The Gartner Talent Angle

Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera, discusses the importance of reskilling amidst disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic. He shares the skilling trends Coursera has observed as a growing number of employees have moved to virtual environments and explains why learning can be a powerful driver of employee engagement.   *This episode is an excerpt taken from our 2020 interview.

Do your employees feel safe asking questions or admitting their mistakes in the workplace? Amy Edmondson, Harvard Business School Professor and author of The Fearless Organization, shares why psychological safety in the workplace is critical to foster employee performance and innovation. She details how a psychologically safe environment creates a culture where talent can feel safe to express their left-field ideas, correct their mistakes, and turn half-finished thoughts into the next big thing. This interview originally aired in 2019.

In a fascinating discussion, Erin Meyer, a professor at INSEAD and co-author of "No Rules Rules" with Netflix's Reed Hastings, reveals how traditional corporate cultures may be failing. She shares the Netflix philosophy of empowering employees, advocating for radical candor and minimal rules. Erin explores the balance between freedom and structure, emphasizing the need for a high-performance culture. Her insights on nurturing creativity and adapting to the future of work showcase how flexibility can redefine organizational success.

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.

Companies have become entangled in their own internal issues caused by invisible red tape. Tune in to this episode of the Talent Angle to hear Martin Lindstrom, author of The Ministry of Common Sense, as he provides a practical five-step approach to ridding our organizations of the bureaucratic bottlenecks and red tape that plague every office by infusing greater empathy into the workplace. *This episode is an excerpt taken from our 2020 interview.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has organizations across the globe considering the impact on their most important asset — their people. This episode covers the medium-term and long-term issues CHROs should consider in the event of a protracted invasion. In this Talent Angle interview, Gartner’s chief of HR research Brian Kropp and Gartner HR practice vice president Peter Aykens discuss the talent implications of the Russian invasion on Ukraine and considerations for future crises. While most organizations are underway with immediate response efforts, HR leaders should prepare for the additional complexities of a continued conflict and carry these lessons into future disruptions. Brian Kropp is Gartner’s chief of HR research. He oversees Gartner’s research, tools, services and support for CHROs and their leadership teams. Before joining Gartner, he worked in a variety of roles, conducting different types of economic analysis to drive critical business outcomes. He holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in economics from Clemson University, and a doctorate in public policy and applied economics from the University of North Carolina. Peter Aykens is a practice vice president in Gartner’s HR practice. He is responsible for building and leading research teams within the practice to address clients’ key initiatives. Before his current role, he spent over 25 years at Gartner leading research teams focused on banking and financial services strategy, producing numerous studies that addressed business strategy, channels, marketing, customer experience and product challenges. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from St. Olaf College; a master’s degree in international politics from Aberystwyth University (formerly known as the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth); and a master’s degree and a doctorate in political science from Brown University.

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.

In this episode of the Talent Angle podcast, executive and author Deanna Mulligan discusses the role that reskilling can and should play in the future of work. Mulligan shares insights from her book “Hire Purpose: How Smart Companies Can Close the Skills Gap” to highlight the importance of corporate education in digital business transformation and explain why organizations need to create a culture of lifelong learning for their employees. Deanna Mulligan is the former CEO of the Guardian Life Insurance Company of America and the author of “Hire Purpose: How Smart Companies Can Close the Skills Gap.” In 2019, Fortune named Mulligan one of the “50 Most Powerful Women in Business.” She holds degrees from the University of Nebraska and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. *This episode is an excerpt taken from our 2020 interview.

Organizations obsess over predictions and forecasting, but the only certainty there is about the future is uncertainty. In this Talent Angle podcast interview, Margaret Heffernan, author of “Uncharted: How to Navigate the Future,” explores how to operate with agility in times of uncertainty; arguing that the events with the greatest impact on complex systems — whether organizations or humanity — are often unpredictable. To better prepare for future uncertainty, she urges leaders and their employees to solicit the viewpoints of those around them for a holistic understanding of decisions and their consequences. *This episode is an excerpt taken from our 2020 interview.

The turbulence that shaped 2021 is expected to increase in 2022. In this Talent Angle interview, Gartner’s Chief of HR Research Brian Kropp shares the critical talent predictions that will shape the workplace in the year ahead. He believes these shifts — labor market competition, talent management, hybrid work, fairness and health and wellness —will affect how HR functions prioritize their time, resources, and political capital. Run Time: 46:34 minutes You can read the full list of predictions at “11 Trends that Will Shape Work in 2022 and Beyond.”