Job Quality Newsletter — Shared Success

Improving job quality isn’t just the right thing to do — it’s a smart, practical strategy that benefits workers, small businesses and the broader communities they serve.

This edition of the Job Quality Newsletter features tools, stories, and strategies to help advisors and business owners take meaningful steps towards better jobs and stronger outcomes.

Through our Shared Success demonstration, we’ve had the opportunity to learn about the range of strategies community development financial institutions (CDFIs) have employed to encourage job quality among their small business clients. We’re seeing how good jobs can support workers and lead to more resilient businesses.

Whether you’re supporting small business owners or shaping the systems that support them, there’s something in this newsletter for you. Let’s keep building shared success.

Event Recording — Advising Small Businesses on Job Quality: Lessons from CDFIs

Discover how improving job quality can benefit both workers and small businesses–and how CDFIs are helping make it happen. Check out the full event recording to explore practical strategies from our job quality advising guide and hear directly from CDFI advisors.

Blog — How Good Jobs Support Small Business Success: Lessons from the Shared Success Demonstration 

This blog recaps our May event, “How Good Jobs Support Small Business Success,” a milestone event showcasing lessons from the Shared Success demonstration. The convening highlighted how CDFIs across the country are helping small businesses improve job quality in ways that strengthen both workplaces and communities. Read the full blog and watch the event recording to hear firsthand stories from business owners and practitioners driving change and building shared success.

Building Shared Success: A Guide to Small Business Job Quality Advising for CDFIs

This guide supports business advisors at CDFIs in engaging small business owners in meaningful conversations about improving job quality. Framing job quality as a driver of business success, it offers practical strategies and resources to link improvements to tangible business outcomes while encouraging consideration of employees’ perspectives.

Podcast — Elevating Job Quality: How To Talk About Job Quality with Small Businesses 

In this episode of our “Elevating Job Quality” podcast series, Lauren Starks, director of EOP’s Good Companies/Good Jobs initiative, speaks with three community finance leaders about how their organizations help small businesses improve job quality. They share strategies for integrating HR and employee support into business advising, emphasizing that investing in workers leads to better retention, performance, and business outcomes. The conversation highlights tools, coaching approaches, and the importance of trust-building in supporting entrepreneurs. Listen or learn more here. Visit the “Elevating Job Quality” landing page to access all six episodes in the series.

Shared Success Tools

Job Quality Advising Guide
This guide supports small business advisors in engaging business owners around job quality improvements by highlighting their potential to drive positive business outcomes. It offers practical strategies, conversation tips, and resources to help advisors effectively demonstrate the value of investing in better jobs.

Initiate Job Quality Tools

This library, developed by Shared Success grantee Northern Initiatives, offers a set of resources to help small business owners learn about and implement job quality improvements. Some of the resources include:

• Good Job Inventory
• New Hire Checklist

Be sure to bookmark this link so you can easily access all of these helpful tools once they’re live on the Initiate website.