Work and the Future Podcast

Work and the Future Podcast

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  • We are getting good news on the economy and the labor market but are the statistics telling us the whole story? Even with a surge in hiring and a fall in the unemployment, there is a core of people who have been out of the labor market for a while and who are not being absorbed back in with the upswing in the economy. It is a problem that existed before the pandemic and which cannot be vaccinated away. To talk about what is going on and whether there are any policy fixes that might work, we are  joined today by Ofer Sharone, who is  Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachussetts, Amherst and an expert on the phenomenon of long term unemployment. Guest:  Ofer Sharone Associate Professor, University of Massachussetts, Amherst   Professor Sharone is a nationally recognized expert on long-term unemployment and the author of Flawed System/Flawed Self: Job Searching and Unemployment Experiences (University of Chicago Press), which won multiple awards from the American Sociological Association.  His work has received wide attention from national media including the New York Times and the PBS Newshour, and he has been invited to participate in policy discussions at the White House and the Department of Labor.......

    05 May, 2021

  • Is getting an MBA super important and the key to success, or is it an expensive waste of time that will not necessarily get you where you want to be? The market seems to go back and forth on it:some years it seems that there is a ton of demand for MBAs and other years they are not nearly as coveted. It is particularly compelling question right now, since coming out of the pandemic many people are thinking about what they want to do next,  To discuss the issues around getting an MBA we are joined today by Megan Hendricks who is  the Executive Director of MBA Career Services and Employer Alliance, which is an organization that  works with both employers and schools.  She talks to us about what she is seeing in terms of demand for graduates in terms of sectors, as well as the bigger trends that were in place pre-pandemic. Bio: Megan Hendricks is the Executive Director of the MBA Career Services & Employer Alliance, an 800+ member global network of MBA/Masters career services professionals and employers. In this capacity, she leads the organization’s global activities, programs and operations, which includes overseeing over 150 volunteers and staff......

    15 April, 2021

  • The pandemic may be ending, but that does mean that workers are headed back to where they were in the spring of 2020. In some cases, their positions have been eliminated and they are going to be forced to reinvent themselves. In others, their jobs may be the same but they themselves have changed in some way and now want to reinvent their career. Reinvention may be the labor market topic of the post-pandemic period, but how do you make that happen? Our guest today is Dorie Clark and she is an expert at art of  reinvention. Dorie is the author fo the book Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Reimagine your Future, a book written before the pandemic but which is more applicable than ever as we come out of it. Guest: Dorie Clark is an adjunct professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the author of Entrepreneurial You, Reinventing You and Stand Out, which was named the #1 Leadership Book of 2015 by Inc. magazine. A former presidential campaign spokeswoman, the New York Times described her as an “expert at self-reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives.” A frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, she consults......

    23 March, 2021

  •   How important will reskilling be to our economic future and what role should business play in making it happen? And what about continuous training? Business has always been reticent about training because there is always the risk that you could lose those trained at your expense to the competition In the tech sector though, there has been a mindset shift and the focus now seems to be on training a workforce, one that is available to help the industry as a whole. To talk about the issues around training, we are joined today by Sabrina Geremia who is the VP and Country Manager for Google Canada. She talks about why Google has been front and centre in continuously training  their workers,  and what we need to think about in terms of getting the wider labor force ready for the future. Guest: Sabrina Geremia VP & Country Manager, Google Canada As VP & Country Manager for Google in Canada, Sabrina leads the strategic direction of Google’s cross functional business strategy in Canada and Google’s Advertising business. As the world moves increasingly online, Sabrina believes that the intersection of technology and digital skills is an economic and growth engine for Canada.......

    15 March, 2021

  • How do you take someone with one set of skills and gret them ready for a job market that needs a completely different set of them? It is an issue that we had started to grapple with a lot before the pandemic, but the pandemic has really put it into sharp focus as some industries have waned while others have flourished. The reality is that there are skills in demand, and there are workers available, but we do need to make some tweaks before we can match the two. To talk about one possible way to cope with this, our guest today is Corey Kossack, the Founder and CEO of Aspireship.  What Aspireship does is offer training, for free, online for those who want to get into the software industry even if they come from a completely different sector. It is proving to be a really successful endeavour and it offers some lessons on what might be next for training. Guest:  Corey Kossack is the Founder & CEO of Aspireship, a learning and talent platform for the SaaS industry. Corey has dedicated his professional life to founding SaaS companies that help people who want to help themselves. Prior to Aspireship,......

