← How to Be a Better Human
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- [00:00]
Chris Duffy
What makes a great pair of glasses? At Warby Parker, it's all the invisible extras without the extra cost. Their designer quality frames start at $95 including prescription lenses plus scratch resistant, smudge resistant and anti reflective coatings and UV protection and free adjustments for life. To find your next pair of glasses, sunglasses or contact lenses, or to find the Warby Parker store nearest you, head over to warbyparker.com that's warbyparker.com hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two year contracts, they said what the are you talking about, you insane Hollywood. So to recap, we're cutting the price of mint unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month New customers on first three month plan only taxes and fees extra Speed slower above 40GB Details this is a mini meditation guided by Bombus. Repeat after me. I'm comfy. I'm cozy. Cozy. I have zero blisters on my toes. Blisters. And that's because I wear Bombus the softest socks, underwear and T shirts that give back. One purchased equals one donated. Now go to bombas.com acast and use code acast for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O-M-B-A-S.com acast and use code Acast at checkout. You're listening to how to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. We talk a lot on this podcast about what it means to improve your life and the world around you. But you know, one of the most obvious things you could do that would make your life better and give you time, money and mental space to improve the world at large would be to have a good job or even just to not have a terrible job. Today's guest, Zeynep Tan, studies what makes work good, what makes it satisfying, dignified and fair. She's a professor, a researcher, and the president of the Good Jobs Institute. And here's a clip from her TED Talk where she's explaining what too often work actually looks like these days.
- [02:15]
Zeynep Ton
Take Janet, a full time hourly manager at a retail chain. Even as a manager, her low income didn't pay the bills for her and her son, so she had to have a second job. But she couldn't hold on to her second job because her work schedule changed all the time. One day she might work from 5pm to 9pm the next morning her shift might start at 5am just imagine her life and imagine how little time she had with her son. My life is always in a turmoil, janet told me. She couldn't sleep. Amazingly, though, she still cared so much about doing a good job at work. But even there, she failed in front of her customers all the time. One day, she said to me, customers were yelling at her because the checkout line was too long. Some walked off, leaving their full baskets. The line was too long because there weren't enough workers at the store and so many of the workers who were there were new, so they were slow and made a lot of mistakes. They put the wrong product on the wrong shelf or left the expired milk in the fridge. When customers caught mistakes at the checkout, cashiers had to call Janet for help every time because they weren't trusted to adjust prices or even solve the smallest problems. Controls like that drove people crazy and wasted everyone's time. Janet begged for more staff, but her store's poor performance meant even a lower labor budget, which meant more mistakes and higher turnover. So she was always starting from square one. Rehiring, retraining, more firefighting.
- [04:09]
Chris Duffy
We'Re going to talk more with Zeynep about good jobs and how to make sure that everyone can get one in just a moment. But first, a quick break where I can do my job of having you listen to some podcast ads. It's 2025 and if your B2B marketing strategy for the new year doesn't include improving your ad targeting, you know what I'm about to say, right? Your ads can get lost in the noise. LinkedIn ads can help by ensuring your message makes it to the right audience. And that is so key if you are running a business or you are trying to find the best people for the openings in your company. With LinkedIn ads, you can precisely reach professionals who are more likely to find your ad relevant. Stand out with LinkedIn ads and start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads. Today you will have direct access to and build relationships with decision makers. A billion members, 130 million decision makers. I know as a small business owner I have to be on LinkedIn because that's where everyone's at. And if you are trying to propel your B2B business in 2025, what better place to be than LinkedIn? 79% of B2B content marketers said LinkedIn produces the best, best results for paid media, go where the best is start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today. We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com TedAudio to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com TedAudio terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn the place to be To Be hi, this is Freddie Wong from Dungeons and Daddies and this episode is sponsored by Rocket Money Houston Off Houston. A problem. And that's too many subscriptions that I don't know about because I like to put my credit card number into sites just for the sheer thrill of it. That's the fundamental problem of the Internet and money. And Rocket Money is here to solve that. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending and helps lower your bills. You can see all those subscriptions that you've accrued over a lifetime of putting your credit card in on the Internet in one place. If you don't want them, just cancel them with a few taps. Rocket Money can help with that. Rocket Money's over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all the app's premium features. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com cancelsubs that's rocketmoney.com cancelsubs, not submarines. What makes a great pair of glasses? At Warby Parker, it's all the invisible extras without the extra cost. Their designer quality frames start at $95 including prescription lenses plus scratch resistant, smudge resistant and anti reflective coatings and UV protection and free adjustments for life. To find your next pair of glasses, sunglasses or contact lenses, or to find the Warby Parker store nearest you, head over to warbyparker.com that's warbyparker.com today we're talking about what makes work meaningful, dignified and fair with Zeynep Ton.
