Description
Job quality and the work of ensuring that all jobs are good jobs is intertwined with a complex landscape of laws and regulations – rules operating at the local, state, and federal levels that set important standards, establish protocols, and stand up safeguards that help workers have safe, fair, and equitable workplaces. Compliance is an essential component of advancing good jobs practices and systems across the U.S. and, as our team at the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program (EOP) has conducted site visits and interviews, a topic that we are hearing prioritized among both business owners and workers.
We have heard from business owners across diverse industries an interest in accessing timely, sound legal guidance and tools as they seek to create high-quality jobs. We have also heard through our engagement with workers the importance of working in firms that are ensuring, at a minimum, a legally compliant workplace. Yet, through our work with practitioners and key intermediaries across the U.S., including a cohort of 11 community development financial institutions (CDFIs) engaging with small business owners on strategies to advance good jobs, we have consistently heard that small businesses are facing ongoing hurdles navigating and staying up to date on relevant compliance requirements.
In fall 2023, at our Shared Success annual learning meeting, we prepared a resource guide to help point our CDFI grantees to support in this area. Although initially provided for the Shared Success cohort, the grantees found the guide so useful that we decided to revise it and share it more broadly. This resource guide is intended to help spur ideas for how small businesses can overcome compliance hurdles and navigate quickly evolving regulatory landscapes. The guide is also designed to help advisors or entities working with small business owners, such as CDFIs, facilitate access to potential partners to help their clients effectively address these matters in a more timely, high-quality, and consistent manner. This document is not meant to be legal advice or an exhaustive list of organizations, but rather a snapshot of potential regional and national resources where organizations could seek guidance and further partnership or support.
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About Shared Success
The Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program is partnering with 11 CDFls for Shared Success: Scaling Financial Intermediary Strategies to Advance Job Quality, Equity, and Small Business Prosperity. This pilot, supported by the Gates Foundation, focuses on advancing job quality among small- and medium-sized businesses.
About Good Companies/Good Jobs
The Aspen Institute’s Good Companies/Good Jobs (GCGJ) initiative equips companies to advance economic opportunity through a key lever: good jobs. Through research, commentary, and convening, GCGJ elevates how companies can create shared value for workers, businesses, and communities. GCGJ is an initiative of the Institute’s Economic Opportunities Program.
About the Economic Opportunities Program
The Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program hosts a variety of discussions to advance strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy. To learn about upcoming events and webinars, join our mailing list and follow us on social media.