    04 March, 2021

  • Over the past year we have leaned heavily on technology, but it has kind of been a love-hate relationship. We love technology it because it is cool that we can work from home, but we also get frustrated when it does not work, and we freeze up on screen, or things that are supposed to work flawlessly don’t work at all. So as much as it takes away stress, it seems to create it – or does it? Our guest today is Mohammed Chahdi who is the Director of Global HR for Dell Technologies. Dell has done some work looking at actual brain waves from people to see when they are stressed from technology or when they are happy with it. Their results are fascinating and gives some insights as to what companies can do to create ‘good’ technology expereinces rather than ‘bad’ ones’ and how they can create huge benefits by doing so. Guest: Mohammed Chahdi Director of Global HR Dell Technologies Mohammed has been with Dell Technologies for 18 years holding different leadership roles in Human Resources, based in Toronto Ontario, he leads the Americas HR Operations team and the Global Connected Workplace program. As a founding member......

    11 February, 2021

  • Our major economic problem right now is the pandemic and its offshoots, but that does not mean the economic issues we had before the pandemic have gone away. One of those issues is technology, or rather the speed of technological change and what that means for the labor market. With the fourth industrial revolution in full swing, the future may mean a very altered reality for workers, or at least some workers. We are going to need all kinds of new skills to cope with that future, and some workers are not going to have them, leaving us in a situation where we could have workers who are underemployed or unemployed at the same time that we increasingly do not have workers to do what needs to be done to move the economy forward. So how do we bridge that gap? Well our guest today is on the frontlines of bridging that gap. His name is Arvind Gupta and he is the CEO of a company called Palette Inc. that connects companies with talent but also has a hand in re-skilling that talent, which is something that we will increasingly need to think about if we want to fill labour......

    04 February, 2021

  • Remote work used to be looked at with suspicion, but after nearly a year of trial by fire, everyone knows it is great – right? Actually, not right. Despite having tried it out for months, many managers still view remote work as very much second best and are counting the days until they can go back to (the old) normal. Is that because the old normal was better, or do we just need to do better when it comes to making remote work work? Will we ever change the mindset around it? With hybrid work probably here to stay, the question is relevant if we want to prevent creating two Classe of workers with those working remotely firmly in second position. To discuss all of that, we are joined today by Chris Norton, the Owner of Green Path Strategy Chris has been helping companies transition to remote work for over a decade, and he has some strong opinions on what needs to happen to change mindsets, and the benefits that will follow once they are changed. Guest: Chris Norton is Owner/Consultant at Green Path Strategy. Specializing in performance-based organizational systems that support successful remote working environments, he has been transitioning......

    27 January, 2021

  • Guest: Bretton (Brett) Putter is an expert in company culture development who is consulted by companies and leaders worldwide to help design, develop and build high-performing cultures. Company culture can be a fairly murky concept. Roughly defined as ‘how we do things’ it should be reflection of company values and it should be well-communicated to workers, but that is often not the case. Now, coming out of the pandemic, will we see a focus on creating a positive culture? How will that work when many companies continue to allow remote work? And what will it all mean for the future of work? To talk about it we are joined by Brett Putter, CEO of CultureGene. He is on the front lines of company culture in both Europe and North America and he has some strong views on what is happening and what needs to happen next. Guest: Brett Putter CEO, CultureGene He is the CEO of CultureGene, a culture leadership software and services platform. Prior to founding CultureGene Brett spent 16 years as the Managing Partner of a leading executive search firm based in London working with startups and high-growth companies in the UK, Europe and USA. In 2018 he......

    07 January, 2021

  • Can an organization actively build a a resilient workforce? Are there ways to create resilient workers? It would seem to be to our advantage to do that: according to a study published by PwC, programs that foster a resilient and mentally healthy workplace returned $2.30 for every dollar spent, with the returns coming in the form of lower health care costs, higher productivity, lower absenteeism and decreased turnover. To talk about ways to do that and to help workers pivot with change,we are joined on this episode by Lara Root who is the Chief People Officer at CBI Health, an organization that had to move fast and adapt with the pandemic and help their workers do so as well. Guest: Lara Root joined CBI Health, one of Canada’s largest community healthcare companies, in October 2019 as Chief People Officer and Head of Human Resources. CBI Health is focused on improving the health and enriching the lives of Canadians through 2 lines of business: Rehabilitation Services and Home Health. Lara is responsible for shaping the talent, culture and engagement strategy of 12,000 healthcare professionals across Canada. Prior to CBI Health, Lara was Vice President and Head of HR for Rogers Media......

