HBS Managing the Future of Work

Video conferencing and other communications technologies have been a lifeline for many during the Covid-19 pandemic. But they can exacerbate existing inequalities and create new ones. How can organizations help employees thrive in the post-Covid hybrid workforce of in-person and remote teams? Michael Peachey heads up the user experience (UX) group at RingCentral, which provides communications and collaboration tools and services. He says successful companies will fit the tools and tactics to the circumstances of their workers so remote doesn’t mean left out.

As AI and automation take on more and more sophisticated tasks, being human can look like a career liability. But not when you consider inherent advantages like our capacity to collaborate, create, and think critically. Jamie Merisotis, President and CEO of the Lumina Foundation and author of the new book Human Work in the Age of Smart Machines, explains the emerging ecosystem of jobs and how employers, educators, government, and the social sector can help workers prepare.

While hospitals battle on the frontlines of the Covid-19 pandemic, their business operations are adapting and evolving in ways that will outlast the coronavirus outbreak. Intermountain Healthcare’s roughly 40,000 employees staff some 200-plus businesses, from food service to operating rooms. The pandemic is accelerating the Utah-based non-profit’s adoption of telemedicine, digital platforms, and artificial intelligence. President and CEO, Marc Harrison discusses the company’s shift to remote work, employee support, re-skilling, and its efforts to address the crisis in healthcare affordability and access.

As jobs give way to skills as units of work, training is following suit. Udacity’s relationships with Fortune 500 companies, universities, and national governments inform its practical online training in technical and business skills. CEO Gabriel Dalporto discusses Nanodegrees, experiential training, government policy, lifelong learning, and the importance of aligning skills training and business objectives.

Underemployment is a common trap among first-in-their-family college grads and those from low-income backgrounds and underserved communities. Kalani Leifer, founder and CEO of nonprofit COOP Careers, talks about how his organization works with recent grads to equip them with digital skills and to help them develop all-important peer-group social capital.

Covid-19 has accelerated many organizational trends, from remote work and digitalization to automation and a growing recognition of inequalities. Consulting firms are key actors in responding to this dynamic, since their judgement has influence well beyond their own affairs. What can we learn from their latest thinking on the new normal and the future of work? Michael Fenlon, PwC’s Chief People Officer shares insights on managing remote work, addressing disparities, maintaining wellness (including mental health), developing workforce skills, and the importance of purpose and trust.

Corporate social responsibility and commitment to a local workforce can go hand-in-hand with profitability. World Wide Technology in St. Louis is managing to thrive while dealing head-on with the pandemic and social and racial issues. One of the largest minority-owned businesses in the US, the 30 year-old privately held firm employs more than 6,000. The rare global tech firm based in the Midwest, it boasts a roster of Fortune 100 customers. CEO and co-founder Jim Kavanaugh discusses company’s evolution from value-added reseller to diversified IT firm and its longstanding emphasis on employee wellbeing, diversity, and inclusion.

The restaurant industry has been especially hard-hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. Restaurants quickly shifted from indoor dining to a greater reliance on online ordering, curbside pick-up, outdoor dining, and delivery. Toast, a restaurant management services company, provides tools for all facets of running a restaurant. CEO Chris Comparato talks about the future of dining and explains how the company helped its clients adapt to the new normal, facilitated access to capital, and advocated for restaurant relief.

Can public-private partnerships do the heavy lifting of workforce development while promoting upward mobility? And can they help underserved groups participate in a post-Covid recovery? IBM’s P-TECH high school STEM program works with community colleges and industry partners to support students as they earn a high school diploma and an associate degree. The company recently launched SkillsBuild, a training program for adults from vulnerable populations. IBM VP of corporate social responsibility Grace Suh discusses integrating workplace requirements into education and training; digital certificates; virtual internships; on-the-job training; and what it takes to extend access during the pandemic.

Polling fatigue is normal in the runup to a presidential election. Employers are finding ways to tap into worker sentiment less obtrusively. Glint-LinkedIn equips firms with survey tools and AI analytics to keep tabs on the collective mental state of their employees. Justin Black, head of people science at LinkedIn, explains the potential benefits: productivity gains, a more engaged workforce, and less burnout; and the pitfalls: disengagement and a loss of trust. Covid-19, social strife, and the strains of remote work raise the stakes.

