The Gartner Talent Angle

The hybrid world has upended traditional norms around the role of the office. Author Julia Hobsbawm joins the Talent Angle to discuss how talent leaders can apply the insights from her book “The Nowhere Office: Reinventing Work and the Workplace of the Future” to take advantage of the emerging opportunities created by hybrid ways of working . Hobsbawm argues we are in a new era of work – marked by unclear boundaries and changing attitudes – and shares advice on what organizations should do as they continue to shape the role of the office in this context. In doing so, she looks to the past at how earlier innovations in knowledge work changed offices and to the future at how physical spaces will support employees in sustained performance. Julia Hobsbawm is an award-winning business author and futurist of work who writes the "Working Assumptions" column for Bloomberg's Workshift. The author of the acclaimed book “The Nowhere Office: Reinventing Work and the Workplace of the Future,” she was a founder of the US-led Workforce Institute, was Chair of the inaugural UK Demos Workshift Commission, and now co-hosts the popular podcast, “The Nowhere Office.” Julia is the author of six books including the award-winning The Simplicity Principle, and she was awarded an OBE in the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Birthday Honours List in 2015 for ‘Services to Business’. She regularly consults for and speaks to corporations, government and changemakers around the world. Jessica Knight is a Vice President of Research in the Gartner HR practice. She leads research teams to identify best practices and new opportunities to address HR executives’ most urgent challenges. Her areas of focus include employee experience, organizational culture, change management, and the future of work.

An inclusive workplace makes all employees feel equally involved in and supported across all areas. Fran Katsoudas, Cisco CHRO, and Michael C. Bush, Great Place to Work CEO, join the Talent Angle to share insights and lessons that help leaders build inclusive organizations. Both make the case why doing so isn’t only an altruistic act, but also has real business impact on outcomes such as revenue and market performance. They also discuss the pillars that define Cisco’s globally recognized culture of inclusion, challenges to building an inclusive culture with a dispersed workforce, emerging ways to foster trust and belonging, and which new inequities are materializing in a disruptive talent landscape.   Francine Katsoudas is executive vice president and chief people, policy and purpose officer of Cisco. In this role, Fran oversees critical functions that instill Cisco’s conscious culture, contribute to the company’s overall performance and advance Cisco’s purpose to “Power an Inclusive Future for All.” The strategic alignment of functions within Fran’s organization ensures holistic care for the well-being of Cisco’s people, establishes Cisco as a trusted and valued partner to governments and global leaders, and extends Cisco’s reach to positively impact communities everywhere. A 25-year veteran of Cisco, Fran has extensive experience leading organizational transformations, driving large scale growth, cultivating successful leaders and teams, and constructing an employee-first culture. Fran currently serves on the board of directors for Americares, Global Citizen, and ADP. Passionate about social justice, Fran is an activist and advocate for a variety of causes close to her heart, particularly women’s leadership, homeless youth and the Latino community.   Michael C. Bush is CEO of Great Place to Work. His global research and analytics firm produces the annual “Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For” list, the “World’s Best Workplaces” list, the “100 Best Workplaces for Women” list, the “Best Workplaces for Diversity” list, and dozens of other distinguished workplace rankings around the world. Driven by a love of business and an unwavering commitment to fair and equitable treatment, Michael joined Great Place to Work as CEO in 2015, bringing 30 years of experience leading and growing organizations. This includes serving as CEO of Tetra Tech Communications. Michael is a former member of President Obama’s White House Business Council and a founding board member of the private equity seed fund Fund Good Jobs, which invests in small inner-city businesses.   Daniel Dirks is a managing vice president in Gartner’s HR research practice. He has been with Gartner for eight years and leads research teams in the areas of HR strategy, HR cost and budget, total rewards and performance, and working with the CEO. He has also been in the lead for our global COVID-19-related HR response task force. Prior to joining Gartner, Daniel was responsible for all global HR topics at Allianz Group, ranging from HR strategy and policies to global compensation, talent management, EVP, diversity, analytics, and global corporate responsibility. In the 1990s, Daniel led the economics department at the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo. He holds a Ph.D. in business and economics from the University of Witten/Herdecke, Germany.   *This episode is an excerpt taken from our 2022 interview.