- [07:35]
Zeynep Ton
Hi, my name is Zeynep Ton. I'm an operations professor at MIT Sloan, co founder and president of the nonprofit Good Jobs Institute and the author of the Case for Good Jobs.
- [07:47]
Chris Duffy
This is, I'm sure, a question that everyone asks you all the time. What is a good job?
- [07:51]
Zeynep Ton
Well, a good job has to have the minimum condition of giving enough pay so we can have agency in our lives. Because when people don't make enough, regardless of how meaningful the job is, how much sense of belonging we feel you can't put food on the table, so that's not a good job. So at a minimum, have agency in our lives by having good pay, good schedules, and career paths. And of course, a good job also has some higher needs that are filled, which is a sense of belonging, meaningfulness, and a sense of achievement.
- [08:21]
Chris Duffy
And how common with that definition are good jobs?
- [08:26]
Zeynep Ton
It's surprising how many people have bad jobs because their pay is so low. Just that basic condition is not met like before the pandemic. Brookings Institution did a great study. 53 million Americans at the time, 53 million working people had jobs that were low wage jobs with the median pay of less than $20,000 a year. So if you think about people that we meet regularly at the coffee shop, at the retail store, in hotels, restaurants, service workers tend to have in general, pretty bad jobs because their pay is so low. Their schedules tend to be uncertain. They don't know from week to week when they're going to work. And they are given their schedules oftentimes one or two weeks in advance. So it's less common than we might think.
- [09:18]
Chris Duffy
There's sometimes this idea often by people who are wealthy and don't have to work these jobs, that jobs like service industry jobs, like retail jobs have to be bad jobs, that they just are by nature. They can't really be a good fulfilling job. And one of the things that I find so interesting about your work and your research is proof that that is actually not the case at all. That many, many, many more jobs that are not good jobs right now could be good jobs.
- [09:44]
Zeynep Ton
Yeah, the trade off between good pay and low prices is a false trade off. And, you know, I'm an operations professor studying jobs because as an operations person, I saw how much companies leave behind by paying their workers so low, by treating them like interchangeable parts. Yes, they're not spending the money on labor, on pay, but they are spending the money on so many other things, all sorts of operational problems that reduce their sales, that reduce their cost, that increases their productivity. So the cost of bad jobs are so much higher than we may think. And not only are the cost of bad jobs higher than we may think, there are companies out there who are able to provide their customers the lowest prices, making a ton of money for their shareholders and providing their workers good jobs.
- [10:41]
Chris Duffy
I know one of the examples that you gave in your talk, and I know you like to talk about a lot, is Costco, which I'm always hesitant to say how much I love a brand or company because you never know by the Time this podcast comes out, some horrible thing might have been revealed about that company. But at the moment that this is being recorded, I'm a huge fan of Costco. I love to shop there. I feel like they have good products. It's just an enjoyable experience. And part of the enjoyable experience for me is knowing that the people who work there are not being exploited.