How will US community colleges emerge from the coronavirus pandemic and the economic and social disruptions of 2020? Dr. Walter Bumphus, President and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), discusses the role of the nation’s over 1,000 2-year post-secondary institutions in responding to the multiple crises disproportionately affecting their 12 million students. As the AACC enters its second century advocating for community colleges, it looks to bolster their workforce development capacity and their ability to foster upward mobility.

For some families online learning is a rocky road. For others it’s a dead end. To address the uneven distribution of digital infrastructure, public-private partnership EdConnect provides students in underserved areas with broadband. Tennessee’s Superintendent of the Year, Dr. Bryan Johnson and CO.LAB startup accelerator CEO, Marcus Shaw talk about how, working with municipal utility EPB, they rallied stakeholders to deliver funding, resources, and access.

The US is facing a tsunami of demand for skills training and job placement. Its 1,100 community and technical colleges offer the best institutional infrastructure and student support for the task, but key reforms are needed. So argues The Indispensable Institution: Reimagining Community College, a June 2020 report from nonprofit Opportunity America. The group’s president, Tamar Jacoby, discusses the report’s findings, which stress the need for better workforce development.

In confronting the economic and social crises roiling the US in late 2020, it helps to have deep roots in local communities. San Antonio’s Project Quest brings to the task decades of success in advancing upward mobility in underserved areas. The nonprofit’s savvy, resilience, and willingness to learn from experience yield lasting improvements in the prospects of its participants. President & CEO David Zammiello explains how the group partners with employers and community colleges and provides the “wraparound” support services individuals need to gain skills and secure good jobs.

What's in store for the gig economy and how will Covid-19 change the nature of work? Managing the Future of Work project co-chair and podcast co-host Joe Fuller was the inaugural guest on The Way Work Should Work, the new podcast produced by Braintrust. We present the "away" half of the home-and-away pair of episodes that saw Joe interview the freelance platform's co-founders, Adam Jackson and Gabriel Luna-Ostaseski, in Episode 18.

Can neuroscience and AI improve on traditional approaches to hiring and evaluating workers? Pymetrics’ co-founder and CEO, Frida Polli, argues that the combination is necessary to overcome inherently biased human judgement and to bring empirical rigor to the task of matching talent to fast-changing job categories. The neuroscientist-turned-Harvard MBA shares her journey and explains how her company helps the likes of Unilever, LinkedIn, and Accenture factor workers’ cognitive, social, and emotional aptitudes in their personnel decisions.

Managing the Future of Work co-chair and podcast co-host, Joe Fuller, is a close observer of the care economy. He recently appeared as a guest on Behind Bundle, the podcast produced by employee benefits startup Bundle. The concierge service, which combines care and education coverage, was founded by HBS graduate Kayla Lebovits. Fittingly, we’re posting this episode the week of National Working Parents Day.

Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement have focused attention on disparities in economic opportunity between Black and white America. This has added urgency to efforts to bolster Black students' access to higher education. It's a pivotal moment for UNCF, founded at the end of WWII as the United Negro College Fund. The organization supports historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). President and CEO, Dr. Michael Lomax, discusses the role of HBCUs in fostering economic opportunity and civic engagement and how changes in philanthropic activity and public policy can make a difference.

The pandemic has unsurprisingly produced a sustained surge in streaming video, with consumer and enterprise use doubling year-over-year during the second quarter of 2020. Viewing on mobile devices has skyrocketed. Brightcove’s software platform is a key component of the online video infrastructure. CEO Jeff Ray discusses video’s “evolutionary moment,” as remote work and virtual events become the norm and organizations build their video talent capacity internally and externally. He also notes the overall jump in school use, where the digital divide persists and threatens to widen achievement gaps.

While adapting to the limitations imposed by the pandemic, fast food chain Chipotle is looking to emerge stronger by maintaining commitments to its workforce. As Chipotle’s chief diversity, inclusion, and people officer, Marissa Andrada, explains, the company anticipates long-term returns on its investment in employee education benefits and its flexible scheduling for shift workers.

