Jim Baron’s students at the Yale School of Management often comment that creating a great company culture is easy when business is booming but can go by the wayside when conditions head south. Their skepticism prompted the widely published management professor to find examples of firms that use their culture to get though... [Read More]

Over beach vacation last week, I hijacked my dad’s copy of Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com. You may have heard about it on NPR. Hsieh built and sold a company right out of college and, with the proceeds, as well as a venture fund he... [Read More]

A new book, Profit at the Bottom of the Ladder, just published by Harvard University Press (and recently reviewed in this post in the New York Times’ Economix blog) makes the case for why workforce best practices should include engaging employees at the bottom of the ladder (in other words, entry level workers).  In a... [Read More]

Why is WD40 called by that name? Because the first 39 formulas did not work. The company just celebrated their 50th anniversary of the winning formula – and it attests to the idea that a willingness to try, fail, and try again is a critically important piece of innovation. This was just one of the interesting... [Read More]

SJF Ventures portfolio companies Cleanscapes, a sustainable solid waste and recycling collection management service, and groSolar, a premier provider of solar energy systems, are great examples of entrepreneurial companies that are leading the new green economy. These firms provide products and services that lessen environmental impact, reduce natural resource use and also create high-quality jobs. So... [Read More]

We posted a few weeks ago about the new green cooperative laundry that is creating a new model for building thriving businesses that create wealth for low- to moderate-income individuals in Cleveland. The project has a very inspiring video that we highly recommend.

Workplace flexibility has long been seen as mainly the province of middle and upper wage workers, but a recent report by Corporate Voices for Working Families looked into the potential benefits of flexible scheduling for lower-wage employees (those who earn $10 per hour or less than $20,000 annually, which they estimate at more than 25... [Read More]

SJF Advisory Service’s Beyond Paycheck-to-Paycheck report (currently being updated) describes the ways that innovative companies create and promote asset building opportunities for their employees through such initiatives as profit sharing, broad based stock options, and providing access to financial literacy or savings programs.   When we came across Bainbridge Graduate Institute Professor Mark Anielski’s writing on... [Read More]

An intriguing new green jobs and employee engagement project is under development in the University Circle neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio. Evergreen Cooperative Laundry is an innovative economic development initiative that combines private investment, New Market Tax Credits, and philanthropic support in an effort to build long-lasting community assets in an area that has been hard-hit... [Read More]

Yesterday afternoon, SJF was pleased to host an Employee Financial Stability Webinar. This hour-long session allowed four presenters to give tips on how best to help workers improve their financial standing. This topic is particularly pertinent today, as the United States wades through a troubling recession. As a result, many families struggle to stay afloat... [Read More]