- [11:08]
Zeynep Ton
Yes, Jim Sinegal, the co founder and longtime CEO of Costco, is coming to my class, my MIT class. And he from the beginning started paying workers so much more than other retailers. And when you ask Jim why do you do this, he says it's not altruism, it's good business. And he talks about how 70 cents of every dollar they spend to run their company goes to people. So if you don't do a good job managing people, then you're going to screw up pretty badly. So Costco is a fantastic example. And their success is not despite investing in their people. Their success is because they invest in their people. And it's not just investment in people, but they also design their work in a way that makes their employees, each hour of the employee, worth a lot more than other companies.
- [12:00]
Chris Duffy
The places where I've enjoyed working the most are where I have a sense of autonomy, a sense that, like, if I see something wrong or a system that could be better, I can proactively improve it. Not just because I'm trying to, like, make more money, but because my day to day will be better if it's less infuriating because things aren't working well. And a lot of jobs are structured. So there's an infuriating thing. And they're just like, well, you got to live with that. That's part of the job. But at places like Costco, they try and empower each individual worker more. Right?
- [12:30]
Zeynep Ton
Yeah. And Chris, over the last 25, 20 plus years, I have interviewed hundreds of frontline employees. And what struck me was how much they want to make a difference in somebody else's life, how much they want to be able to serve their customers, but they couldn't in retail stores, in nursing homes, it was heartbreaking in restaurants. But at a place like Costco, not only does Costco take care of you, but they create the conditions for you to take care of the customer. You're empowered to place the merchandise in ways that is best for your customer. If somebody buys something and drops it, you're empowered to change those eggs without asking your supervis. And that type of empowerment enables the employees to shine in front of their customers because they can do something for them. And that type of empowerment also makes the job a better job. Because for a job to be good, it needs to of course, create the conditions for people to have agency in their lives, take care of their families, find meaning in their work. But also the company has to make money. So it can't be like not working on Saturdays is not an option for a retailer or restaurant. Right. Even though it might be bad for workers to work during weekend. So a good job has to work both for company and the worker.
- [13:47]
Chris Duffy
Sometimes we hear companies frame these trade offs as though they're good for workers. An inconsistent work schedule is billed as flexibility or like you own your time. But in reality, if you're trying to pay the bills and make enough money to feed your family and pay rent and you have to work from 8pm to 4am one night and the next day from 2pm to 6pm, it's very hard to plan a life. So like, that's kind of a nice euphemism to put on people giving them an impossible way to schedule their life.
- [14:21]
Zeynep Ton
Yeah, absolutely. And I'll give you another example. We'll pay for your college tuition. It's great to get an education, but if somebody is working two jobs, they're on their feet all day long, working with unstable schedules. At the end of the day, they don't have time to go to school. Right at the end of the day, they're just so spent, so tired, so defeated, they don't have the energy. So why don't we give them what they need, which is enough pay to put food on the table, schedules that work for them so they can have a say in life. And let's not fool ourselves saying people want flexibility or I'll train them so they get a better job after here.
- [14:56]
Chris Duffy
Yeah. It also makes me think that even the people who are the most, I would imagine, skeptical of your work and of like the push for good jobs, for treating workers better. Those people seem to really believe that it's important to treat the person at the top the best. Right. Like that if you treat the CEO well and if you pick a good CEO and a good executive team and a good board of directors, that that really makes a big difference for the company.
- [15:21]
Zeynep Ton
Yeah. I think deep inside every executive, I think, and every leader believes that winning in anything requires a good team that's set up for success at the executive level. They perfectly believe that, yes, we need to have a good team that's set up for success. But I think, Chris, when it comes to the Front lines. The assumption is that we can't afford to create that team because we must keep our prices low because we must have our profits high. So the assumption is that we can't afford to do that. For generations, we have taught business leaders that market pay is the right pay. So they think that anything other than the market pay is not right thing. So for the CEOs, that's the market payment. We're completely comfortable with it. For the frontline employees, supply is very high. So that's the market pay. And we're comfortable with that too.
