HBS Managing the Future of Work

Computer scientist, author, and New Yorker writer Cal Newport argues that the way we organize cognitive work ignores basic neuroscience. Also: how the pandemic deepened the digital communications morass; how autonomy without structure is bad for knowledge workers; native-remote businesses; the sociological and real estate implications of remote work; the 4-day work week; and what we can learn from software developers.

The ag tech firm’s founder talks about large-scale indoor farming’s potential for food security, climate change adaptation, and economic renewal.

There are no quick fixes when it comes to opening the tech workforce to underrepresented groups, according to CodePath’s co-founder and CEO. The solution, he argues, is a carefully calibrated end-to-end program combining academic and industry expertise to prepare college students for the most competitive entry-level positions.

As businesses struggle with post-Covid workplace models, supply chain snags, and the increasing demand for digital skills, workforce strategy is more crucial than ever. SAP Chief People and Operating Officer and Labor Relations Director, Sabine Bendiek, on talent acquisition, reskilling, hybrid and flexible work models, diversity and inclusion, ESG goals, and training the next wave of leadership.

The pandemic and supply chain crisis are reshaping the package delivery business. What are the staffing implications and what does it mean for the logistics of work? Mike Lauderdale, VP of Human Resources at FedEx Services, on hybrid work, emerging skills, and ESG commitments.

As work is recast in terms of skills and credentials, is the labor market awash in too much information? Credly's founder and CEO argues that more detail--verified and expressed in a standard taxonomy--can benefit both workers and employers.

As it adapts to a changing talent landscape, Rolls-Royce is experimenting with new modes of hiring, training, and managing while working to safeguard a century of accumulated wisdom. HR leader Summer Smith explains the strategy, from reimagining the office to embracing diversity and prioritizing mental health.

What does it take to move the needle on inequality and promote economic mobility? To help workers stuck in low-wage jobs, build career programs around their economic and social realities and focus on in-demand skills. Connor Diemand-Yauman and Rebecca Taber Staehelin, co-CEOs of nonprofit Merit America, explain how targeted, affordable and flexible training, buttressed by one-on-one coaching and other supports, can boost incomes and career prospects.

Edtech firm 2U's acquisition of edX, the Harvard-MIT nonprofit education venture, has the potential to advance online higher-ed and broaden access. But there are many moving parts and interested parties. 2U co-founder and CEO, Chip

The pandemic has forced organizational change and spurred the development of new business models. It’s also prompted workers and the public to reexamine their relationships with businesses. Juergen Lindner, Oracle SVP of Global Marketing, discusses the workforce and skills implications of doing business in the cloud and how automation could help advance environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives.

If it’s cool for girls to code, why aren’t more women working in technology? And why are working mothers in all sectors finding it difficult to establish and maintain careers? Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code and Marshall Plan for Moms, shares her formula for structural change.

Is work-life balance possible when you’re always connected? The pandemic has forced advances in the digital underpinnings of remote and hybrid work. Dropbox has added apps and organizational advice to its ubiquitous cloud storage. Founder and CEO Drew Houston on the firm’s virtual-first strategy and his vision for an AI-powered, uncluttered digital workplace.

Businesses are getting strategic about skills building, focusing on what they and their employees need to reach their respective goals. As the largest private employer in the U.S., Walmart is looking to influence the direction of education and training, from basic skills through post-secondary credentials. Joe Fuller welcomes Lorraine Stomski, Walmart's Senior Vice President of Enterprise Leadership and Learning.

The pandemic has forced businesses to reassess how, where, and when work gets done. The competition to provision this transformation is intense. Facebook parent Meta is looking to bridge the community experience of social media and the collaborative aspects of work via familiar interfaces and new, virtual experiences. Christine Trodella joins Bill Kerr.

The pandemic has underscored the value of distance learning and remote work and bolstered the case for virtualizing the college-to-career connection. Over the past decade, Handshake has established itself as the dominant jobs network and recruiting platform. Co-founder and CEO Garrett Lord explains how taking the campus out of the equation levels the playing field.

Government work has gotten a bad rap of late, even as it’s arguably more essential than ever. Can a labor-friendly administration jump-start the modernization and rejuvenation of the federal workforce? Kiran Ahuja, Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, discusses the agency’s post-Covid strategy and its initiatives on diversity, accessibility, pay equity, and collective bargaining.

The pandemic took remote work mainstream. This gave a boost to online platforms for freelance professionals and highly skilled workers. Micha Kaufman, founder and CEO of Fiverr, explains how businesses have gotten better at leveraging this talent, how freelancers have are finding new opportunities, and what policies can help support this model.

How far up the white-collar value chain is automation pushing and what's the optimal mix of human and machine intelligence? Bill Kerr interviews Daniel Dines, co-founder and CEO of robotic process automation (RPA) giant UiPath.