    23 December, 2020

  • This is Episode 3 of  aspecial series on Coming back Stronger sponsored by Microsoft. In our first two episodes we talked about how companies can come back stronger, and how workers can build the resilience to cope with their new stresses. Today we look much longer term and address the reality that tomorrow’s workforce will have to continuously ramp up their education and skills over their lifetimes. Accepting that that will have to happen, what role can post-secondary educations play in that? Traditionally we have thought about four-years-and-you’re-done for a lot of people but if that’s over, will both individuals and institutions be ready to step up? Our guest today is is  Deborah MacLatchy, who is  the President of Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. She believes that if we are to keep skills updated in a world where things are changing fast then part of the solution has to come from our educational institutions and she is changing the one she leads to make good on that. Guest: Deborah MacLatchy was appointed president and vice-chancellor of Wilfrid Laurier University on July 1, 2017. As president of Laurier, she has spearheaded the development of a five-year institutional strategic plan. Laurier Strategy:......

    16 December, 2020

  • This is episode 2  of a special  4-part special series of Work and the Future called Coming Back Stronger sponsored by Microsoft. In Episode 1 we talked about what organizations should do to come back ready for the post-pandemic world, but what about individuals?  Their first task is to get through this next phase of the pandemic, and that is challenging in itself. Finding the resilience to keep going at work can seem like a difficult thing to do The pandemic is lifting our stress levels in general and when it comes to work, many of us are having to learn new things and take on responsibilities while working under conditions that are a lot less than optimum. Our guest today is Executive Coach Dr. Monique Valcour and she shares her insights on what she has seen from working with leaders in the United Nations and elsewhere and how workers are learned to be resilient and come back stronger from other crises and what we can learn from their experiences. Guest: Dr. Monique Valcour, Phd PCC Executive Coach and Management Professor  Monique Valcour builds people’s capacity to learn, engage, perform, and communicate at work while thriving in all domains of......

    09 December, 2020

  • This is episode 1 of a special  4-part special series of Work and the Future called Coming Back Stronger sponsored by Microsoft. We are still fighting this pandemic but we are also seeing light at the end of the tunnel. But how are we going to come back? Can we come back stronger? Some organizations can and will, and now is the time to plan for that: to get ready for a world that is not exactly like the one we left, particularly when it comes to the workforce. To kick  off the series we are joined y by Jason Brommet who is Modern Workplace Lead at Microsoft Canada. We talk about workplace policies and what they should look like so that we can get to a place where we want to be post-pandemic, and to be stronger than we when we started. Guest:  Jason Brommet Modern Workplace  Lead, Microsoft Canada  Today, people are an organization’s most important asset. Empowering each of them and their organizations to be their best and bring their best is more critical than ever. The modern workplace is an inclusive, creative and culture-centric environment. As the Lead of the Microsoft 365 business in Canada, Jason (Jay)......

    02 December, 2020

  • The gig economy’ sometimes gets a bad rap – people hear it and they think of ride-share drivers who really want to be full time.   In fact though the gig economy is a much more nuanced place, one that encompasses different kinds of gig workers, including those who are highly skilled and who very much want to work the way that they are doing. Pre-pandemic, they perhaps made up a sliver of the workforce, but there are reasons to believe that in the post-pandemic world they are going to be increasingly important, That is, companies will be looking for the right talent and the right way to get that may not be by hiring full time workers. That is going to leave us with a complicated workforce, one that is a blend of employees and gig workers. So who how can companies build the right culture around this new culture? To talk about what is happening and how organizations can adapt we are joined by Joseph Fuller Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School and a co-leader of the school’s initiative called Managing the Future of Work. He is also the lead author of a new report out called......

    25 November, 2020

  • With the pandemic raging and organizations in flux, is this any time to think about a vacation? In North America in particular, we  have a mindset that taking vacations is a little bit lax and with the pandemic and its stresses that mindset is going into high gear. On top of that too, we can’t really travel right now, so it seems like the right thing to do to put off vacations. But is it the right thing? We don’t really need elaborate studies to tell us that working flat out is probably not the best way to get productivity higher. So what is the solution to that? That’s the subject of our discussion today, with our guest coming down firmly on the side of taking time away from work, whatever the state of the world. Guest: Rebecca Zucker Partner, Next Step Partners As an expert in executive coaching and career development, Rebecca has coached leaders across the globe, from high-potential managers to C-level executives. Rebecca’s clients include Amazon, Clorox, DocuSign, Dropbox, Expedia, First Republic Bank, Genentech, Google, The Irvine Foundation, Norwest Venture Partners, Nielsen, Morrison Foerster, The Skoll Foundation and Stanford’s Distinguished Careers Institute, among other organizations. She is a......