- [16:12]
Chris Duffy
Yeah. I've often heard people talk about high CEO pay as being affected by a ratcheting effect where the way that they set CEO pay is they look at, quote, unquote, peer CEOs and then they give a slightly higher pay. And then the way that those peers get their pay set is they look at the peer CEOs and then they give a slightly higher pay. So it just keeps going up and up and up because of the way that they're calculating what is appropriate compensation. But that never seems to happen for the people who are doing the actual work. Right. Like the people on the ground floor of these companies, they don't have the same ratcheting effect where it's like, we got to go higher and higher and higher. In fact, it ratchets the other way. It ratchets down to the bare minimum that they can afford to.
- [16:52]
Zeynep Ton
Yeah. Oftentimes they look at what's typical in their industry. I teach my students don't ever benchmark other mediocre companies. If you look at service settings, you'll find low pay and high employee turnover, which. Which messes up businesses in so many different ways. If you're a retailer, you're benchmarking other retailers, unemployed turnover. That's going to be a bad benchmark. Benchmark the best. But oftentimes, as you said, in those industries, they just benchmark the average and they just stay where they are.
- [17:23]
Chris Duffy
One of my biases, and something that kind of infuriates me, is there's sometimes this narrative of like, people don't want to work. People just don't want to work. And I think that it strikes me that often the real story is that people don't want to work a terrible job for low pay. Like, they don't want to work in conditions that are unworkable and unlivable. It's not that people don't want to have purpose and meaning and to be able to provide for their families, but often the options that they're provided are so horrible that they don't want that job. And that doesn't mean that they don't want a good job. It just means they don't want a bad job.
- [18:00]
Zeynep Ton
Exactly. I mean, we see so many people in line to be working for Costco or H E B in Texas or Trader Joe's if you provide the conditions that there are people who want to work. And I think our assumptions about other humans sometimes get in the way. If you look at especially the workers in lower wage parts of the economy, low pay hurts them in so many ways. Low pay hurts their physical so that low pay has an effect on heart disease, stroke, diabetes. Low pay hurts their mental health. It's associated with higher suicide rates. Low pay even affects their cognitive functioning. Right. It's associated with a drop of 13 IQ points. And people who have multiple jobs, oftentimes, not only can they not focus on the job, but they have more tardiness problems. They have more absenteeism because of everything else that's going on in their lives. So, so many managers look at this and say, hey, those workers, I asked them to do a simple thing and they can't even do a simple thing. They don't show up on time. So their assumptions are they don't want to work hard, they don't want to come to work on time, they don't want to take responsibility. But we need to change these assumptions because it's not that people don't want to work hard. It is that we've created the conditions for them to fail.
- [19:21]
Chris Duffy
We're going to take a quick break and then we will be right back. This is a mini meditation guided by Bombus. Repeat after me. I'm comfy, I'm cozy, I have zero blisters on my toes. And that's cause I wear Bombus the softest. Socks, underwear, and T shirts that give back. One purchased equals one donated. Now go to bombus.com acast and use code acast for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M b-s.com acast and use code Acast at checkout. Folks, we're back in the bottom of the six.
- [20:09]
Zeynep Ton
Lorenzo's on the mound.
- [20:11]
Chris Duffy
His slider's been. Wait, is that a cat on the field? That tabby's really moving.
- [20:16]
Zeynep Ton
He's past second base.
- [20:18]
Chris Duffy
And coach Bakerfield's making a grab.
- [20:20]
Zeynep Ton
And.
- [20:20]
Chris Duffy
Oh, he missed. Incredible. Someone give that cat a contract. But folks, even this incredible cat can't sign up for Lemonade pet insurance. But you can cover Your pet now@lemonade.com incredible. What makes a great pair of glasses? At Warby Parker, it's all the invisible extras without the extra cost. Their designer quality frames start at $95 including prescription lenses plus scratch resistant, smudge resistant and anti reflective coatings and UV protection and free adjustments for life. To find your next pair of glasses, sunglasses or contact lenses, or to find the Warby Parker store nearest you, head over to warbyparker.com that's warbyparker. And we are back. Today we're talking with Zeynep Tan and here's another clip from her TED Talk.