Drawing on their professional and academic experience, Ravin Jesuthasan and John Boudreau argue the current work “operating system” is increasingly unable to meet the needs of employees and employers. They join the Talent Angle to discuss their new book, Work Without Jobs: How to Reboot Your Organization’s Work Operating System, and the opportunities for HR to shape a new vision for the future of work. Jesuthasan and Boudreau propose a new work “operating system” based on deconstructed work and deconstructed talent that would ultimately lead to a more human-centric approach to work.  In their new vision for the future of work, they emphasize the importance of developing capabilities that will enable organizations to redesign and reinvent work and the employee experience. Ravin Jesuthasan is the global leader of Mercer’s Transformation Services business.  He has led multiple research efforts on the global workforce, the emerging digital economy, the rise of artificial intelligence and the transformation of work. Ravin has led numerous research projects for the World Economic Forum including many of its ground-breaking studies on the transformation of work and the global workforce. He is a regular participant and presenter at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos and is a member of the forum’s Steering Committee on Work and Employment. He is the author of the books Transformative HR (Wiley, 2012), Lead The Work: Navigating a World Beyond Employment (Wiley 2015), Reinventing Jobs: A 4-Step Approach to Applying Automation to Work (HBR Press, 2018) and the Wall Street Journal bestseller; Work Without Jobs: How to Reboot Your Organization’s Work Operating System (MIT Press, 2022). Dr. John Boudreau is recognized worldwide as a leading evidence-based visionary on the future of work and organization. Dr. Boudreau is Professor Emeritus of Management and Organization and a Senior Research Scientist with the Center for Effective Organizations, at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. For 40 years, he has conducted breakthrough research on the bridge between work, superior human capital, leadership and sustainable competitive advantage.  His research addresses the future of work and the global HR profession, work automation, HR measurement and analytics, decision-based HR, executive mobility, HR information systems and organizational staffing and development.  Dr. Boudreau helped to establish and then directed the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies (CAHRS) at Cornell University, where he was a professor for more than 20 years Peter Aykens is chief of research in Gartner’s human resources practice. He is responsible for defining research coverage within the practice and building and leading research teams that address clients’ key initiatives. In prior roles at the firm, he spent over 25 years leading research teams focused on banking and financial services strategy, producing numerous studies that addressed business strategy, channels, marketing, customer experience and product issues in financial services. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from St. Olaf College; a master’s degree in international politics from the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth (now known as Aberystwyth University); and a master’s degree and a doctorate in political science from Brown University.

Harvard Business School professor Joseph Fuller joins the Gartner Talent Angle podcast to share the latest insights from his white paper, “Hidden Talent: Untapped Talent.” Fuller explains why fitting candidates are  consistently overlooked by recruiting technology. He shares solutions for uncovering these workers, and argues why senior leaders play a critical role in ensuring the success of the hidden talent pipeline. Joseph Fuller is a Professor of Management Practice in General Management at Harvard Business School and co-leads the school’s initiative, Managing the Future of Work. He graduated from Harvard Business School in 1981 and founded the consulting firm, Monitor Group, now Monitor-Deloitte. During his three decades in consulting, Fuller worked with senior executives and policymakers on a wide variety of issues related to corporate strategy and national competitiveness. *This episode was originally released in 2022.

Since the pandemic, organizations have been operating in a new environment, with altered cultural norms and without established practices. In his book, “Competing In the New World of Work: How Radical Adaptability Separates the Best from the Rest,” Keith Ferrazzi offers his vision for successful organizations of the future. Keith joins the Gartner Talent Angle to share how some organizations are embracing these new realities and to outline the leadership practices he believes will define success in this new era of work. Keith Ferrazzi is an entrepreneur, philanthropist and renowned global thought leader in the future of work and leadership. As founder and chairman of Ferrazzi Greenlight and its research institute Go Forward to Work, he works with some of the world’s most prominent organizations to maximize team performance and achieve extraordinary outcomes. Formerly, he was the chief marketing officer of Deloitte and Starwood Hotels. Keith is a No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of “Who’s Got Your Back,” “Never Eat Alone,” and “Leading Without Authority.” His 20-year history of coaching C-suite executive teams has made him an agent of transformation and among the world’s greatest and most sought-after coaches. *This episode was originally released in 2022.

An inclusive workplace makes all employees feel equally involved in and supported across all areas. Fran Katsoudas, Cisco CHRO, and Michael C. Bush, Great Place to Work CEO, join the Talent Angle to share insights and lessons that help leaders build inclusive organizations. Both make the case why doing so isn’t only an altruistic act, but also has real business impact on outcomes such as revenue and market performance. They also discuss the pillars that define Cisco’s globally recognized culture of inclusion, challenges to building an inclusive culture with a dispersed workforce, emerging ways to foster trust and belonging, and which new inequities are materializing in a disruptive talent landscape.   Francine Katsoudas is executive vice president and chief people, policy and purpose officer of Cisco. In this role, Fran oversees critical functions that instill Cisco’s conscious culture, contribute to the company’s overall performance and advance Cisco’s purpose to “Power an Inclusive Future for All.” The strategic alignment of functions within Fran’s organization ensures holistic care for the well-being of Cisco’s people, establishes Cisco as a trusted and valued partner to governments and global leaders, and extends Cisco’s reach to positively impact communities everywhere. A 25-year veteran of Cisco, Fran has extensive experience leading organizational transformations, driving large scale growth, cultivating successful leaders and teams, and constructing an employee-first culture. Fran currently serves on the board of directors for Americares, Global Citizen, and ADP. Passionate about social justice, Fran is an activist and advocate for a variety of causes close to her heart, particularly women’s leadership, homeless youth and the Latino community.   Michael C. Bush is CEO of Great Place to Work. His global research and analytics firm produces the annual “Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For” list, the “World’s Best Workplaces” list, the “100 Best Workplaces for Women” list, the “Best Workplaces for Diversity” list, and dozens of other distinguished workplace rankings around the world. Driven by a love of business and an unwavering commitment to fair and equitable treatment, Michael joined Great Place to Work as CEO in 2015, bringing 30 years of experience leading and growing organizations. This includes serving as CEO of Tetra Tech Communications. Michael is a former member of President Obama’s White House Business Council and a founding board member of the private equity seed fund Fund Good Jobs, which invests in small inner-city businesses.   Daniel Dirks is a managing vice president in Gartner’s HR research practice. He has been with Gartner for eight years and leads research teams in the areas of HR strategy, HR cost and budget, total rewards and performance, and working with the CEO. He has also been in the lead for our global COVID-19-related HR response task force. Prior to joining Gartner, Daniel was responsible for all global HR topics at Allianz Group, ranging from HR strategy and policies to global compensation, talent management, EVP, diversity, analytics, and global corporate responsibility. In the 1990s, Daniel led the economics department at the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo. He holds a Ph.D. in business and economics from the University of Witten/Herdecke, Germany.   *This episode was originally released in 2022.