How do you manage a digital transformation while steering a heavily frontline business through a pandemic? Iron Mountain CHRO Edward Greene explains how the 70-year-old records management company is developing talent internally and staffing up to enter new markets.

What's the business case for upgrading low-wage, high-turnover jobs? Joe Fuller joins his Managing the Future of Work co-chair and podcast co-host, Bill Kerr, to unpack the project's recent report, Building From the Bottom Up.

Goodwill Industries International may be synonymous with thrifting but the 120-year-old nonprofit is a major provider of workforce development and skills training. President and CEO, Steve Preston, explains the international organization’s mission, how it works with employers and partners to bolster opportunity for underserved individuals, and how it’s keeping physical and virtual doors open through the pandemic.

HR is reinventing itself on the fly and under increasing pressure. HR expert Josh Bersin explains how the field is adapting to play a more varied and strategic role amid economic, technological, demographic, and cultural change.

In its 75 years, Kelly Services has gone from temp agency to skills broker, outsourcing firm, workforce development provider, and source of labor market research. CEO Peter Quigley discusses how employers and workers are approaching contingent work, Covid-19’s role in driving innovation and flexibility, “hidden workers” and what’s behind the Great Resignation.

How well is HR heeding its own advice to workers and reinventing itself to remain relevant and productive? Society for Human Resource Management president and CEO, Johnny C. Taylor Jr., on the importance of workplace culture, reskilling, and expanding the talent pool.

Can businesses afford to see employees in terms other than unit labor cost? How do you factor the Golden Rule into a profit and loss statement? Former Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly explains how unlearning business orthodoxies helped him prove that a human-centered approach can boost the bottom line.

Economist Lisa Cook discusses her pioneering work on the cost of exclusion—the economic consequences of innovation lost due to racism and sexism. The versatile scholar and policy expert also reflects on her career path and her role in promoting diversity in the field of economics.

Barak Eilam, CEO of customer-service AI vendor NICE, explains how fostering careers and promoting diversity helps attract tech talent.

If workers are in short supply, why do employers continue to use digital gatekeepers that screen out millions of capable individuals? Joe Fuller joins his Managing the Future of Work co-chair and podcast co-host, Bill Kerr, to share insights from the project’s research collaboration with Accenture on the “hidden worker” problem.

Slack is a mainstay of remote work. But when Covid-19 hit the company behind the software had to pivot from an in-person orientation to digital-first. VP Brian Elliott, leader of the firm’s Future Forum consortium, explains how remapping work means reimagining the organization.

Managing the Future of Work project co-chair and podcast co-host, Joe Fuller joins Eric Olsen on Helix Education's Enrollment Growth University. How can colleges address the middle skills gap while readying students for the job market? Work-based learning and better career services are key.

“Tiger” Tyagarajan, CEO of professional services firm Genpact, on post-Covid workforce challenges, how to foster a culture of adaptability, and the imperative and benefits of diversity.

Coursera Chief Enterprise Officer, Leah Belsky, on how online education is facilitating workforce development, mitigating Covid job losses, promoting diversity, transforming teaching, and enabling lifelong learning. She also discusses the company’s decisive shift to remote work.

Harvard sociologist David Pedulla unpacks the hiring process. How do race, gender, and work history influence the gatekeepers? What assumptions guide their decision-making and how can social science help level the playing field?

Life sciences cloud software company Veeva's origins as a highly decentralized organization and its early adoption of video conferencing paid off when Covid-19 forced the switch to remote work. The business was able to help speed up the vaccine pipeline. Co-founder and director, HBS alumnus Matt Wallach, talks about the firm’s post-Covid work-from-anywhere strategy, its embrace of the multi-stakeholder public benefit corporation model, and why it foregoes non-compete clauses as it aims to foster employees’ careers.

Can social science and big data help organizations have constructive conversations with their employees? People analytics is being put to the test as businesses grapple with the pandemic, remote work, return-to-the-office decisions, diversity and inclusion, and a raft of social and political pressures. Didier Elzinga, founder and CEO of HR analytics platform vendor Culture Amp, discusses employee engagement and wellbeing and the need for data-literate managers.

Former Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erica Groshen on how better data gathering can improve careers and the economy and why it’s important to keep politics out of federal statistical research. Also: skills, worker voice, gig, inequality, the social safety net, and assessing the impact of Covid-19.

Eastern Bank is betting that bigger is better when it comes to serving small businesses and supporting local communities and philanthropic causes. Until recently the oldest and largest mutual bank in the US, Eastern has gone public and is pursuing an aggressive growth strategy. CEO and Chair, Bob Rivers, on maintaining the bank’s commitment to diversity—in business, communities, and internally—and how Covid has reconfigured work and magnified the challenges faced by small and minority-owned businesses.

