HBS Managing the Future of Work

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.