Braintrust’s gig model gives freelancers the opportunity to keep more of what they earn and to have a say in running the platform. The not-for-profit aims to upend the status quo by replacing the typical gig middleman and assigning governing rights to users. The marketplace, which connects highly skilled tech talent with enterprise clients, uses blockchain tokens to grant users who help build the platform voting rights in strategy and policy decisions. Co-founders Adam Jackson and Gabriel Luna-Ostaseski discuss their experiment in realigning incentives.

Covid-19 and the 2020 election stack up as unprecedented infrastructure challenges. And both raise the stakes for cybersecurity. The skills shortage in this area—estimated in the millions of workers—demands a strategic rethink by organizations relying on remote work and governments seeking to secure voting and coordinate responses to the pandemic. Telecom veteran and cybersecurity expert Bill Conner discusses emerging threats and new approaches.

Will Covid-19 empty superstar cities? While it’s too soon to say, metros outside the top tier are now in a better position to compete for talent. This plays to the strengths of programs like Tulsa Remote, which helps professionals who work remotely relocate to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Launched in 2018 by the George Kaiser Family Foundation, the highly selective program emphasizes diversity and community building. Founding Executive Director, Aaron Bolzle, discusses the importance of moving beyond the transactional aspects of such programs, and the keys to successful remote work.

The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the shortage of workers with up-to-date digital skills. Tech titans like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have responded with training and certification programs of their own. In July, Google added certificates in data analytics, user experience design, and project management to its Grow with Google program. The company says these low-cost, platform-agnostic three- to six-month courses put job candidates lacking a post-secondary degree on par with college grads. Google’s VP of Global Marketing, Lisa Gevelber, and Product Lead Natalie Van Kleef Conley discuss the alternative route to in-demand jobs.

For many workers, company-sponsored education benefits are a perk that’s hard to translate from employee handbook to reality. Guild Education bridges this gap by aligning incentives— matching students with appropriate programs, having employers profitably front costs, coaching and supporting students, and only collecting a portion of tuition when students complete a term. The rare billion-dollar B Corp also works to foster resilient careers for workers displaced by automation, the pandemic, or other causes.

Monroe Community College in Rochester, New York, is a leader in workforce development, combining original economic research, employer partnerships, and pragmatic programs for reaching its student population. Recognized for its worker training acumen by the Aspen Institute, Monroe continues to innovate in the delivery of marketable skills. Todd Oldham, VP of Economic Development, Workforce, and Career Technical Education, has spearheaded the colleges’ efforts in this area for the past decade. He discusses Monroe’s responses to the unprecedented challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic and how the college is helping to shape the future of technical education.

Unilever is several years into a company-wide plan to revolutionize its workforce. Faced with the challenge of selling its employees on change as opportunity, the multinational offers job counseling, retraining, and assistance with career moves—within the company or elsewhere. Executive vice president of HR business transformation, Nick Dalton, discusses what it takes to be transparent about coming changes and work with employees, unions, governments, and others to identify mutually beneficial transitions.

The start-stop nature of business during the coronavirus pandemic demands flexibility and innovation. This is especially true for physical places of work. CIC maintains offices, shared workspace, and labs. It specializes in building hives of creative and productive activity and fostering entrepreneurial communities. Founder and CEO, Tim Rowe, explains how Covid-19 has spurred CIC to find inventive solutions to the challenge of working safely amid a viral outbreak and to extend its networking events online.

The Covid-19 pandemic is triggering widespread anxiety, depression, and addiction—deepening what many have identified as a mental health crisis. A recent study suggests that at least a quarter of American adults are experiencing pandemic-attributed, high emotional distress. Louis Gagnon, CEO of the Total Brain online mental health platform, discusses the benefits of preventative care delivered through self-monitoring apps and how analytics based on the resulting data can help companies improve wellbeing and productivity in the workplace.