- [21:15]
Zeynep Ton
Now I'm an operations management professor at mit. We can't stand waste or inefficiency in operations. So that's the reason that I began researching service operations 25 years ago. But then when I met hardworking people like Janet who weren't making it, their struggles got to my heart, especially as an immigrant who believes in the American dream. So figuring out how to improve company performance and jobs became my work mission.
- [21:49]
Chris Duffy
Okay, I have a question and I'm trying to think of how to word this. So much of your research seems kind of obvious. That's what I'm saying is like if you talk to a cashier and say, how can I make your job better? They'll probably tell you like, pay me more and make the job less annoying. Like, it's straightforward.
- [22:06]
Zeynep Ton
The things that I'm talking about in this book, like focus on creating real value for the customer. Treat your employees right, empower them so they can serve the customer, give them enough time so that they can do improvements, so that they can do their work well. And all of these things are obvious things. It's common sense. But the organizational forces oftentimes work in ways that make it very difficult for them to apply common sense. Because we have moved from a world of customer centered systems decision making to financial siloed decision making. So every decision we make, let's look at the effect on sales, let's look at the effect on this. And that's how we make the decision versus customer focused decision making or all else being constant versus systems decision making. It is obvious if you think about it, but obvious doesn't mean that it's going to be practiced. And that's what that's the status quo right now in our economy.
- [23:04]
Chris Duffy
So, okay, I love that answer. And it makes me think that there's often this kind of sense of cynicism or hopelessness. And I think it's because people have this real gut Feeling that the way things are working right now are broken and that they do not make sense and that it is obviously wrong. And I know that you have a lot of optimism about the ability to actually make things better. So I'm sure people who are listening have some of that cynicism and hopelessness. Talk to them and tell them what can actually happen to improve the system as it is right now.
- [23:36]
Zeynep Ton
First, may I address that cynicism because it is so real. If you are a customer, you have cynicism about the companies who are trying to fool you with coupons or discounts or charging you more or making you wait on the line. If you're in a call center, if you're an employee, you have cynicism because you see all these corporate leaders talking about purpose, values and they pay you unlivable wages. If you're a CEO, you might have cynicism too, because you are being blamed for everything. But you see those workers not working very hard and you say, do you know how hard I work? And even middle manager. So the cynicism is everywhere. And if we created more places like Costco, then we would have a much better functioning society. What keeps me optimistic is that I see companies changing. And yes, change is not easy, but we have seen it happen. One of my favorite examples is Sam's Club. It was a $60 billion retailer in 2017. They got their 14th CEO in 34 years, John Furner. So this guy is there for just a few years and he needs to show results. And Sam's Club Club is really struggling at the time. They're way behind their biggest competitor, Costco. By the way, Sam's Club is Walmart's membership based business. Their productivity is low, their turnover is high, they're not doing well, they're closing stores. And John Furner comes in as the CEO and says, you know what? For us to grow and survive, we have to be loved by our customers. For us to be loved by our customers, we have to be able to give them good products, good services. For us to be able to do that, we have to keep our turnover low and our people need to do a good job. He saw the connections between his workers, their work and being able to deliver value for the customer. And he went through an entire transformation. They raised pay five to $7 an hour for people who are making around $15 an hour. That's a big deal. Like for someone whose pay is increased that much now, that person doesn't have to work two jobs. They created block schedules, which is stable Schedules. So now people know when they're going to work. And they made all sorts of work related changes that enabled their employees to be more productive. They empowered their employees to be able to serve their customers. And the result was not only much better jobs for their employees, but much better service for their customers and better results for the company. And by the way, they announced more pay raises and they're on a virtuous cycle now and they're investing more and more. My hope, Chris, is that other leaders will have the courage to do the same. They will have less fear. Because now there are so many reasons for them to be afraid of making big system change. Creating good jobs and offering low prices in a competitive environment where you have all sorts of investor pressures is not that easy. Right. It's not easy. And most CEOs don't get rewarded for investing in their people. Right? They get rewarded for doing other things, investing in technologies, doing this or that, but not investment in people. So I hope this will give permission to a lot more leaders seeing examples like Sam's Club, Quest Diagnostics, Mo's Original Barbecue, the list goes on. That's the reason that I still work, because I am optimistic. Because what's the alternative?
