HBS Managing the Future of Work

The pandemic has increased demand for online, remote freelance and contract work. Digital labor platform Toptal provides a market for highly skilled freelancers and contractors working in such fields as software engineering, artificial intelligence, design, and project management. Not surprisingly, the downturn has sent more workers to the platform. In some cases, employers have turned to the platform to find temporary work for their idled employees. CEO, Taso Du Val, joins the podcast. (Toptal’s remote work playbook: https://www.toptal.com/playbook)   

Contact tracing—mapping the spread of a virus by identifying individuals in the chain of transmission—is an essential tool in the fight to limit the damage of Covid-19. Early experience in South Korea, China, Singapore, Germany, and elsewhere has shown what works. Successful schemes save lives and mitigate economic losses. Smartphone apps have a role play, but as with e-commerce, security and privacy are concerns. Harvard’s Safra Center for Ethics recently published a paper outlining how contact tracing can be designed to protect users’ privacy. Coauthor Sham Kakade, a computer scientist at the University of Washington, explains.

Post-Covid recovery will hinge on how well countries leverage talent. This lends new relevance to international business school INSEAD’s 2020 global ranking of that capacity. Released in January, the school’s seventh annual Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) weighs countries’—and major cities’—ability to attract, foster, and maintain talent. The 2020 GTCI focus on AI is also apt, given predictions that the coronavirus will speed trends like automation. Co-author Felipe Monteiro interpreted.

Unilever was several years into a company-wide plan to revamp its workforce when the coronavirus flared into a pandemic. The multinational entered the crisis braced for change. Executive vice president Nick Dalton discusses how that flexibility has helped Unilever maintain business continuity, provide for worker safety, and coordinate remote work. With the disruption of global supply chains and ordinary life largely locked down, all eyes are on the consumer goods business.

Kent Thiry is a veteran healthcare executive with decades of experience observing public health policy and administration at both federal and state levels. He shares his assessment of why the US was slow out of the blocks in responding to Covid-19. Looking at the virus’ likely effects on the healthcare market, he anticipates that the crisis will accelerate adoption of tele-medicine. More broadly, he foresees a shift of more manufacturing to domestic locations, a speed-up of automation, and prospects for a greener, lower-carbon economy in the recovery from the current slowdown.

The Covid-19 pandemic appears to be accelerating the global workforce shift toward freelance and contract work, as it makes remote work a more attractive option. For many, the traditional employment model is being replaced by digital labor platforms like Freelancer.com, which touts skills outsourcing and innovation crowdsourcing. What’s in it for enterprises and freelance workers? Vice President Sarah Tang explains.

Harvard economist Edward Glaeser is an expert on how cities function as economic engines and centers of innovation. He notes that the advantages of density in spurring creativity and productivity are mirrored by the vulnerability it creates to threats like disease. Cities and their most vulnerable residents have borne the brunt of pandemics since antiquity. As Covid-19 tests the resources and resilience of urban centers and confronts leaders with difficult choices, Glaeser explains the policy options for protecting people and stabilizing the economy.

Canadian entrepreneur Irfhan Rawji has insight into the pandemic’s influence on a wide range of sectors, from US companies working with global tech specialists, to startups in a variety of markets, the organic food business, and healthcare. He shares his observations on the coronavirus’ impact on the nature of work; how it is shaking up the VC world; increasing demand for organic and locally produced food; and testing the Canadian and US healthcare systems.    

In Episode 3 of the Covid-19 Dispatch series, we talk to The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson, who recently wrote about contact tracing. In the fight against Covid-19, this critical public health tool has been used unevenly. Thompson notes that South Korea and Singapore have had success with smartphone apps, but that South Korea’s reliance on GPS, along with surveillance video and credit card transactions, raised privacy concerns and may have discouraged participation. Singapore used Bluetooth proximity data, which doesn’t reveal geolocation information. The latter may provide the model for tracing efforts in the US and elsewhere.    

The pandemic has magnified Amazon’s role as household supply line and pushed the company to quickly adjust how it does business. The retail giant has revised scores of operating processes in response to customer demand, workplace safety requirements, and public health directives. For an enterprise with half a million employees in the US, implementing these changes has been a mammoth management challenge. Ardine Williams, the company’s vice president of workforce development discusses how the coronavirus has changed business as usual.