As a leader at the Good Jobs Institute, Sandhya Mahadevan helps businesses create stronger, more resilient teams by aligning operational excellence with a commitment to good jobs. At Bread & Butter 2025, Sandhya brought her expertise to the Guild community, leading a powerful session on how bakery owners can make strategic choices that support both their people and their bottom line. 

We followed up with Sandhya after the event to hear more about her session, the conversations it sparked, and her perspective on building bakery businesses that are both sustainable and people centered.

Can you briefly describe your work with the Good Jobs Institute and how it connects to the food and baking industries? 

The Good Jobs Institute works with leaders in industries where frontline performance significantly impacts business success, food and baking being key among them. Our focus is helping leaders make operational choices and people investments to build capable, stable teams that can deliver on customer expectations and grow the business. 

We’ve worked with bakeries of all sizes, and at Bread & Butter, we explored how our five core choices—invest in people, focus and simplify, standardize and empower, cross-train, and operate with slack—can help bakery owners create a system that works better for everyone. 

Your session focused on the idea that operational efficiency and paying fair wages aren’t mutually exclusive. What’s the biggest misconception you encounter about that balance? 

That they’re at odds. A lot of people think that paying higher wages means sacrificing financial performance, but it’s actually the opposite. You need stable, motivated teams to execute well and build customer loyalty. Even with perfect SOPs (standard operating procedures), if your team is constantly turning over or juggling too much, the system breaks down. Zeynep Ton’s research shows that team stability correlates with better operational performance...less waste, better customer satisfaction, stronger margins. It’s not just a “nice-to-have.” It’s a core business strategy. 

What’s one takeaway from your session that you hope bakery owners bring back to their teams? 

That it’s possible to run a great business and offer good jobs. In fact, those things reinforce each other. The choices you make around your team and your operations are deeply connected. A more focused menu or simplified production schedule, for example, doesn’t just make your kitchen run smoother...it makes your employees’ experience better, which helps you retain talent. That’s the heart of the Good Jobs Strategy. 

In the session, you mentioned durability. Why is that word important right now for bakery owners? 

Sandhya: Because things change...costs go up, supply chains shift, customer habits evolve. A durable bakery is one that can flex with those changes because it has a strong foundation: a motivated, empowered team and clear, focused operations. When the egg price spikes or you need to pivot your menu, your team is ready to adapt. That’s the kind of durability we help businesses build. 

You mentioned that the GJI framework can be applied at any scale. What’s a small first step bakery owners can take if they’re just getting started? 

Start by asking yourself: What kind of job am I offering? Is it meeting both the basic and higher-level needs of the people I hope to hire and retain? Then look at your operations. Are you trying to do too much? Could simplifying your menu or process actually make life better for your team and your customers? 

It’s not about perfection. It’s about building awareness and starting to align your business decisions with the kind of workplace and outcomes you want. That’s where the transformation starts. 

Any final thoughts or reflections from the Bread & Butter experience? 

What struck me was how invested this community is in doing things the right way...not just in terms of craft, but in how they run their businesses. These aren’t folks looking for shortcuts. They’re looking for strategies that align with their values and help them build something that lasts. It was an honor to be a part of that conversation.