The Future of Work

This episode, we're turning our attention to the deskless worker—those who work in manufacturing, front-line support, health care and so many other areas. Their job does not require them to be at a desk or in a traditional office setting. They're on the go, in the field, working in environments that demand mobility and flexibility. How do we accelerate the learning and upskilling of the deskless worker? Is it through AI, advanced communications, introduction to new opportunities? How do we incorporate more inclusion for this majority group of workers? Learn more about UC Berkeley Extension @https://bit.ly/458bo3e Read this episode's transcript @https://bit.ly/3DGgr1j

Demand for mental health benefits has grown. In a 2023 NPR article, psychologists say they can't meet the growing demand for mental health care—whether it's not having enough open positions or three-month-long waitlists. There is a growing market for apps to fill the gaps, as well as platforms that connect people with licensed therapists or a number of AI-powered solutions that emulate a therapist. All this has an impact on workers and the workplace. And as we heard from Daniel Zhao at GlassDoor in our earlier episode, newer generations of employees are expecting employers to address these needs with benefits. Let's talk about what employees are seeking from companies and how companies are responding. Learn more about UC Berkeley Extension @https://bit.ly/4bMyTls Read this episode's transcript @https://bit.ly/3U0uaVX

Job listings mentioning AI have doubled on LinkedIn, and demand for AI skills is appearing across a wide range of industries and sectors. Job seekers are jumping on the bandwagon and adding AI skills to their resumes. But what does this mean? What are employers looking for, where can you learn these skills, and how do you talk about (and use!) AI in meaningful ways. We turn to Dr.Michael Wu, who is a leading authority on artificial intelligence and behavioral economics. He's currently the Chief AI Strategist at PROS, an AI-powered software solution provider, and was recently appointed as Senior Data Science Research Fellow at the Ecole des Ponts Business School. A popular adviser and lecturer for UC Berkeley Extension's AI programs, Michael has triple undergraduate majors in Applied Math, Physics, and Molecular and Cell Biology, and earned his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley's Biophysics program. He will be presenting his "Demystifying AI: What Business Leaders Need to Know About AI" course at the upcoming Outperform With PROS conference. Learn more about this event @https://bit.ly/3uO78YH Learn more about UC Berkeley Extension @https://bit.ly/41KWrmb Read this episode's transcript @https://bit.ly/3OY6P4A

Are you making any career or professional development resolutions? To help you envision the future, let's explore trends and new directions for career growth. To shed light on the jobs that are in demand and growing sectors, we need to dive into data from employees and employers. Fortunately for us, we are going to get a peek behind the glass door. We're excited to have Daniel Zhao, lead economist and senior manager data science at Glassdoor, who has been doing research on trends in the job market and workplace. Learn more about UC Berkeley Extension @https://bit.ly/3Uw9BRY Read the transcript @https://bit.ly/3FBiYu9

As we look toward 2024, we'd like to take this time to remind each of our listeners that it's important to invest in your future of work goals. So let's call this episode the Future of Work Gift Guide. What can you give yourself to upskill? How can you help someone achieve their career goals? To unpack and highlight insights from this past year, we've brought back Michelle Hector from our first episode on overcoming barriers and Barry O'Reilly from our third episode on unlearning. Learn more about UC Berkeley Extension @https://bit.ly/423rafu Read the transcript @https://bit.ly/3RpOvBR

With the advent of generative AI and large language models and chatbots, we need to take a look at the skills you will need, the jobs that are impacted and the opportunity to increase productivity—not only for yourself, but for an organization as a whole. With AI evolving at lightning speed, are we quickly entering the age of adopt or perish? To take a deeper dive, we have invited Chalenge Masekera to join us. Chalenge is a data scientist currently working at Faros AI, a company dedicated to enabling enterprises to get invaluable insights into their engineering operations. Learn more about UC Berkeley Extension @https://bit.ly/4iHhYmE Read the transcript @https://bit.ly/47bv3ip

This month, we're taking a look at collaborative intelligence. Collaboration is essential but often times invisible. It can either contribute to the success or lead to the downfall of a project. We collaborate in a number ways, using a number of different tools and in different places, but do we really understand how to collaborate effectively? What is the difference between collaboration and coordination? How does can collaboration inspire innovation? When does collaboration become overkill and lead to employee fatigue? What can individuals and leaders do to cultivate a collaboration community? To answer these many questions, we turn to Rebecca Hinds. Rebecca is the Head of The Work Innovation Lab by Asana, a first-of-its-kind think tank that conducts actionable research to assist businesses in adapting to the ever-changing challenges of work, both today and in the future. Read the transcript from this interview @https://bit.ly/3FoH7US Learn more about UC Berkeley Extension @https://bit.ly/48rMqgm

This month, we're taking a look at the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that essentially struck down four-and-a-half decades of legal precedent that allowed higher-education institutions to consider race as one of the many factors in their admissions evaluations. While California has been grappling with this challenge since Prop 209 passed in 1996, now across the nation universities are seeking new ways to define college admissions that will help level an uneven playing field. Beyond admissions, we have questions about the domino effect this ruling will have not only on the makeup of incoming university students, but also the pipeline of college graduates entering the workforce, the ripple effects on DEI in hiring and the makeup of that workforce. We turn to Dr. Monica Cox to help us unravel what this ruling means for our Future of Work. Read the transcript from this interview @https://bit.ly/3FrLPBm Learn more about UC Berkeley Extension @https://bit.ly/3snBZd9

This month, we continue our conversation on Artificial Intelligence and how it might change your job and create wholly new jobs. ChatGPT, a generative AI chat bot from OpenAI, and Bard from Google are changing how we see AI's role in how we do our jobs. From drafting speeches to writing and debugging code, AI can remove some of the grunt work. But as Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, said to Congress, "AI is a tool. It's not a creature." AI can help with tasks, but not jobs. So if AI could replace many tasks but could also lead to much better jobs, how should we be thinking about AI in our own careers? What do we need to be wary of? And what should we embrace to leverage the power of AI? Read the transcript @https://bit.ly/41JqAlN Learn more about UC Berkeley Extension @https://bit.ly/3KaJMku

This month, we're taking a look at Artificial Intelligence and how it is changing the way we educate and the way we work. When we first started hearing about AI, there was a lot of conversation about automation, job displacement and up-skilling. Then this year, ChatGPT set the record for the fastest-growing user base with more than 100 million users as of February 2023. AI is changing how we think about teaching, what we are teaching and how we assess learning. Governments are asking how we maximize the good that can come of artificial intelligence, but minimize the bad. From a full embracing of the technology to having a healthy level of skepticism, how will you adapt to the power of AI? Read the transcript @https://bit.ly/4kDKSG2 Learn more about UC Berkeley Extension @https://bit.ly/3qXkn7h