A research-backed clarion call to CEOs and managers, making the controversial case that good, well-paying jobs are not only good for workers and for society--they're good for business, too.

Experts discuss improving job quality in low-wage industries including retail, residential construction, hospitals and long-term healthcare, restaurants, manufacturing, and long-haul trucking. Americans work harder and longer than our counterparts in other industrialized nations. Yet prosperity remains elusive to many. Workers in such low-wage industries as retail, restaurants, and home construction live from paycheck to paycheck, juggling multiple jobs with variable schedules, few benefits, and limited prospects for advancement. These bad outcomes are produced by a range of industry-specific factors, including intense competition, outsourcing and subcontracting, failure to enforce employment standards, overt discrimination, outmoded production and management systems, and inadequate worker voice. In this volume, experts look for ways to improve job quality in the low-wage sector. They offer in-depth examinations of specific industries—long-term healthcare, hospitals and outpatient care, retail, residential construction, restaurants, manufacturing, and long-haul trucking—that together account for more than half of all low-wage jobs. The book's sector view allows the contributors to address industry-specific variations that shape operational choices about work. Drawing on deep industry knowledge, they consider important distinctions within and between these industries; the financial, institutional, and structural incentives that shape the choices employers make; and what it would take to make more jobs better jobs. Contributors Eileen Appelbaum, Rosemary Batt, Dale Belman, Julie Brockman, Françoise Carré, Susan Helper, Matt Hinkel, Tashlin Lakhani, JaeEun Lee, Raphael Martins, Russell Ormiston, Paul Osterman, Can Ouyang, Chris Tilly, Steve Viscelli

The labour markets of OECD and emerging economies are undergoing major transformations. The widespread slow-down in productivity and wage growth and high levels of income inequality in many countries are coupled with structural changes linked to the digital revolution, globalisation and ...

Why too much work and too little time is hurting workers and companies—and how a proven workplace redesign can benefit employees and the bottom line Today's ways of working are not working—even for professionals in "good" jobs. Responding to global competition and pressure from financial markets, companies are asking employees to do more with less, even as new technologies normalize 24/7 job expectations. In Overload, Erin Kelly and Phyllis Moen document how this new intensification of work creates chronic stress, leading to burnout, attrition, and underperformance. "Flexible" work policies and corporate lip service about "work-life balance" don't come close to fixing the problem. But this unhealthy and unsustainable situation can be changed—and Overload shows how. Drawing on five years of research, including hundreds of interviews with employees and managers, Kelly and Moen tell the story of a major experiment that they helped design and implement at a Fortune 500 firm. The company adopted creative and practical work redesigns that gave workers more control over how and where they worked and encouraged managers to evaluate performance in new ways. The result? Employees' health, well-being, and ability to manage their personal and work lives improved, while the company benefited from higher job satisfaction and lower turnover. And, as Kelly and Moen show, such changes can—and should—be made on a wide scale. Complete with advice about ways that employees, managers, and corporate leaders can begin to question and fix one of today's most serious workplace problems, Overload is an inspiring account about how rethinking and redesigning work could transform our lives and companies.

Good Strategy/Bad Strategy clarifies the muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world. Developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. A good strategy is a specific and coherent response to—and approach for—overcoming the obstacles to progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect. Yet, Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to equate Mom-and-apple-pie values, fluffy packages of buzzwords, motivational slogans, and financial goals with “strategy.” In Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, he debunks these elements of “bad strategy” and awakens an understanding of the power of a “good strategy.” He introduces nine sources of power—ranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growth—that are eye-opening yet pragmatic tools that can easily be put to work on Monday morning, and uses fascinating examples from business, nonprofit, and military affairs to bring its original and pragmatic ideas to life. The detailed examples range from Apple to General Motors, from the two Iraq wars to Afghanistan, from a small local market to Wal-Mart, from Nvidia to Silicon Graphics, from the Getty Trust to the Los Angeles Unified School District, from Cisco Systems to Paccar, and from Global Crossing to the 2007–08 financial crisis. Reflecting an astonishing grasp and integration of economics, finance, technology, history, and the brilliance and foibles of the human character, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy stems from Rumelt’s decades of digging beyond the superficial to address hard questions with honesty and integrity.

