock Purchase Plans, and company stock ownership in 401(k) plans, etc. and do not include ESOPs. The results specifically on ESOPs are broken out and presented separately. Data are from the 2022 General Social Survey using previous surveys from 2018 and 2014 for a larger national sample.

Today approximately 77 million Americans, or 1 in 3 adults have a criminal record. While not everyone represented in this statistic has experienced incarceration, it serves to highlight that the barriers formerly incarcerated people face finding quality jobs are far more commonplace than we might think. Many returning citizens, who worked for little or no pay while incarcerated, will struggle to find quality jobs after release. Discrimination against those with a record, restrictions on what occupational licenses are available to those with a record, existing debts, punitive court supervision policies, and lack of support to meet basic needs in areas such as housing can force those leaving incarceration into dead-end, low-paying, and exploitative jobs. Some will find they are barred from doing the jobs they worked or were trained to do while incarcerated. And many more lacked opportunities to participate in education or training opportunities while incarcerated.

But across the country, innovative efforts are underway to revamp our re-entry system by opening up access to good jobs. New laws to wipe criminal records and address occupational licensing barriers, legal action aimed at discrimination, and a growing coalition of employers and union leaders are showing that providing a second chance is possible.

This event recording is the second part of a two part series by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program. The first event, A Hidden Workforce: Prison Labor, Human Rights, and the Legacy of Slavery, explores the history and conditions of work for incarcerated people and ideas for creating more humane and dignified work for those behind bars.

Democracy may be top of mind for many Americans this election season, but it’s easy to forget that the ideal of democracy has always been about more than filling out one ballot every couple of years. Democratic and participatory principles and practices can strengthen our public spaces, community organizations, social media platforms, and even our workplaces.

Workers are closest to many of the problems and potential solutions most critical to an enterprise’s performance, holding essential knowledge about safety, productivity, and culture. Employers who fail to sufficiently listen or value their workers’ voices miss opportunities to innovate and improve productivity — and may suffer from workers’ decreased job satisfaction, productivity, and retention. We know workers want a seat at the table on issues from pay and benefits to safety, culture, and accountability, not only because they say so in surveys, but, increasingly, because they’re organizing to win it. Companies that genuinely seek to leverage workers’ insights often deploy tactics like surveys and town hall meetings that fall short of capturing representative input or turning feedback into action. But democratic mechanisms like shared ownership, board level co-determination, and labor-management partnerships can unlock benefits by enabling a truly collaborative, participatory work environment.

This event from the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program is part of the Opportunity in America Series. The panel of experts and practitioners shares insights on how different democratic structures and strategies can create better workplaces and businesses. Panelists share their own experiences and extrapolate learnings that may apply to others looking to build more vibrant, participatory work environments.

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.

These toolkits are designed to eliminate bias across different areas of the workplace, using specific “bias interrupters” that change existing norms and practices to create more equitable workplaces. Toolkits include: Compensation, Hiring and Recruitment, Family Leave, and more. Employers may find this tool useful for developing successful, equitable workplace practices. Additionally, workforce development and worker advocacy professionals may find this toolkit helpful to share with their employer-partners.

The Gender Decoder calculates the proportion of feminine-coded and masculine-coded words in job advertisements. Research has found that masculine- coded language in job postings can deter women job seekers from applying. This free tool can help HR professionals, recruiters, or managers who want to appeal to applicants of all gender identities. For more information on the tool and it’s creation, please refer to the FAQ page.

This toolkit is a collection of over 60 workplace policies that can help support, stabilize, and retain employees in low-wage work. The toolkit also contains sections on gender-based violence workers may be experiencing in their home lives and second-chance employment for formerly incarcerated individuals After a quick registration for a free account, the Employer Toolkit search feature can help you identify specific policy recommendations, many of which include sample HR policy language that companies can draw from. Topics include wages, benefits, child care, paid time off, scheduling, recruitment, training and education, and transportation.

This checklist helps organizations identify gaps in their organizational policies and practices that influence diversity, equity, and inclusion. The checklist is divided into two levels: institutional policies and strategies for managers and activities for professional development. This list is not exhaustive and must be customized to each organization. HR professionals, managers, and organization leaders can benefit from this resource.