    18 November, 2020

  • Spurred by social media, intergenerational warfare seems to be on the upswing, including in the workplace. And, given the conflict and the idea that generations are working against each other we can lose sight of the fact that we could potentially gain from each other unless we make a concerted effort to do so. Our guest on today’s episode aims to do just that. Charlotte Japp, the founder of  CIRKEL a platform that aims to bring people of different ages together with the aim of letting them get to know each other and bring different vantage points to their own work. Guest: Charlotte Japp Founder, CIRKEL Charlotte Japp is the founder of CIRKEL, a company that connects older and younger professionals for mutual personal and professional growth. After graduating from Georgetown University, Charlotte started her career in creative marketing and saw the consequences of age segregation in the workplace. Older and younger professionals needed to connect and learn from each other, but had no way to meet. CIRKEL makes networking across generations seamless, inspiring, and impactful – working with both individuals and corporations to bridge the gap. Charlotte has been featured in publications like The New York Times and spoken......

    11 November, 2020

  • In a world where civility is in short supply, is there a way to keep our workplaces civil? These days, politics often divides us, with feelings running deep, and the extra stress of the pandemic can bring tensions to the fore. Still, there are ways to keep things civil and to keep relationships between co-workers productive. Our guests today are the brains behind something called ‘The Civility Project’, and they have concrete ideas on how to do all of that, even at times when it seems like it is impossible to bridge the gap between viewpoints. Guests: Nolan Finley Editorial Page Editor Detroit News  Nolan Finley began his newspaper career as a copy boy at The Detroit News while a senior in college. After a brief stint with the Jackson Citizen Patriot, he returned to The News as a reporter, covering the administration of Mayor Coleman A. Young. He’s been the newspaper’s City Editor, Business Editor, Politics Editor and Deputy Managing Editor. In 2000, he was named Editorial Page Editor and his columns have appeared in the newspaper ever since. As he wrote in his introductory column, Finley is a product of The News and the Detroit community. He graduated from both Schoolcraft College and Wayne State University and in 2012 was inducted into......

    21 October, 2020

  • The gig economy gets a lot of negative press, but is it actually a bad thing? Although some think it is synonymous with income insecurity and bad management practices, in fact for many it is the way they choose to work. For professional workers who have in-demand skills, working on a gig basis rather than accepting one job can be more lucrative and give them more control of their time. For employers, using gig workers allows them the right workers to do the work they need rather than pay workers to be on staff and then assign them tasks. Good or bad though, the gig economy is here to stay and with the pandemic changing everything about the labor market, it is time to discuss what happens to it next. Guest: Marion McGovern CEO, Entrepreneur, Author  Marion McGovern is an expert in the dynamics of the independent talent market. She was the founder and CEO of M Squared Consulting, a gig economy firm before the term was even coined, and Collabrus, an employment compliance firm.  She sold both to an international conglomerate in 2005, and remained a board member through 2014.  She is the author of Thriving in the Gig......

    14 October, 2020

  • We are getting close to a vaccine for Covid-19 and a return to something approaching normal in the workforce. But will normal look like for companies? And how should companies plan for the post-pandemic future of work? Our guest today is Cathryn Barnard a Partner at ‘Working the Future’ which is UK based consultancy firm helping businesses with organisational future-proofing.’ She has been working with companies to talk about how they should position themselves to be ready for the world post-the pandemic, and what steps they should be taking now in terms of workforce strategies. Her insights about the future of leadership  are from the front lines and provide plenty of food for thought about what companies need to think about when it comes to developing the skills to guide increasingly distributed workforces through change and complexity. Guest: Cathryn Barnard  Partner, Working the Future  Cat is a partner and co-founder at Working the Future, a management consultancy helping business leaders both make sense of the multiple trends changing how we work and build easy-to-implement future-proofing strategies. With a 25-year career in workforce planning, and experience of growing her own successful businesses, Cat recognises the criticality of human connection in accelerating team......

    07 October, 2020

  • Are you afraid of unemployment or are you sure you are forever employable? As the economic outlook becomes increasingly uncertain, many people would put themselves in the first category but would certainly like to be in the second. Our guest today is Jeff Gothelf, author of ‘Forever Employable: How to Stop Looking for Work and Let Your Next Job Find You’ and he believes you can be, by cultivating your strengths, growing your personal brand and figuring out how to monetize your expertise. For some that might mean striking out on their own, but even if  you stay in a corporate environment you can also build on your strengths and let people know what they are, in the process going at least some of the way to increasing your stature and becoming forever employable. Guest:   Jeff Gothelf Author, Forever Employable  In Jeff Gothelf’s new book, Forever Employable, he applies the principles of continuous learning, improvement, experimentation and agility to professional development and career growth. Jeff shares his experience building his own consulting practice as well as providing tools and techniques to help you think through how to ensure that no matter what changes in your world you’re always confident......