Dart Lindsley, the head of global process excellence for people operations at Google, joins the Gartner Talent Angle to share why he thinks work is one of the least designed products on the market today. Dart argues that if HR leaders applied design principles to work they would view employees not as inputs to production but rather as customers buying the experience of work. This reframing of the relationship between the organization and the employee can help managers rethink how to approach their roles and help HR more precisely shape the employee experience. Dart Lindsley leads Global Process Excellence for People Operations at Google. Before joining Google, Dart led the Human Resources Transformation Planning and Analysis organization for Cisco Systems. While at Cisco, Dart founded the business architecture and experience design teams. By focusing these two very different disciplines on questions of talent, Dart and his team came to an important insight: employees can be framed as customers of work, and employers therefore must sell work as a product. Ever since, Dart has been using tools from marketing and product design to delve into what people really want from work and ways in which companies can build and deliver an extraordinary work-experience product. Aaron McEwan is a behavioral scientist, psychologist and futurist. As vice president of research and advisory for Gartner’s HR practice, Aaron provides strategic advice to the world’s leading companies on the future of work and talent and helps leaders manage their most critical relationships across the c-suite and board. Alongside his current role, Aaron is a Fellow of the Australian Human Resources Institute, serves on the national committee for the Australian Psychological Society’s Interest Group in Coaching Psychology and is an Associate of Macquarie University’s Centre for Workforce Futures. He was recently named a Top 100 Global HR Influencer and one of 5 HR Leaders to Follow in 2022.

In this Gartner Talent Angle podcast, Marcela Escobari shares key metrics about job quality, economic mobility and job equity. While organizations are facing labor shortages in the short term, Escobari argues that there’s been a long-term decline in job quality. She explains how churn in low-wage jobs is expensive for organizations, but low-wage employees often lack “stepping stone” opportunities to advance their careers. Marcela Escobari is the current Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean at the U.S. Agency for International Development. At the time of this recording, she was a senior fellow in the Center for Sustainable Development, housed in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings, where she led the Workforce of the Future initiative. *This episode is an excerpt taken from our 2022 interview.

In her book “The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It,” Jennifer Moss implores organizations to design burnout strategies that move beyond apps, wellness programs and perks. Instead, she makes the case for a systematic and preventative approach to building an anti-burnout strategy. To do so, organizations must first understand the key drivers of burnout, why conventional approaches fall short and how leaders can build cultures that prioritize workforce resilience and health. Jennifer Moss is an award-winning journalist, author and international public speaker. She is a nationally syndicated radio columnist and writes for Harvard Business Review. Her first book, “Unlocking Happiness at Work,” received the distinguished UK Business Book of the Year Award. Jennifer has been named a Canadian Innovator of the Year, an International Female Entrepreneur of the Year, and was a recipient of the Public Service Award from the Office of President Obama. *This episode is an excerpt taken from our 2022 interview.

Harvard Business School professor Joseph Fuller joins the Gartner Talent Angle podcast to share the latest insights from his white paper, “Hidden Talent: Untapped Talent.” Fuller explains why fitting candidates are  consistently overlooked by recruiting technology. He shares solutions for uncovering these workers, and argues why senior leaders play a critical role in ensuring the success of the hidden talent pipeline. Joseph Fuller is a Professor of Management Practice in General Management at Harvard Business School and co-leads the school’s initiative, Managing the Future of Work. He graduated from Harvard Business School in 1981 and founded the consulting firm, Monitor Group, now Monitor-Deloitte. During his three decades in consulting, Fuller worked with senior executives and policymakers on a wide variety of issues related to corporate strategy and national competitiveness. *This episode is an excerpt taken from our 2022 interview.