Nearly one in four American functioning adults includes a job that pays significantly less than a living income. Conventional wisdom says that’s how the world must work. Bad jobs with low income, minimal benefits, small training, and chaotic schedules will be the only way companies will keep costs down and prices low. If companies were to provide better jobs, clients would need to pay more or companies would need to make less.

But in The Good Jobs Technique, Zeynep Ton, a professor on the MIT Sloan College of Management, on the subject of The Good Careers Strategy: How the Smartest Businesses Invest in Workers to lessen Costs and Boost Income makes the compelling case that even in low-cost configurations, leaving employees behind-with poor jobs-is an option, not a necessity. Drawing on more than a 10 years of research, Lot shows how functional excellence enables businesses to own lowest prices to customers while ensuring good jobs for their employees and excellent results for their investors.

Lot describes the elements of the good jobs strategy in a number of successful companies around the world, including Southwest Airlines, UPS, Toyota, Zappos, and In-N-Out Burger. She targets four model retailers-Costco, Mercadona, Trader Joe’s, and QuikTrip-to demonstrate the good jobs strategy at work and reveals four choices that have transformed these companies’ high purchase in employees into lower costs, higher revenue, and greater customer satisfaction.

Full of surprising, counterintuitive insights, the audiobook answers queries such as: How do offering fewer items increase client satisfaction? Why would having more employees than you need keep your charges down and boost income? How can companies simultaneously standardize work and empower employees?

The Good Careers Strategy outlines an invaluable blueprint for just about any organization that wants to pursue a sustainable competitive strategy where everyone-employees, customers, and investors-wins.