    30 September, 2020

  • We are re-imagining everything else, so maybe we need to imagine the office as well. The physical office we are familiar with has its roots in designs first imagined a hundred years ago, with a bit of a Dilbert-style reboot thrown in during the 1950s. Now, as we think about physical safety as well productivity, how should we re-design offices? Is there a way to physically work together and not spread any kinds of viruses? is booking desks any better than working in a cubicle? And does any of this make environmental sense? Join Linda and her guest,  workplace strategy expert Maciej Markowski as they talk about the possibilities for the post-pandemic office. Guest:  Maciej Markowski, Co-Founder and CRO of spaceOS, Maciej Markowski is the Co-foun danders CRO of spaceOS, a PropTech startup offering an end-to-end workspace operating system. Maciej is a veteran of the workplace strategy field, having worked for DEGW, CBRE, JLL and C&W – in his last role as a Partner, Head of Workplace Strategy CEE. spaceOS is being used in 11M sq ft of office space across 17 countries. Links:  Maciej’s Ted talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dt0Kn0Wr8E PropTech  website: https://spaceos.io/Maciej’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/mmworkplace spaceOS Twitter: https://twitter.com/spaceOS_tech...

    23 September, 2020

  • Are there things that animals can tell us about how to cope wth work stress and ultimately how to work better? Our guest today is a psychotherapist with a passion for horses, and she has found a way to marry the two together. As she points out in this episode, human beings are mammals, but they are mammals who do not do a good job of being attuned to their own needs and acting on them. At  a time when many of us feel that our lives are not completely in control, it may be time to take a cue from that and see if there are ways that we can express our needs in the workplace and ultimately get to a place where we are both happier and more productive as a result. Guest: Beth Killough Owner, The Circle Up Experience Beth Killough is the owner of The Circle Up Experience, a consulting firm which provides leadership training and culture development to corporations, universities, teacher groups, first responders, and non-profit organizations. Circle up has trained thousands of leaders all over the country and has designed long-term culture programs to transform workplace relationships. A life-long cowgirl, writer, professor, and a......

    16 September, 2020

  •   Six months into the pandemic and with  more months to come, most workers are coping but not without difficulty. Whether it is stress about being home and isolated, or stress about going back to work and possibly getting sick, a lot of people are under strain, and there are indications that that strain could last for years after the pandemic is over. Is there a way to avoid the stress, or at least to  manage it? From asking for help when needed (not always an easy thing to do) to  dealing with the anxiety of physically going back into an office with the virus still lurking, workers today are facing challenges that would not have been dreamed of a year ago. Our guest today discusses all of it, along with strategies for companies and workers to cope as best they can both now and after the pandemic is done. Guest: Jo Yarker Dr Jo Yarker Director, Affinity Health at Work Birkbeck, University of London Jo is passionate about understanding what we can do to foster fulfilling, healthy and productive work, particularly under times of challenge. She is an award winning occupational psychologist, specialising work, health and well-being. Jo is......

    09 September, 2020

  • It may have been a bit of a struggle to make it work, but the pandemic has forced many companies to keep their teams intact even when they are not under the same roof.  As workers have de-camped to far-flung places, perhaps permanently, we are struggling with what the future of cities will be, and what offices will look like in future too. But there is another questions that goes with that, and it is how we should compensate people. If your team members are in different places, with different costs of living, should they be compensated differently?  Facebook says ‘yes’ but does that mean everyone else should too? Guest: Ian White Founder and CEO/CTO of ChartHop Ian is the founder and CEO/CTO of ChartHop, the world’s first organizational management platform built to help companies plan for the future. Previously, he was the founder and CTO of Sailthru, the marketing cloud delivering billions of personalized newsletter emails per month for top publishers and e-commerce brands. Before that, Ian was the first head of engineering at Business Insider and built the publishing platform that powers today’s highest-trafficked business website.Through this, Ian felt the pains of planning and building a team — and wanted......