Translators aren’t headed for obsolescence just yet. Computer-assisted language translation has come a long way, but for many jobs, you’ll still need a human in the loop to avoid inaccuracies, tone-deafness, and cultural insensitivity. Computer scientist Spence Green is president of enterprise language translation company, Lilt. He unpacks state-of-the-art neural network machine translation and explains the critical function of localizing content for international markets.

Managing the Future of Work project co-chair and podcast co-host, Joe Fuller joins Aassia Haq on MBO Partners’ State of Independence. What does the post-Covid workforce look like, and what are the biggest challenges facing CEOs and CHROs as they compete to marshal talent and transform their workforces?

As the US vies with global AI rivals for technological and strategic advantage, where will it find the human brainpower and skilled labor to compete? Is the government prepared for the challenge? Artificial intelligence is crossing boundaries, transforming markets, and raising ethical concerns. José-Marie Griffiths, member of the National Security Committee on Artificial Intelligence, discusses the commission’s recommendations.

Many architects are looking for work these days but the profession as a whole is influencing the future of work writ large. Architecture is shaped by the tension between the creative process and the more rigid, risk-averse business of building—a business that’s been hit hard by the pandemic. At the same time, architects are playing a key role in redefining work- and living spaces for the new normal. Stefan Behnisch, whose firm Behnisch Architekten designed Harvard’s vast new science and engineering complex, deconstructs the design and construction workforce, the future of the office, and the post-Covid city.

Social Finance has deftly aligned incentives around skills training. By pooling public and private resources and making job placement a shared goal, the nonprofit is providing proof of concept that could scale to address workforce development needs nationwide. Co-founder and CEO Tracy Palandjian explains career impact bonds and social impact bonds.

Going into the pandemic, Spotify was well positioned for the increase in demand for streaming music and podcasts. To accommodate the surge and expand its podcast presence, the 15-year-old Swedish company with offices in more than 70 countries increased its staff by a third in 2020. How do you manage such rapid growth in the midst of a pandemic, and what does the post-Covid workplace look like? What does it mean to be a purpose-driven, diverse, and inclusive firm? CHRO Katarina Berg explains.

As employers and job seekers cope with pandemic-induced disruption and uncertainty, the role of intermediary is more crucial than ever. Job platform CareerBuilder, with its two-sided skills market, looks to smooth the employment process and increase diversity. CEO Irina Novoselsky discusses the shift to skills-based hiring, demographic changes in the workforce, the benefits of well-informed AI, and how Covid and the gig economy are leading employers to make fulltime positions more flexible.

Digital platforms for highly skilled freelancers are set to broker more strategic engagements for businesses needing extra capacity and flexibility. HBS and Managing the Future of Work’s Joe Fuller and Boston Consulting Group’s Allison Bailey, co-authors of the report Building the On-Demand Workforce, join Bill Kerr. How can employers adapt their approach to talent and align management incentives to benefit from this trend? What are the implications for workers and what choices are policymakers weighing?

Self-awareness can be a strategic asset for businesses and individuals alike, says Edith Cooper. The former Goldman Sachs partner reflects on the evolution of the employer-employee relationship, the benefits of cultivating diversity and individuality, and how a new generation of professionals looks for work-life balance and community amid social upheaval and economic change.

As the realities of 5G wireless networking and the Internet of Things catch up to the hype, the effects are expected to be sweeping, from smart infrastructure to enhanced education and training and new business models. Mo Katibeh, AT&T’s Chief Product and Platform Officer, helps break down implications for jobs, skills, and the future of work.

MIT labor economist David Autor, co-chair of the Institute’s Task Force on the Work of the Future, discusses the initiative’s report, “The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines.” Describing the report as both optimistic and cautionary, Autor makes the case that the US needs to reinvest in innovation while supporting a more sustainable workforce transformation that broadens opportunity and narrows inequality.

As work life morphs into an expanding series of limited engagements, education and training need to be retooled for the long haul. Workforce training expert Michelle Weise, author of the new book Long Life Learning: Preparing for Jobs That Don’t Even Exist Yet, says the sector needs to do a better job of accommodating the demands of the workplace and the realities of workers’ lives. Senior advisor to education venture fund Imaginable Futures and data collaboration platform BrightHive, the former Skidmore English professor deconstructs learning, hiring, and skills.

The idea of uncaging industrial robots may seem like a Hollywood trope, but it refers to technology that allows manufacturers to choreograph more precise and productive interplay between robots and workers. Veo Robotics president, CEO, and co-founder, Patrick Sobalvarro, explains the state of the art in industrial automation.