Covid-19 has made robots a welcome sight for many by hastening the adoption of autonomous cleaner-bots, greeters, personal assistants, burger-flippers, classroom aids, and more. SoftBank Robotics' Kass Dawson talks about the role of robotics in combatting Covid-19 and in changing the world of work. Rather than a wholesale replacement of human workers, he says, we can expect more cobotics—human-robot collaboration—and new robotics jobs.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Sheryl WuDunn (HBS ‘86) and Nicholas Kristof are widely recognized for their coverage of international humanitarian crises. In their recent book, Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, they turn their attention to the struggles of the US working class. Regular encounters with the devastation wracking blue-collar families in Kristof’s hometown of Yamhill, Ore., prompted the couple to examine the effects (and causes) of joblessness, homelessness, substance abuse, incarceration, and chronic ill-health. WuDunn discusses the hard-to-break intergenerational cycles of poverty and despair, the impact of Covid-19, and some glimmers of hope.

How can businesses move from awareness to action on systemic racial discrimination? In a wide-ranging discussion, Laura Morgan Roberts, an organizational psychology expert and professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, says it begins with frankly acknowledging the extent of the problem, fostering open discussion, and committing to meaningful change, both internally and in the wider community. As she notes, business schools have a long way to go as well.

Is the triple bottom line a liability in a crisis? The question is anything but theoretical for John Pepper, who co-founded restaurant chain Boloco in 1997 while still in business school. The pandemic has brought many restaurants to the brink, but Boloco continues to work to establish a profitable model that includes paying a living wage and providing workers with opportunities for more gainful employment. CEO Pepper reflects on running an enterprise whose business plan includes social and environmental goals; navigating the public health and economic crisis; and engaging with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Merck Chairman and CEO, Ken Frazier—one of only four Black CEOs in the Fortune 500—joins HBS Professor Tsedal Neeley. Topics include the necessity of putting science ahead of politics in the search for a cure for Covid-19 and steps corporate leaders need to take if they are to counter structural racism. He advises Black professionals on the importance of mentors and acquiring the “psychological armor to defend ourselves against the racism that’s all around us.” He also shares his personal story, including “hav[ing] only one generation between me and slavery.”

The pandemic underscores US workers’ need for help with caregiving obligations. HBS graduate Lindsay Jurist-Rosner founded B2B benefits company Wellthy in 2014 after realizing that her experience juggling work and the complex care needs of her mother was shared in one form or another by a large segment of the US workforce. She talks about the scope of the challenge, how employers are starting to address it, and what the payback looks like.

The wholesale shift to remote work in response to Covid-19 is a radical change and most organizations are scrambling to adapt to the complex realities. Harvard Business School professor Tsedal Neeley has spent decades studying distributed organizations. Author of the forthcoming book Remote Work Revolution, she explains that getting it right depends on clear communication, routine, work-life boundaries, common purpose, and inclusion. She also discusses the pandemic’s disproportionate toll on African Americans and other minorities, and the systemic change needed to bring more diversity to businesses, particularly the upper echelons of professional organizations.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Bloomberg columnist Noah Smith candidly discusses how Covid-19 has exposed many of America’s systemic weaknesses, including the underfunding of social programs and infrastructure due to racism, bailouts for “zombie” companies, generational inequality, and the challenge of distributing wealth.

Advances in robotics have opened the way for the ultimate in smart kitchen appliances. Draper Labs spinoff, Dexai, makes the AI brains that coordinate the actions of Alfred, a robotic arm versatile enough follow recipes and handle orders in commercial kitchens. Cofounders David Johnson and HBS graduate Anthony Tayoun discuss the future of this culinary cobot.

Khan Academy’s polyglot and free online courses seem tailor-made for a pandemic-struck globe. Not surprisingly, the platform has seen massive increases in signups and use. The education nonprofit, founded in 2008 by HBS graduate Sal Khan, now serves over 100 million students in 190 countries. As schools contemplate reopening, it is developing tools for getting students ready for the next grade and providing a mix of in-class and online instruction. To handle the surge in demand, the donor-funded operation will need a corresponding boost in investment in search of social return.

Will Covid-19 overwhelm the care industry and rob workers of an essential means of maintaining work-life balance, if not simply working? With the haphazard reopening of the economy and civic life, the demand for care center spaces and in-home services is expected to swamp the diminishing supply. Stephen Kramer, CEO of Bright Horizons and a graduate of HBS, has been at the center of the care crisis in the US and internationally. He discusses the state of care—as a universal need and as an industry.