    02 September, 2020

  • What does flexible work mean to you? It might mean leaving a few minutes early to catch your kid’s soccer game, or it might mean totally restructuring your job so you can travelfor a few months. In both cases, however, employers have traditionally been hesitant to open up the floodgates and embrace too much of it. Our work-lives have tended to be defined by barriers that set up when and where we work, and although there has been some fraying around the edges, for decades there has been reluctance to change too much. Now,with teh pandemic, all of the rules are being re-thought, and to some extent we are designing a new workplace. As that happens, is it now time for workers to set the boundaries? How do you resist having work and leisure blurred into one, and is that even a desirable outcome? With everything up for grabs, it is a good time for a discussion on what ‘flexible’ should really mean and how we can make it work best from both sides of the table.   Guest:  Cali Williams Yost CEO and Founder Flex+Strategy Group A visionary workplace futurist, strategist, author, and keynote speaker, Yost is the Founder......

    26 August, 2020

  • The school year is starting and the pandemic is not ending  and Generation Z will have to deal with that. In fact, they will probably have to deal with the impact of the pandemic for years as the effects of it shape the way that they approach their lives and careers. But never mind the future: right now their parents are trying to figure out how to configure their own work with the educational needs of their children. It is a work in progress. Our guest today is Rebecca Holmes, who is the President of the Colorado Educaiton Initiative. Even before the pandemic she led that states’ work on finding areas for innovation aimed at preparing students for learning, work, and life in the 21st century. She has an interesting background – Before had her current job, she was originally a middle school teacher, and She also has been a program officer, committee member and Trustee with several philanthropic foundations as well as being a s private sector Consultant on change management and talent strategies and she is parent. So she has a lot of perspective, and she is going to give us her views on what this reimagined education......

    19 August, 2020

  • It is something you hear about a lot  – the need to be innovative. We hear that innovation is the key to economic growth, or the companies need to encourage innovation – but what does that really mean?  Our guest on today’s episode is Anders Haugeto who is the founder of a company called Iterate which is a tech company  whose main purpose it to become more innovative. He believes there are actionable things you can do to be more innovative, and that by doing them you can improve your own company’s productivity as well as the economy as a whole. Guest: Anders Haugeto. Founder of Iterate Anders Haugeto is the Founder of Iterate,  a tech company that builds tech companies. His background is as a software engineer and he is still an active coder and technologist. As well as being passionate about helping technologists become entrepreneurs, Anders is a decent home chef who hand brews coffee and plays the violin. Links: Here is the link to Iterate, Anders’ company’s website https://www.iterate.no/ if you would like to follow him on Twitter, here is the link https://twitter.com/hauge2 And here is the link to his articles from Medium https://medium.com/@hauge2...

    12 August, 2020

  •   The Fourth Industrial Revolution is in full swing and according to the World Economic Forum,  the transformation it imposes on us will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. For business to weather this revolution and come out on the right side of it will take the right leadership, particularly as this revolution intersects with the pandemic. To talk about how that can happen, we are joined on this episode by Jeffrey Russell , who is the President of Accenture Canada. We talk about what leaders should be thinking about when it comes to the robot revolution, which industries are making the best progress in transitioning into it, how to find the right talent to power it and much more.   Guest: Jeffrey Russell is President of Accenture Canada and is responsible for all aspects of Accenture’s business in Canada. Previously, Jeffrey was the Chief Executive for Accenture’s Products business in North America. He was responsible for all facets of this multi-billion business, working closely with clients and leaders, supporting them to grow their impact and value to underpin the aspirations and growth strategies across Accenture’s Products industries in Hospitality and Travel, Retail, Consumer Packaged Goods, Life Sciences and......

    05 August, 2020

  • Climate change it was an issue before the pandemic, and it will be an issue when the pandemic is over.More than that, the issue of climate change will be a long term issue that impacts the future of work.  Between the ways that we operate our factories and organizations to the kind of careers that the next generation follows, so many of our economic decisions that we make will be linked to issues around climate change, and in turn they will impact our work-lives for decades to come. To delve into the subject of climate change and the future of work, we are joined on this episode by Keith Stewart, Senior Energy Strategist with Greenpeace Canada. He talks about how the pandemic may impact climate change, the issues he sees for industries including energy, and what the implications are for those caught in the midst of transition. Guest: Keith Stewart is a senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada and part-time instructor at the University of Toronto. He has a Ph.D. in political science from York University and has worked as a climate policy researcher and advocate for 19 years. He is the co-author of the book Hydro: The Decline and Fall......

    29 July, 2020

  • When we think about the words that go with ‘leadership’, ‘heart’ is rarely among them but perhaps it should be. The pandemic has shown us that business as usual is no longer going to get the job done, and as well we are all acutely aware that we are indeed fighting a global pandemic together, This may well be the time to think more about compassion and heart, not just because of any moral principles but because leading from the heart may well be the most effective way to get the job done. Our guest today is Mark C. Crowley, who says that his mission is to change how we lead people in the workplace. Known for his book Lead from the Heart and his podcast of the same name, Mark talks to us about the life circumstances that led him to manage the way he did during his long career and why he believes the norms in management need to be changed up as we head for the future of work.   Guest:  Mark C. Crowley is the author of “Lead From The Heart: Transformational Leadership For The 21st Century,” and his mission is to fundamentally change how we......

