In this 2019 MIT Sloan case, Zeynep Ton and Katie Bach describe how the executive team at Mud Bay, a privately held pet store chain based in Olympia, Washington, implemented a good jobs strategy. The company offered employees better wages and benefits and then sought to recoup the costs by increasing sales growth and lowering other expenses. The case also presents a decision that Mud Bay faced about store hours.
This MIT Sloan case, authored by Zeynep Ton, Thomas A. Kochan, and Cate Reavis, explores an unusual employee-led protest that took place at Market Basket, a New England-based supermarket chain, during the summer of 2014. Employees protested the firing of Market Basket's CEO because they thought his departure might be followed by a sale of the company that could result in lower wages and benefits and the loss of an organizational culture they valued.
The Zingerman’s collection of food businesses in Ann Arbor, MI, is known for its customer service. That “Zingerman’s experience” derives from an extensive framework that includes intensively training new recruits and then empowering them to exercise individual decision-making to “go the extra mile” for a customer. The company has also employed an open-book management approach to give every employee, including hourly staff, the tools and education they need to “think and act like owners.”