As Covid-19 has made remote work the norm, DocuSign and other e-signature companies have provided the digital architecture within which parties can seal agreements and process documents. This has allowed business transactions and official business to proceed while much of the economy has ground to a halt. DocuSign has seen a surge in business in healthcare, government, emergency services, small business lending, education, legal, and other sectors. CEO and HBS alumnus Dan Springer talks about the digital infrastructure for striking and managing agreements and how DocuSign has weathered the pandemic. The experience has led the company to help its employees work better from home, including subsidizing remote work setups.

Will Covid-19 derail ongoing efforts to provide skills training and meaningful career opportunities for the low-income workers who are bearing the brunt of the crisis? Brookings’ Marcela Escobari explains the realities of low-wage employment and what businesses and local leaders can do to foster economic development that creates the steppingstone jobs that lead to better jobs.

What lessons does the 1918 influenza pandemic offer as we respond to the coronavirus crisis? Historian and public health expert John Barry joins Joe Fuller to talk about the parallels and differences between these global virus outbreaks. Barry is the author of the best-seller The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. Then as now, he asserts, transparency from authorities and compliance with science-based public health directives like social distancing, along with extensive testing and contact tracing, are imperative.

Social entrepreneur Joe DeLoss discusses how his company, Hot Chicken Takeover (HCT), has negotiated the coronavirus pandemic. As a fair-chance employer, HCT hires workers who have faced a variety of challenges. Joe says this is in fact a significant competitive advantage. He describes the HCT Covid-19 stability guide for employees and explains how the restaurant chain’s reopening strategy prioritizes the safety of both customers and employees.

Commerce expert Dan O’Connor rejoins the podcast for a special Dispatch episode. Dan draws on his experience advising leading retailers and his ongoing research on global digital platforms to offer a glimpse of a post-Covid retail landscape. He also counsels those small businesses able to weather the crisis to take the opportunity to refocus. Across categories, the “at-home,” budget- and safety-conscious, consumer is an essential constituency.

Hayden Brown has been Upwork’s CEO since January 2020, just before the coronavirus pandemic shifted much of the workforce to working from home. Upwork is a leading platform connecting freelance workers to businesses who need help. Hayden shares with what changes she has seen since Covid-19 hit, what skills are in demand and how this new normal might change the nature of remote work. Often the capabilities that are not readily available in the local market are accessible on platforms like Upwork.

Large firms aiming to innovate or achieve a degree of agility increasingly look for outside help. Catalant has placed itself at the crux of this dynamic by offering a project management software platform and staffing marketplace for harnessing the skills of internal and external personnel. Cofounders, co-CEOs, and HBS alums, Rob Biederman and Pat Petitti talk about the company’s evolution and how it’s providing clients regular insights into their most strategic work.

Covid-19 has brought Great Depression-level unemployment to many economies and triggered imbalances of supply and demand as some businesses have needed to staff-up quickly. One private sector response, People + Work Connect, is a business-to-business personnel exchange platform active in more than 40 countries. The brainchild of corporate chief human resources officers (CHROs) at Accenture, Lincoln Financial, ServiceNow, and Verizon has signed up hundreds of businesses looking to place idled workers or fill open positions. Accenture’s Nicholas Whittall and Mary Kate Morley Ryan discuss the initiative.

What happens when a video conferencing company has to rely on its own products for its day-to-day operations? The pandemic turned Austin, Texas-based Lifesize’s commute-to-work culture into a virtual organization overnight. As its customers’ videoconferencing volumes increased almost tenfold, the firm adjusted to remote work and completed a major merger. CEO Craig Malloy talks about the fast-forwarding of many enterprises’ long-range plans and the implications of the new normal.

The pandemic has radically altered the economic landscape and vastly complicated the VC market. Money is in short supply and start-ups need to run leaner. Consolidation looms. DFJ Growth partner, Barry Schuler, discusses risk mitigation, mentoring entrepreneurs through the crisis, and taking the long view.