    22 July, 2020

  • Why choose one career when you can do more than one at the same time? In these days of gig jobs and the need to pivot as the economy change, maybe we should thinking hard about ‘portfolio careers’ or doing several things at the same time. That could happen in the context of one organization where one worker can wear many different hats, or it could be that more of us will do one multiple things at once. It is what used to be called moonlighting kicked up a notch, with an assist from technology and the realization that it is probably a good thing to diversify your career as much as well as your stock portfolio. Our first guest today, Scott Snyder of Heidrick Consultng, looks at the way that the labor market is changing overall and shares his insights of how portfolio careers can be part of the new mix. Then, our second guest, Jackie Wong, talks about how he juggles two very different careers, one as an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Co  and the other as the man the Wall Street Journal calls ‘the most trusted voice in figure skating’. Guests:  Scott Snyder  Scott Snyder is......

    15 July, 2020

  • What does a Navy fighter pilot have in common with leading during the pandemic? A lot, at least according to our guest today.  Communicating wel, reinforcing core values, remembering to listen- these are all things that leaders in the navy are trained to do, and they are things that can serve leaders well as they navigate un-chartered territory now.  Join us as Jeff McLean, former fighter pilot turned consultant at ghSMART talks about why the lessons from his first career are serving him well in his second and why your organization can learn from them as well. Guest: Jeff McLean is a Principal at ghSMART. He advises public and private company boards, CEOs, and investors on their most crucial leadership challenges including executive team selection and development, CEO succession, M&A diligence, and organizational change initiatives. Drawing on his combined experiences as a leader and advisor to national leaders, Jeff brings thoughtful and pragmatic insight to drive business performance. Prior to joining ghSMART, Jeff was Director of Strategic Initiatives and Asset Management for a large privately-held family office with operating businesses in multiple industries. Previously, he served as a Senior Policy Advisor and White House Fellow in the White House Office......

    08 July, 2020

  • We are all used to interacting with one another in person, at the office, at meetings, just casually.  Particularly when it is a business context, we tend to think about how we should present ourselves and we know all about the firm handshake (now a thing of the past) and looking attentive at meetings. Now though we are increasingly interacting by video conference and the rules for that are very different. Being on video – whether we are talking about Zoom, or Microsoft Teams or anything else – is really like being on TV and to be on TV you need to think about specific things like how present, but also about lighting like how you look even. If that sounds superficial well maybe it is  but the reality is that is you are using technology to communicate you have to think differently. To talk about all of that, today we are  joined by Nick Dalley who is an expert in communicating and how to coach people to do it well. He talks to us about communicating in general, giving presentations and being effective, but as well he talks to us about the world of video conferencing and how we......

    02 July, 2020

  • Freelance work something of a controversial workforce trend. To some, it is the dreaded gig economy, those who are forced to work on contracts or driving ride shares because they cannot find that holy grail, the full-time job. To others though, it represents freedom, the ability to have some control over their professional lives and maybe even to earn more money while they are doing it. To be sure there is some of the first out there, but we should not lose sight of the fact that it is the second part that is growing and becoming an economic force. Certainly that was true before the pandemic started.  According to a survey from the platform Upwork.com, as of 2019 there were as many freelancers in the U.S. who saw being freelance as a long term choice as there were those who saw it as temporary.  By their count 35% of working adults in the U.S. freelanced in some way, possibly as a way to augment income, possibly full time. Of course, that was last year, when the unemployment rate in the U.S. and in Canada and in many other countries was at a generational low. People were choosing to freelance, but......

    24 June, 2020

  • The pandemic has forced a giant-scale experiment in online education, and by many accounts it is going very poorly. From first graders to college students, everyone seems to be frustrated at having to take the classroom experience to a crowded space in the kitchen, and many are clamouring to get back to the in-school experience. But will it ever happen? After all, the experiment was a poorly planned one, and perhaps should not be seen as the benchmark of what online education, something that was being rolled-out in force pre-pandemic, is likely to look like over the long term. Our guest on this episode is economist Robert Frank, who is a professor at Cornell University. He argues that when it comes to higher education,  economic forces are too powerful for virtual instruction to go away after the pandemic. After all, would it not be better to see a video of a superstar instructor give a lecture than sit in a classroom and hear a mediocre one present the same material? In-class seminars could then be presented by teaching assistants who could answer questions and facilitate discussion. That has implications for students of course, but it has implications for professors as well.......