Why do some innovation projects succeed where others fail? The book reveals the business implications of Jobs Theory and explains how to put Jobs Theory into practice using Outcome-Driven Innovation.

These days, consumers have real power: they can research companies, compare ratings, and find alternatives with a simple tap. Focusing on customer needs isn't a nice–to–have, it's a strategic imperative. The Jobs To Be Done Playbook (JTBD) helps organizations turn market insight into action. This book shows you techniques to make offerings people want, as well as make people want your offering.

Peter Cappelli confronts the myth of the skills gap and provides an actionable path forward to put people back to work. Even in a time of perilously high unemployment, companies contend that they cannot find the employees they need. Pointing to a skills gap, employers argue applicants are simply not qualified; schools aren't preparing students for jobs; the government isn't letting in enough high-skill immigrants; and even when the match is right, prospective employees won't accept jobs at the wages offered. In this powerful and fast-reading book, Peter Cappelli, Wharton management professor and director of Wharton's Center for Human Resources, debunks the arguments and exposes the real reasons good people can't get hired. Drawing on jobs data, anecdotes from all sides of the employer-employee divide, and interviews with jobs professionals, he explores the paradoxical forces bearing down on the American workplace and lays out solutions that can help us break through what has become a crippling employer-employee stand-off. Among the questions he confronts: Is there really a skills gap? To what extent is the hiring process being held hostage by automated software that can crunch thousands of applications an hour? What kind of training could best bridge the gap between employer expectations and applicant realities, and who should foot the bill for it? Are schools really at fault? Named one of HR Magazine's Top 20 Most Influential Thinkers of 2011, Cappelli not only changes the way we think about hiring but points the way forward to rev America's job engine again.

In an unorthodox approach, Georgetown University professor Cal Newport debunks the long-held belief that "follow your passion" is good advice, and sets out on a quest to discover the reality of how people end up loving their careers. Not only are pre-existing passions rare and have little to do with how most people end up loving their work, but a focus on passion over skill can be dangerous, leading to anxiety and chronic job hopping. Spending time with organic farmers, venture capitalists, screenwriters, freelance computer programmers, and others who admitted to deriving great satisfaction from their work, Newport uncovers the strategies they used and the pitfalls they avoided in developing their compelling careers. Cal reveals that matching your job to a pre-existing passion does not matter. Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it. With a title taken from the comedian Steve Martin, who once said his advice for aspiring entertainers was to "be so good they can't ignore you," Cal Newport's clearly written manifesto is mandatory reading for anyone fretting about what to do with their life, or frustrated by their current job situation and eager to find a fresh new way to take control of their livelihood. He provides an evidence-based blueprint for creating work you love, and will change the way you think about careers, happiness, and the crafting of a remarkable life.

From David Graeber, the bestselling author of The Dawn of Everything and Debt—“a master of opening up thought and stimulating debate” (Slate)—a powerful argument against the rise of meaningless, unfulfilling jobs…and their consequences. Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.” It went viral. After one million online views in seventeen different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer. There are hordes of people—HR consultants, communication coordinators, telemarketing researchers, corporate lawyers—whose jobs are useless, and, tragically, they know it. These people are caught in bullshit jobs. Graeber explores one of society’s most vexing and deeply felt concerns, indicting among other villains a particular strain of finance capitalism that betrays ideals shared by thinkers ranging from Keynes to Lincoln. “Clever and charismatic” (The New Yorker), Bullshit Jobs gives individuals, corporations, and societies permission to undergo a shift in values, placing creative and caring work at the center of our culture. This book is for everyone who wants to turn their vocation back into an avocation and “a thought-provoking examination of our working lives” (Financial Times).