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Joining us for Episode #478 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Zeynep Ton. She is a professor of the practice 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.
She was previously a guest in Episode 228 in 2015, discussing her first book The Good Jobs Strategy. Her new book, released in June, is The Case for Good Jobs: How Great Companies Bring Dignity, Pay, and Meaning to Everyone’s Work.
In today’s episode, we discuss what’s meant by “good jobs” — and how it’s not just about compensation. What are good jobs and what’s the case for them, in both human and financial terms? Among other topics, we discuss how it’s a system, the “good jobs system,” and there is risk in trying to just copy a piece or two that sounds good (which reminds us both of issues around adoption of the Toyota Production System).
Questions, Notes, and Highlights:
- What are “good jobs”?
- Has this definition evolved at all?
- “Operate with slack”
- Nursing shortages — the effect of not operating with slack
- Improving call center jobs — reducing the need for calls to begin with
- HBR piece — mental models of customer-centric vs. financial-centric
- The new book — “the case” for good jobs?
- Benefits of lower turnover
- Simple thinking vs. systems thinking — 2% margin business “can’t afford” higher wages… or can’t afford NOT to?
- 5 Corporate Disabilities when you have high turnover
- Tight labor markets — a greater need for companies to adopt “the good jobs strategy” or at least some practices?
- Sam’s Club — competitive pressure to catch up or emulate Costco?
- The good jobs SYSTEM — risk of copying just one piece, such as higher pay?
- Cost of Poor Quality vs. Cost of Bad Jobs — not on the financial statements
- Operational Indifference… vs operational excellence
- “There’s a grave disconnect between what’s happening on the front lines and what executives think is happening.”
- Finding balance? “standardizing processes when that makes sense and empowering employees to help customers”
- Obstacles to creating good jobs? The logical evidence-based case to be made vs. habits and beliefs of executives (mental models)?
- “Many leaders don’t even consider frontline work critical to company performance.”
- Cost-benefit analysis — easy to calculate the cost of higher pay… predicting the benefits is seen as a leap of faith?
The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in its 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.
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