- [27:04]
Chris Duffy
You know, something I've heard you talk about and read in your book and in your work is one of the biggest things that we can do just on the purely emotional, psychological level, is to have people in their jobs when they see a way to make it better for themselves, for the customer, for the company, to not smack that idea out of them. To not say you are just supposed to follow exactly as it is and execute like you are an emotionless robot. But instead giving people ways to feel empowered and to improve the job for themselves, but also for the, the whole experience. Because I think many people find that their worst jobs are the jobs where the message is we just want you to shut up and do the work.
- [27:46]
Zeynep Ton
When you look at companies that are operationally excellent, Toyota comes to mind. Four Seasons Hotels. One of the reasons why these companies do so well is because they have their frontline employees. Improving their work every single day end up creating a huge gap between them and their competitors. And if you don't take advantage of the knowledge, skills and abilities of our frontline workers, we will not do well. People who are closest to the job know the job so much better than others, so why not empower them? So one of the things that unlocks that empowerment is having low employee turnover. But if, if those employees are there for just two weeks or four months, it's hard to trust them. Trust is what enables empowerment. And without low employee turnover, without people who are experienced, who have been there for a long time, it's really hard to create type of trust.
- [28:39]
Chris Duffy
I've noticed that throughout this interview. You use the term frontline workers. Can you talk about why you use that term?
- [28:45]
Zeynep Ton
These are the workers in the front lines delivering the service or producing the goods.
- [28:50]
Chris Duffy
But you don't say like people at the like bottom of the organization, right? It's like you're not framing them as like at the bottom. Instead they're at the front.
- [28:57]
Zeynep Ton
They are for service businesses. They are the brand for the company because they are the ones who are doing the work and serving the customer every single day. In a manufacturing business, they are the ones making the products. So they are the most important people in the organization. So how can I call them low wage workers or lowest paid workers or bottom workers? They are the frontline workers. We should take care of them, we should set them up for success and we should make them feel valued and be proud of creating a lot of value because that would be great for our organization and for our society.
- [29:35]
Chris Duffy
I think the fact that you are putting frontline workers at the center in the heart of your work is really important and is sadly not the norm. I'm curious, like if I'm the CEO, I understand how I can make a strategic choice to differentiate my business by treating my workers better, by paying them more, by giving them more stable schedules. What if I'm someone who's in the middle? What if I am not the boss boss, but I'm not the frontline worker? How can I make jobs better jobs in my organization and for myself and my peers?
- [30:03]
Zeynep Ton
If you look at frontlines and their work, their work is influenced by the decisions made by so many other functions. So if you are working for a retailer and your job is logistics, I'm making this up. Right? And you're a logistics manager, don't just think about your cost, but think about the deliveries into the stores. How do they enable the frontlines to have better schedules? How. How do I make their work better? So every time you're making a decision, think about how does this decision affect the work of the frontline employees and their ability to have a sane life and their ability to deliver for the customers. So that will be one thing that everyone in the organization can do tomorrow.
- [30:48]
Chris Duffy
How much of that do you think is affected by people not having direct personal relationships across levels of the company? If you're the CEO of a massive Global retailer, you may never sit down and have lunch with the person who's working the cash register at one of your stores.
- [31:06]
Zeynep Ton
Yes. My other answer would have been spend time in the front lines. Jim Sinegal, who ran Costco for so many years, every year he will spend 200 days in the front lines at the stores. Why? Because that's where the work is done. Spend time in the front, but don't just ask. Give surveys and ask them how they feel. Like, spend time with them and you'll get to hear so many things. Spend time in the front lines with the people who are doing the real work.