    16 June, 2020

  •   Remote work is having a minute, or rather a series of them.  Some companies have used it for years, some have been adamantly against it, but both kinds are being forced into it at the moment. As the pandemic forces millions to figure out some kind of home office set up (the kitchen table works in a pinch), we are in the midst of a great work-at-home experiment. Maybe it will be a giant success, or maybe it will make everyone want to get back to their cubicle as soon as possible. More likely, the experiment will hasten a messy reality, one in which companies play with hybrid models of who works in a company workspace and who works in a space of their choosing. In this episode, we are joined by two experts on different parts of remote working. Adam Hickman is Content Manager for Gallup, as well as a remote worker himself. He talks to us about what Gallup is seeing in terms of employer trends to working this way, as well as his views of where remote working will go in future. Our second guest, Justin Thouin, is the Co-founder and CEO of a company called......

    29 May, 2020

  • Many sectors have been impacted by the pandemic, but none more completely than the travel sector. One week is was functioning at full capacity, and then the next the lights had completely gone out, or so it seems. When they go back on, they will shine on a completely different sector, one is which work roles have changed quite dramatically. To get some perspective on where travel and its workers are headed, in this episode we talk to two guests with slightly different vantage points. Will Seccombe is President of Connect Travel, a company that handles Event Market for B2B Businesses in the travel sector. He actually plans to do his next event in August 2020, albeit it will be one that involves N95 masks and lots of sunshine to kill germs. When he thinks of the workers in the sector, he foresees different roles for them, perhaps with staggered hours. He is bullish though, and thinks that travel will always be an important sector. Shashank Nigam is President of Simpiflying, a marketing company for the airline industry. He does not think airlines are done, but he does think they are done doing business as usual. In his view, the......

    29 May, 2020

  • As the labor market goes through an evolution that started long before the pandemic, our communities are being transformed as well. In many cases that means good things, as when successful companies hire and prosperity increases. Other times there are less-positive spin-offs, with some people being left out of the economic party.  In the best cases, business works together with educational institutions and community partners to shape the communities they operate in, and in the process hopefully develop the workers they will want in the future. An excellent example of a private- public innovation partnership comes from Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, an area best known as one of Canada’s tech hotspots. As in other communities, such as Silicon Valley, companies there have the usual concerns about how to raise money and the find talent to grow. However, more so than in many other places, there has been a focus on the long view, and on creating a community that will work for all stakeholders. Simon Chan is Vice-President, Talent, Academy and the Future of Work at Communitech, which is a private-public innovation hub in Kitchener Waterloo, while Kathryn Kitchen is the Head of HR for Manulife Canada. They join us on this......

    28 May, 2020

  •   All of a sudden, front line workers are being treated as the heroes of this pandemic and that is only fair. Bus drivers, grocery workers, cleaners, meat plant employees – all of these people jobs that need doing and they put themselves at risk in the process. In acknowledgement of that, many employers are boosting their pay and bonuses in a bid to reward them for what they are doing and indeed to make sure they stay on the job. Longer term, however, the result of the pandemic may be that these same workers do not get paid at all, but rather get pink slips. After all, even before the pandemic there was a push to use automation more effectively and perhaps to replace some job functions in the process. That surely could have some huge positives, in that it could safeguard human beings from tasks that are likely to put them in danger. The downside of this, however, could be a spike in unemployment and a long-term fall in wages for the replaced workers. To talk about where we are in the automation process, on this episode of Work and the Future we are joined by two guests......

    26 May, 2020

  • As a society, we tend to both love and hate our arts sector. Love them, because we do value the contributions that music and visual arts and theater and film make to our lives particularly now. In the midst of this pandemic, how many lives have been brightened, even if for a minute, by watching Andrea Bocelli perform at the Duomo in Milan on Easter Sunday, or by seeing an impromptu concert by a fiddler on Twitter? But there is clearly some there as well, because so much of the sector operates on a shoestring, perilously close to bankruptcy, even when the economy is robust.  Not that it is not an economic contributor. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the National Endowment for the Arts, the arts contribute $763 to the U.S. economy, more than agriculture, transportation or warehousing. In Canada, Statistics Canada estimates that the direct economic impact of culture products was $53.1 billion in Canada in 2017, which is about 2.7 per cent of overall GDP. About 18.8 million jobs in the country, of 3.5 per cent of the total, are in arts. Now, of course the overall economy is anything but robust and the......

    26 May, 2020