The conventional wisdom in retail and other low-margin service industries has been that bad frontline jobs—with low pay, unpredictable schedules, and few opportunities for advancement—are necessary to compete. Yet for decades a handful of companies—including Costco and QuikTrip in the United States and Mercadona in Spain—have been proving that false. They remain market leaders in their very competitive industries without the bad jobs on which those industries supposedly depend—and it’s no secret how they do it: by adopting “good jobs” systems. Meanwhile, in a tight labor market, organizations with bad jobs are finding it hard to stay open because they can’t attract and retain workers.
A version of this article appeared in the May–June 2023 issue of Harvard Business Review.
