THRIVING TOGETHER
Building Quality Jobs for a More Resilient Workforce
Work is more than a contract — it’s a source of dignity, stability, and growth. Yet, many roles fail to deliver basic economic security or opportunity. Investing in quality jobs isn’t just moral, it’s strategic.
Join the SHRM Foundation to help employers define, measure, and scale quality job practices.
Overview
44%
of U.S. workers do not earn a living wage.
(Dayforce and Living Wage Institute, 2024)
85M
U.S. workers are estimated to lack a “quality job.”
(Jobs for the Future, 2025)
32%
of U.S. employees are engaged in their work.
(Gallup, 2025)
Quality jobs are foundational to thriving people, communities, and organizations.
Workers in low-quality jobs are more likely to experience burnout, turnover, absenteeism, and disengagement. That erodes institutional knowledge, increases hiring costs, and undermines productivity. Moreover, in competitive labor markets, organizations that promote job quality gain reputational advantages with employees, customers, and communities.
The SHRM Foundation acts as a convener and amplifier of employer best practices around job quality. We help refine frameworks that tie job quality improvements to business outcomes, produce research and case studies, and build tools for HR leaders to benchmark, redesign, and communicate quality job investments.
Join the SHRM Foundation in building workplaces where every job is a good job — driving prosperity for people, businesses, and communities alike.
Employers have an urgent opportunity — and responsibility — to ensure every job provided is a quality job.
- Recruit: Build inclusive pipelines that focus on skills and potential, not credentials or connections.
- Support: Offer benefits that sustain families such as health coverage, paid leave, retirement, and caregiving assistance.
- Include: Create workplaces where inclusion and successful enablement are lived values, not slogans.
- Empower: Foster employees’ voice and agency in shaping their work and workplace decisions.
- Stabilize: Provide safe, healthy environments; predictable schedules; and job security.
- Engage: Foster a culture of belonging, respect, and shared purpose.
- Pay Fairly: Commit to transparent, equitable wages that grow with experience and contributions.
- Advance: Invest in upskilling, career mobility, and clear promotion pathways.
Explore the Quality Jobs Resource Hub
The SHRM Foundation’s Quality Jobs Resource Hub helps employers move from aspiration to action. It offers practical tools, research, and examples to measure, strengthen, and scale job quality across your organization, including:
- Assessment tools to evaluate fairness, inclusion, pay, and growth opportunities.
- ROI and wage calculators to connect job quality investments to business outcomes and local living-wage data.
- Case studies and research showcasing how leading employers are creating better jobs for all.
Use the resource hub to benchmark progress, make a business case for quality jobs, and build workplaces where quality jobs enable people, organizations, and communities to thrive.
Research
Making the Case for Quality Jobs to Employers
A SHRM Foundation and Topos Partnership research study that explores effective ways to promote quality job practices to HR and employers, framing them as essential to organizational success.
The American Job Quality Study
A rigorous national survey from Gallup exploring how workers perceive job quality and its relation to well-being, organizational outcomes, and job design.
Job Quality and Workplace Standards
An Urban Institute suite of analyses exploring how wages, benefits, safety, autonomy, and worker voice influence employee mobility, well-being, and social equity.