News and Insights

Dawson has written a set of six “opinion briefs” on improving the quality of jobs for low-income workers. Topics range from employer engagement to re-designing workforce intermediaries. We recommend starting with Paper #1 and Paper #6. The six briefs are at: {www.thepinkertonfoundation.org/paper_type/job-quality-series}

Also, the National Fund has built upon the job-quality framework proposed in Paper #6 for a “dynamic definition” of the many ways in which frontline jobs can be improved: https://nationalfund.org/job-quality-resource-center/.

This Time Magazine editorial, written by Maureen Conway of the Aspen Institute, makes a strong argument for why the workforce field must look beyond training strategies alone, to interventions that include “the nature of work, and the kind of opportunity a job offers.” This brief Time editorial can be found at:

http://time.com/3849113/education-income-inequality/?utm_source=WSI+Newsletter+Spring+2015&utm_campaign=Spring+Newsletter&utm_medium=archive

Many workforce practitioners are assisting retail businesses—and have quickly come to understand that scheduling practices are a prime factor in destabilizing both work- and homelife for frontline retail staff. This study is a disciplined analysis of scheduling practices at national retail store, The Gap, and how certain interventions, such as tech-enabled shift swapping, impacted both workers and Gap stores.

A brief introductory article can be found at the Slate website: https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/03/new-study-examines-schedule-instability-in-retail-jobs.html