- [31:34]
Chris Duffy
Your research is really focused on individual companies and the choices that organizations can make. But it does seem like when we're talking about some of these basic needs and in some ways we're talking about like a social safety net. So I can imagine that in a country like the United States, if you didn't have to worry about health care because it was not tied to your private employment, if there was a public free health care option for everyone, a lot of jobs would kind of instantly become better because you wouldn't be in medical debt. You wouldn't have to fear that piece of it. How much of a role do you think government has in providing rules about, like, where the floor for pay should be? Rules about hours, rules about healthcare? Do you see the changes happening at the government level, at the business level? Both or neither?
- [32:23]
Zeynep Ton
Oh, both. And it's not just government, it's also labor and the business. It's the whole ecosystem. Of course, higher minimum wages, better scheduling laws, of course, better healthcare, these would all be beneficial for the workers. But none of these would provide the meaning and dignity that workers need. Need on the job. Right. Pay doesn't give you that meaning. So companies need to both show the world that higher pay doesn't ruin their business. Right. Higher pay doesn't mean higher prices for customers. Higher pay can be quite beneficial for customers and their bottom line. So companies need to show that, and companies are the only ones who can design the jobs, that every day people feel good about themselves, people feel good about doing a good job. But it's not companies alone. It would have been so much nicer if we had higher than $7.25 as the minimum wage. I mean, Walmart's lowest pay is $14 an hour and they work in small towns. Our federal minimum wage is $7.25. So think about that.
- [33:25]
Chris Duffy
We talked about, like, what people can do if they're at the middle, if they're Kind of in the middle of an organization. We've talked a little bit about what people can do at the top. What about if someone is a frontline worker, how can they make their job a good job and how can they encourage their company to make jobs good jobs?
- [33:41]
Zeynep Ton
That's a tough question. I think at the company level, it's hard for them to design the work. It's hard for them to show the cost of what a bad job is. Some of the frontline workers are organizing, right? So they're joining unions. And that's one way that has been challenging in this country for decades. But sadly, as much as I advocate for empowering the front lines and all that, this is not so much in their hands. They don't have much power to be able to make the choices that need to be made.
- [34:17]
Chris Duffy
At least not individual power. Certainly there's collective power if you can unionize and can have a labor movement.
- [34:23]
Zeynep Ton
But yeah, but we have much less than 10% of the private workforce unionized. I mean, it's so low that it doesn't make a difference in the lives of many workers.
- [34:34]
Chris Duffy
What's a job that has felt like a really good job to you that you have personally held?
- [34:39]
Zeynep Ton
I have not held a bad job so far. I've been so lucky. I mean, I work at MIT Sloan. I have a great job, I get paid well. I get to interact with MBA students. The mission of our institution is to develop principled, innovative leaders who will improve the world. And at the nonprofit Good Jobs Institute, my job there is a wonderful job job as well, because I get to work with my former students who took my course and who are working with me to spread the good job strategy across different organizations. And we get to spend time with frontline employees, we get to spend time with company leaders, and we see people's lives and company's performance change. So it's been a privilege. I've been so lucky to have good jobs during my career and in some ways feel guilty that I have been this lucky. You know, I came to the United states, I was 18 and in Turkey, where I grew up, us was always seen as the place where you can turn the corner. If you work hard, you can do a great, you know, you can do so well here. And that happened to be true for me. But when I started doing my research in late 90s, it was a huge surprise to see how the America that I experienced was so different than the America that so many workers were experiencing it. And that was a huge part of the reason why I Started studying this because it was heartbreaking to see how many hardworking, intelligent, capable people were not making it.
- [36:20]
Chris Duffy
I certainly consider myself to have a great job. I love my job. And I think people who are happy with our work and do have our basic needs met, so many of us have that experience of looking around and feeling like, this is so unfair. It doesn't make sense that people have jobs that are bad. And yet sometimes it can feel like, well, what could I possibly do?
