HBS Managing the Future of Work

From South Carolina, to Appalachia, to Wisconsin, Professor Willy Shih set out across the country to understand the plight of older workers coping with the changing nature of jobs. His conclusion: the challenges are enormous, but finally, a grassroots movement is taking shape to retrain workers across communities in America. Professor Shih, who has a background in American manufacturing, shares his road-trip findings with Bill in this podcast as well as an HBR article.

America’s skills ecosystem is broken. Employers are confounded by workforce development institutions. Middle skills employees can’t get the training they need. Educators aren’t held accountable for outcomes. Now, innovative providers are aligning stakeholders around a common cause: creating a pipeline of workers with 21st century skills. Joe quizzes Frank Britt, CEO of Penn Foster, one of the oldest non-traditional educators in the U.S., on how the new skills ecosystem must be radically redesigned.

Panu Routila, the CEO of Konecranes, which makes port cranes and industrial lifting equipment, discusses how technology is transforming the business of moving many of the things we buy every day. Technologies such as data analytics and virtual reality are not only improving maintenance and revolutionizing employee training, but are leading to a constant evolution of business models. For a CEO like Panu, predicting the future has never been more important. What do you think he sees when he looks ahead?

In a re-release of our first episode, Vittorio Colao, who stepped-down as CEO of Vodafone in October of 2018, discusses the sweeping changes technology is bringing across his organization, from call centers to senior executives. If you like this episode, listen to HBS Cold Call to hear Bill Kerr discuss the HBS case on Vodafone’s transformation.

In a special episode, Professor Bill Kerr talks with co-host Professor Joe Fuller about his new book on global talent. Talent, Bill argues, is the world’s most precious resource. It is the most important factor in driving innovation – critical in today’s knowledge economy. Though the US is the world leader in attracting global talent – a key driver of its phenomenal growth – the world around it is catching up. Can the US retain its edge or will it allow other countries to rise to the top?

As the world gets smaller, the talent pools available to firms are getting much, much bigger. By bringing employers and workers together and solving key challenges of contracting at a distance, digital labor platforms are changing the way work is done. Professor Chris Stanton, who has studied them for over a decade, discusses the ins and outs of tapping into these labor sources, how workers on these marketplaces compete, and how platforms are disrupting management. Are physical offices a thing of the past?

As demographics change, caregiving responsibilities have become an increasingly integral part of employees' lives. Joe speaks with Care.com CEO Sheila Marcelo about how her experience of being “sandwiched” by care responsibilities led her to found her company. Caregiving benefits, she argues, are not only perks, but are critical to competitiveness for employers and the overall economy. And our current model is broken. Is Care.com the solution?

There is a deep chasm separating the millions of Americans with limited access to college degrees from professional life. Gerald Chertavian, founder and CEO of Year Up, describes how his organization steps into this void, erecting ladders of opportunity to well-paying jobs while supplying leading businesses like Microsoft and JP Morgan with talent that would otherwise go overlooked. Where will one of their graduates end up this fall? No spoilers here.

As regional utilities across the country faced a silver tsunami of retiring workers, they came together as an industry to develop a pipeline of middle skills workers like linesmen and technicians. From identifying critical roles and competencies to developing curriculum, utilities relied on the Center for Energy Workforce Development (CEWD) to develop industry-wide solutions. Ann Randazzo, the head of the CEWD, says success lies in asking “what can we do better together than we can separately?”

As businesses grapple with advancing artificial intelligence they must make strategic choices. Senior McKinsey Partner Scott Rutherford finds that the best companies ask: How can we delight customers? Which functions can we trust to the technology and how will employee roles evolve alongside? How do we invest in human capital? Where should we be located? How can we reorganize to become more competitive?

Professor Sandra Sucher, an HBS faculty member who has studied trust in business for over a decade, discusses “techlash.” With customers, employees, and governments reacting to transgressions by some of the world’s largest companies, the importance of trust is more evident now than ever. Sandra explains why businesses need our trust, how they violate it, and what they can do to recover.

As customers become more demanding, businesses must work fast to release new products and provide a high-quality customer experience. To keep up, ING took a radical approach one might expect from a Silicon Valley technology company, not a big bank. Bill speaks with the CEO of ING Netherlands, Vincent van den Boogert, about his company’s abrupt shift to operating as an agile organization. Is it, in his words: Brave, braver, or stupid?

Joe discusses the ins and outs of developing an advanced manufacturing talent pipeline in rural Mississippi with Macaulay Whitaker, the Chief Operating Officer of Golden Triangle Development LINK. She describes how companies like PACCAR, Steel Dynamics and Airbus Helicopters partner with the local education system to develop the talent they need while providing middle class jobs to the region. But the real challenge is: will the region be able to sustain its current pace of “uncomfortable growth”?

Joe Fuller speaks with Joe Max Higgins, the CEO of Golden Triangle Development LINK, to discuss how a rural region in Mississippi became an attractive destination for global businesses after several local factories were shut down. Though a small part of the process, the final pitch to one outside company may have involved large helicopters, ATVs, and the removal of power lines.

Michael Chui, Senior Partner at McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), and an expert in artificial intelligence, believes that many jobs are going to disappear – including those done by MBAs and doctors – just not as quickly as people think. As he says to Bill Kerr, there is a lag between the rate at which technology advances and the rate at which it is adopted. Just think Star Trek.

Damon Silvers, the Policy Director and Special Counsel at the AFL-CIO believes that with the Supreme Court slated to rule on Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees in June-July 2018, financial stability—not technology—is the biggest threat to America’s labor movement. Silvers tells Bill Kerr that he’s a technology optimist: technology can actually help strengthen the role of labor if it boosts productivity.

HBS professor Joe Fuller’s latest research Dismissed by Degrees shows that when companies start asking for a four-year college degree for jobs that previously did not require one, they not only reduce opportunities for workers but also restrict their ability to attract talent. Which is why companies like CVS, Hasbro, Lifepoint Health and State Street are taking active steps to combat degree inflation—and in the process opening up many thousands of jobs to middle class Americans.

Vittorio Colao, CEO Vodafone, is bringing about sweeping change at one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies. In a conversation with Bill Kerr, Colao shares the management challenge of using bots and advanced technology to transform activities like marketing and hiring. Digital ninjas, he says, help a lot.

Harvard Business School Professors Bill Kerr and Joe Fuller talk to leaders grappling with the forces reshaping the nature of work.