Most companies understand that good working conditions, competitive salaries, and strong benefits packages attract high-quality professionals. Yet at the same time, many of these competitive companies are slashing their low-wage employees’ benefits, wages, and other workforce expenses—sending a stark message that these employees are more expendable.
In Profit at the Bottom of the Ladder, Jody Heymann tells the stories of companies around the world that are linking successes at the top of the corporate ladder to those on all other rungs. Drawing from thousands of interviews with employees at companies—from the front line to the C-suite—Heymann shows how businesses have profited more by improving working conditions. These companies have been profitable for their owners and shareholders not only while being profitable for all their employees but because they have been profitable for their employees at every level.
“A must-read: Jody Heymann has hammered the last nail into the coffin of the economics of the low road. With her crack research team, Heymann uses a wide array of business case studies to reveal how becoming an employer of choice for the traditionally lowest paid is the route to high profitability and resilience for many of the world’s most successful companies.”
Juliet Schor Author of Plenitude: The New Economics of Growth
Jody Heymann is founding director of the McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy. She was founding director of the Project on Global Working Families and chair of the Initiative on Work, Family, and Democracy at Harvard University. She has conducted research in thirty-five countries; examined working conditions in 190 nations; and advised leaders in government, UN agencies, and the private sector.
About the Book:
