Work and the Future

The pandemic has forced a giant-scale experiment in online education, and by many accounts it is going very poorly. From first graders to college students, everyone seems to be frustrated at having to take the classroom experience to a crowded space in the kitchen, and many are clamouring to get back to the in-school experience. But will it ever happen? After all, the experiment was a poorly planned one, and perhaps should not be seen as the benchmark of what online education, something that was being rolled-out in force pre-pandemic, is likely to look like over the long term.

Our guest on this episode is economist Robert Frank, who is a professor at Cornell University. He argues that when it comes to higher education,  economic forces are too powerful for virtual instruction to go away after the pandemic. After all, would it not be better to see a video of a superstar instructor give a lecture than sit in a classroom and hear a mediocre one present the same material? In-class seminars could then be presented by teaching assistants who could answer questions and facilitate discussion. That has implications for students of course, but it has implications for professors as well. What if you are not a superstar presenter? Are colleges and universities supposed to hire based on presentation skills rather than research skills? What happens to pay scales and promotions and the norm of doing things? The answers may be complicated ones, but it seems that the future of work for the  education sector will be one of upheaval and finding new roles, to the benefit of some and the detriment of others.

Guest: 

Robert H. Frank is the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management and Professor of Economics at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos. For more than a decade, his “Economic View” column appeared monthly in The New York Times. He received his BS in mathematics from Georgia Tech, and then taught math and science for two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Nepal. He holds an MA in statistics and a PhD in economics, both from the University of California at Berkeley. His papers have appeared in the American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, and other leading professional journals.

His books have been translated into 23 languages, including Choosing the Right Pond, Passions Within Reason, Microeconomics and Behavior, Principles of Economics (with Ben Bernanke), Luxury Fever, What Price the Moral High Ground?, Falling Behind, The Economic Naturalist, The Darwin Economy, and Success and Luck. The Winner-Take-All Society, co-authored with Philip Cook, received a Critic’s Choice Award, was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times, and was included in Business Week’s list of the ten best books of 1995. Frank is a co-recipient of the 2004 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. He was awarded the Johnson School’s Stephen Russell Distinguished teaching award in 2004, 2010, and 2012, and its Apple Distinguished Teaching Award in 2005.

Links: 

The post Episode 6: Is Online Education Here to Stay? appeared first on LINDA NAZARETH.

Remote work is having a minute, or rather a series of them.  Some companies have used it for years, some have been adamantly against it, but both kinds are being forced into it at the moment. As the pandemic forces millions to figure out some kind of home office set up (the kitchen table works in a pinch), we are in the midst of a great work-at-home experiment. Maybe it will be a giant success, or maybe it will make everyone want to get back to their cubicle as soon as possible. More likely, the experiment will hasten a messy reality, one in which companies play with hybrid models of who works in a company workspace and who works in a space of their choosing.

In this episode, we are joined by two experts on different parts of remote working. Adam Hickman is Content Manager for Gallup, as well as a remote worker himself. He talks to us about what Gallup is seeing in terms of employer trends to working this way, as well as his views of where remote working will go in future. Our second guest, Justin Thouin, is the Co-founder and CEO of a company called LowestRates.ca. His fifty employees worked in the office pre-pandemic, a condition he thought was necessary to create a team. Now, seeing how productive they are working differently, he is not so sure.

This episode of Work and the Future kicks off the discussion of working remotely, but it will not be last of our analysis of the subject. Employers and employees (and freelancers and contractors as well) will be wrestling with the subject of remote work for a long time, and there will be lot to talk about.

Guests:

 Dr. Adam Hickman

Content Manager, Gallup 

Adam Hickman, Content Manager, primary areas of expertise have been in Gallup’s organizational development and workplace management practices. He consults with clients to help develop integrated programs for employee development based on Gallup’s research. As a scholar and practitioner, Dr. Hickman helps clients assess human capital management needs to design performance optimization strategies for organizations across the world.

Dr. Hickman has deep knowledge within practices of remote working and managing remote employees. After completing his study on how workplace isolation impacts a remote worker’s performance, he has gone on to be published as an expert in engaging and managing remote employees.

Currently, Dr. Hickman also serves as a Content Manager for Gallup. In this role, Dr. Hickman manages all publications that appear in our Gallup at Work Newsletter and content that is utilized in Gallup Access.  For more than 15 years, he has used measurement, recognition, and forecasting to align engagement strategies and increase performance for the teams he serves.

Dr. Hickman received his bachelor’s degree in communication, a master’s degree in organizational leadership and a doctorate in organizational development from the Walden University. Further, Dr. Hickman has completed executive education from the University of Michigan – Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the University of Notre Dame – Mendoza College of Business.

Justin Thouin

Justin Thouin is the Co-Founder and CEO of LowestRates.ca. Justin started the company in 2012 following a successful career as a Senior Executive with two prominent entertainment and technology organizations. He also created a thriving Executive Consulting practice prior to founding the company. Justin holds an Honours Degree in Commerce from Queen’s University.

Justin is passionate about sports of all kinds, playing tennis competitively and coaching his two daughters in soccer.  He also enjoys investing in early stage ventures and mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs.  Justin has been an EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award finalist and is frequently featured in the media.

About LowestRates.ca:

LowestRates.ca is a Fintech company founded in 2012 and based in Toronto, Ont. We are a free and independent service that helps people save time and money by allowing them to compare insurance, credit cards, mortgages, and loans offered by North America’s leading financial institutions.

LowestRates.ca is an online rate comparison site for insurance, mortgages, loans and credit card rates in Canada. The free, independent service connects consumers directly with financial institutions and providers from all over North America to offer Canadians a comprehensive list of rates. LowestRates.ca’s mission is to help Canadians become more financially literate, with the near-term goal of saving them $1 billion in interest and fees.

Links:

Learn more about Dr. Adam Hickman’s work here:

Title: COVID-19: A Leader’s Guide to Developing a Work-From-Home Strategy

Link: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/310988/covid-19-working-from-home-guide.aspx

Title: Gallup Remote Working Articles

Link: https://www.gallup.com/topic/remote_work.aspx

or follow him on Linkedin

 https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamghickman/

You can learn more about Justin Thouin’s company here

. https://www.lowestrates.ca

Find the study about collaboration that  Linda mentioned in the interview with Justin  here.

https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-truth-about-open-offices

The post Episode 5: Remote Work Is Having Its Fifteen Minutes – Or Will it Be a Lot Longer? appeared first on LINDA NAZARETH.

Many sectors have been impacted by the pandemic, but none more completely than the travel sector. One week is was functioning at full capacity, and then the next the lights had completely gone out, or so it seems. When they go back on, they will shine on a completely different sector, one is which work roles have changed quite dramatically.

To get some perspective on where travel and its workers are headed, in this episode we talk to two guests with slightly different vantage points.

Will Seccombe is President of Connect Travel, a company that handles Event Market for B2B Businesses in the travel sector. He actually plans to do his next event in August 2020, albeit it will be one that involves N95 masks and lots of sunshine to kill germs. When he thinks of the workers in the sector, he foresees different roles for them, perhaps with staggered hours. He is bullish though, and thinks that travel will always be an important sector.

Shashank Nigam is President of Simpiflying, a marketing company for the airline industry. He does not think airlines are done, but he does think they are done doing business as usual. In his view, the future will be about safety and sanitation, and duties of flight attendants will perhaps go back to some semblance of their original role when airlines started flying civilians some seventy or eighty years ago and  hired nurses as flight attendants.

Guests:

J. William Seccombe

President, Connect Travel

Will Seccombe is President of Connect Travel, a strategic marketing business that connects destination marketers with the products, services, people and ideas that help them thrive in a rapidly evolving and highly competitive global marketplace.  Connect Travel hosts and produces travel industry events including Connect Travel Marketplace, Connect Tour, the Marketing Leadership Summit, the eTourism Summit, the Connect THRIVE Summit, the RTO Summits and Active America China.

Prior to joining the tourism marketing company in May 2017, Seccombe served four years as President and Chief Executive Officer for VISIT FLORIDA, the state’s destination marketing organization.  Will joined VISIT FLORIDA in March 2008 as Chief Marketing Officer. International and out-of-state visitors to the Sunshine State increased from 80 million in 2009 to over 112 million in 2016, with an associated annual increase in visitor spending of over $30 billion.

Will’s career began as regional sales manager with Vail Associates in 1989. He moved on to Loveland Ski Areas in 1992 as director of marketing, vice president of marketing for the Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau in 1995 and vice president and chief operating officer with PRACO, LTD in 1999.  In 2004, Seccombe founded Revolution Communications, LLC, a digital travel marketing firm.

Mr. Seccombe was named one of the Top 25 Most Extraordinary Minds in Sales & Marketing by HSMAI, Top 50 Global Marketers in Travel by Skift and the 2014 Hospitality Legend of the Year by the South Florida HSMAI.

Shashank Nigam

CEO, Simpliflying  

Shashank Nigam is a globally sought-after consultant, speaker and thought leader on airline branding and customer engagement strategy. He is the Founder and CEO of SimpliFlying, one of the world’s largest aviation marketing firms working with over 85 aviation clients in the last ten years. Nigam is also the youngest winner of the Global Brand Leadership Award and has addressed senior executives globally, from Chile to China.

Nigam’s impassioned and honest perspectives on airline marketing have found their way to over 100 leading media outlets, including the BBC, CNBC, Reuters and Bloomberg, and into leading publications such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. He writes a dedicated monthly column in Flight’s Airline Business, challenging the typical assumptions about airline marketing.

His new book on airline marketing, SOAR, is an Amazon bestseller that’s shaking up the industry and inspiring other industries to learn from the best airlines. Born in India, raised in Singapore, he now lives with his wife and two young daughters in Toronto.

Links:

Here is a link to an article written by Will Seccombe on the subject of Destination Marketing in a Post-Covid world

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/think-different-destination-marketing-organizations-post-seccombe/

To learn more about ‘Sanitised Travel’, check out these links from Shashank

https://simpliflying.com/sanitised-travel/

You can buy Shashank’s book Soar from this link

https://www.amazon.com/Soar-Airline-Delight-Customers-Employees/dp/1940858143

The post Episode 4: The Lights are Out in the Travel Sector – Will They Ever Go Back On? appeared first on LINDA NAZARETH.

As the labor market goes through an evolution that started long before the pandemic, our communities are being transformed as well. In many cases that means good things, as when successful companies hire and prosperity increases. Other times there are less-positive spin-offs, with some people being left out of the economic party.  In the best cases, business works together with educational institutions and community partners to shape the communities they operate in, and in the process hopefully develop the workers they will want in the future.

An excellent example of a private- public innovation partnership comes from Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, an area best known as one of Canada’s tech hotspots. As in other communities, such as Silicon Valley, companies there have the usual concerns about how to raise money and the find talent to grow. However, more so than in many other places, there has been a focus on the long view, and on creating a community that will work for all stakeholders.

Simon Chan is Vice-President, Talent, Academy and the Future of Work at Communitech, which is a private-public innovation hub in Kitchener Waterloo, while Kathryn Kitchen is the Head of HR for Manulife Canada. They join us on this episode for a lively panel discussion on communities and the future of work, both for their community and for all others.

Guests:

Simon Chan

Vice President, Talent, Academy, and Future of Work, Communitech

Simon is currently the Vice President, Talent, Academy and Future of Work at Communitech which is a private-public innovation hub in Kitchener Waterloo that supports a community of 1500 companies from startups, to scale-ups to large global players. He is responsible for the leadership of the Talent and Communitech Academy teams who support talent attraction and learning and development programs & events for our member companies. He is also leading the development of a Future of Work & Learning strategy for a coalition of multi-stakeholder partners in Waterloo region to build a community of practice to help future proof organizations.

Prior to this role, Simon was Head of Corporate Innovation Thought Leadership where he worked with enterprise executive teams on their innovation strategy and building out their company wide innovation system. He also represented Communitech as a speaker and advisory board member at industry and innovation conferences. Prior to joining Communitech, Simon worked in the financial services industry for 20 years and has a diverse background in banking, investment management, and group pension/benefits where he has held a variety of senior positions in strategy, product, business development, operations, and project management.

Kathryn Kitchen

Head of HR, Manulife Canada

As a member of Manulife Canada’s Executive leadership team, Kathryn oversees a portfolio ofstrategic HR initiatives including the Future of Work and Learning partnership.  She’s worked across many industries from public to private sector, including Deloitte Consulting and BlackBerry where she has held roles across many HR portfolios including M&A, HR strategy, HR partnering, leadership and organizational development, and team interventions.

Kathryn joined Manulife in 2014 and has held a number of senior positions. Today, she’s leading Manulife’s HR team in Canada, this includes supporting a diverse and inclusive culture that advances the talent and capabilities of Manulife’s Canadian workforce so that we can deliver on our bold ambitions to our customers and shareholders.

Kathryn joined Manulife in 2014 and has held a number of senior positions. Today, she’s leading Manulife’s HR team in Canada, this includes supporting a diverse and inclusive culture that advances the talent and capabilities of Manulife’s Canadian workforce so that we can deliver on our bold ambitions to our customers and shareholders.

Kathryn loves to continually learn.  She holds a Masters in Human Systems Intervention from Concordia, and a BBA from St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia.

Links:

Here are some links to the things discussed on this episode

The post Episode 3: Can We Prepare Our Communities for the Future of Work? appeared first on LINDA NAZARETH.

All of a sudden, front line workers are being treated as the heroes of this pandemic and that is only fair. Bus drivers, grocery workers, cleaners, meat plant employees – all of these people jobs that need doing and they put themselves at risk in the process. In acknowledgement of that, many employers are boosting their pay and bonuses in a bid to reward them for what they are doing and indeed to make sure they stay on the job. Longer term, however, the result of the pandemic may be that these same workers do not get paid at all, but rather get pink slips. After all, even before the pandemic there was a push to use automation more effectively and perhaps to replace some job functions in the process. That surely could have some huge positives, in that it could safeguard human beings from tasks that are likely to put them in danger. The downside of this, however, could be a spike in unemployment and a long-term fall in wages for the replaced workers.

To talk about where we are in the automation process, on this episode of Work and the Future we are joined by two guests with different areas of expertise. Steven Keith Platt is a Retail Consultant and a Professor at Northwestern University, and he talks about some of the undeniably cool things that are going on in the retail sector, and specifically in grocery stores as regards automation. We are also joined by Julie Carpenter, who is a ‘roboticist’ and a Research Fellow at California Polytechnic State University. Julie’s job involves thinking about humans and robots will work together, which is a particularly complicated question as the quest to automate intensifies.

Guests:

Steven Keith Platt

Director and Research Fellow at the Platt Retail Institute (PRI) and

Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University

Steven Keith Platt is Director and Research Fellow at the Platt Retail Institute (PRI). He is an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University and serves as the Research Director at the Retail Analytics Council (RAC), an initiative between Northwestern University and PRI.

Steven received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Finance and Marketing from the Boston University School of Management.  He also has a Law Degree and an LL.M. in Taxation from Boston University, where he served as Articles Editor for the University’s Journal of Tax Law. He has authored many studies about retail analytics and digital communication networks, and has published articles in journals including the American Bankers Association Journal, Digital Signage Quarterly, Extended Retail Solutions, Retail Information Systems News, the Retail Solutions Providers Association Magazine, and the Retail Navigator, among many others. He has been quoted in publications including Bloomberg, Business Week, Chain Store Age, the Chicago Tribune, CNN Business, DSN Retailing Today, Inc. Magazine, RFID Journal, Stores Magazine, the San Jose Mercury News, Time Magazine, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal. He has also appeared as a guest analyst on the CBS Evening News and Early Show, and ABC World News. He has also lectured at conferences around the globe.

Julie Carpenter, Phd

Research Fellow, Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group, California Polytechnic State University

Julie Carpenter, PhD, is a research scientist based in San Francisco and a Research Fellow in California Polytechnic State University’s Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group, a non-partisan organization focused on the risk, ethical, and social impact of emerging sciences and technologies.

Her research situates human-technology experiences within their larger cultural contexts and social systems to offer a framework for describing what phenomena are occurring and explain how peoples’ expectations, behaviors, and ideas adapt and change over time as they work and live with new technologies. In her work, Carpenter typically uses ethnographic research methods to explore sociocultural influences on human behaviors that inform topics such as trust, decision-making, and emotional attachment to artificial systems.  Visit jgcarpenter.com to learn more about Dr. Carpenter’s writings and research or follow her on Twitter @jgcarpenter.

Links:

See some of Steven Keith Platt’s work here

Publications & Videos

You can learn more about Julie Carpenter’s work at isit jgcarpenter.com or follow her on Twitter @jgcarpenter

The post Episode 2: How Is the Pandemic Changing the Race to Automate? appeared first on LINDA NAZARETH.