- [36:41]
Zeynep Ton
So if you are a customer, go to places that provide good service. Those places that provide good service will have better jobs. So spend your money at companies that provide their employees good jobs. So that's something that we can do when we go shopping, when we're at a cafe, when we're at a restaurant, at a hotel, at a. You know, interacting with frontline workers. Look at them in the eye, thank them for their work, and just be a kind human, because that spreads. That makes a difference. Many of the workers I've interviewed told me about how invisible they feel at times. So make them feel more visible. We can also change the way we talk about workers. We could change the way we talk about wages. Let's stop our obsession with market wages and say, what is a living wage? Let's make sure that we at least pay workers a living wage, and then we can think about what others are paying. Those are some small and bigger things that we can all do.
- [37:37]
Chris Duffy
Something that I experience a lot is when I talk to people who are highly educated, very driven people who are doing well, successful people, there's often this so much stress or anxiety or challenge around having their identity so tied to their job. Like people who wish that they, when they introduced themselves, didn't just say, like, here's what I do, and that they were judged by more themselves as a person rather than their work. What you just said is an interesting way for people, regardless of their job, to put that into practice. Right. Is that when you interact with someone, whether they are making more money than you or less money than you, to see them as human first and job position, not even second. Right. Like 14th.
- [38:20]
Zeynep Ton
Yeah. And even when you asked me to introduce myself, I thought, okay, my professional introduction is this because my real introduction is not my titles or the books I wrote or the nonprofit Good Jobs Institute, the first thing we lead with is our jobs and our occupations, and there is a whole other world outside our jobs.
- [38:44]
Chris Duffy
Okay, well, can you introduce yourself again and this time introduce yourself as you do want to be introduced?
- [38:49]
Zeynep Ton
Well, I'm Zeynep Ton. I'm from Turkey, I have four children, have been married for 25 years, have a fantastic husband. I feel lucky to be his wife every day and I also have a great job at MIT Sloan teaching MBA students doing research and I lead the nonprofit Good Jobs Institute.
- [39:07]
Chris Duffy
Well Zeynep, it has been truly such a pleasure talking to you. I think that the work that you're doing is so important and I really am glad that people are going to get to listen to this interview and hear it. So thank you for being on the show.
- [39:17]
Zeynep Ton
Oh thank you so much Chris.
- [39:22]
Chris Duffy
That is it for this episode of how to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to today's guest, Zeynep Tan. She runs the Good Jobs Institute. I am your host Chris Duffy and you can find more from me, including my weekly newsletter and other projects@chrisduffy comedy.com how to be a Better Human is put together by a team that makes my job really good and really easy and really fun. On the TED side we've got Daniela Valorazzo, Banban Chang, Chloe Shasha Brooks, Eleni Lott, Antonia Ley, and Joseph de Bruyne. This episode was fact checked by Julia Dickerson and Matea Selles who only say Good job when I provide full factual documentation. On the PRX side, we are working with the Costco of audio producers because they do it in bulk and they do it better than anyone else. I'm talking Morgan Flannery, Nor Gill, Maggie Goreville, Patrick Grant and Jocelyn Gonzalez. And of course thanks to you for listening to our show and making this all possible. And if you're listening on Apple, please leave us a five star rating and review. Maybe in the review you write Good job on the podcast. Please share this episode with someone who you think would enjoy it. Help us spread the word about the podcast. It really, really really helps us. We will be back next week with even more how to Be a Better Human. Until then, thanks for listening and renew your health and wellness purpose this new year with the reset on Alo Moves, a curated weekly program of Pilates strength and step goals to kickstart your fitness journey. It's a 30 day week by week program. Three days of Pilates, two days of.
- [40:54]
Zeynep Ton
Strength and 8,000 daily steps plus bonus.
- [40:57]
Chris Duffy
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