The rise of automation was already a struggle for the working class before 2020, but the pandemic hit even harder as unemployment swept the nation. At the same time, COVID-19 has fueled digital initiatives in many industries, and a society that’s more tech-driven than ever before demands new skills. It’s time for the federal government to prioritize workforce development and equip the working class with the digital skills they need to fill in the gaps.

America’s workforce is on the brink of crisis, and if our country’s leaders — both newcomers and incumbents — don’t prioritize workforce development now, the working class will crumble. Companies large and small have increasingly turned to automated technologies in the quest to do more with less, leaving more Americans jobless. This trend has been so persistent that, last year, the Brookings Institution predicted a quarter of Americans could soon lose their jobs to automation.

The Pandemic Hit the Working Class Even Harder

Today, quite unexpectedly, many of the roughly 53 million Americans already trapped in a cycle of low-wage work now face unemployment. This is the same segment of the workforce most vulnerable to the threat of automation — and that threat now looms even larger.

The nearly universal pivot to remote work has fueled private-sector digitization efforts and will accelerate innovation advancing automated technologies. While this could ultimately lead to a more efficient, resilient national economy, it makes the future of the American worker uncertain.

Transforming Into a Tech-Driven Society

The pandemic will subside, but many of the jobs that disappeared upon its arrival won’t come back. The newly elected Biden administration must grapple with that reality now and implement policies that empower the working class to thrive in the future’s digital economy. It’s time for leaders to focus on tangible, scalable strategies for moving workers out of low-wage hourly employment and into digital roles that will soon define the workforce. The most critical component of any such strategy? Accessible, accelerated digital training.

Tech careers aren’t launched overnight. In order to be productive in important digital roles, millions of Americans will need to develop new skills and expertise. For that to happen, the country must shift away from the traditional learning pathways that have resulted in ballooning college tuition costs and a national student debt crisis and toward more affordable training pathways.

Before making this shift, we must think seriously about the implications of our transformation into a tech-driven society. Some already have. The demand for technical knowledge has fueled the rise of countless online education platforms, massive open online courses and other alternative learning outlets.

New Digital Pathways for the Working Class

Younger, tech-savvy Americans are especially keen to ditch traditional classrooms in favor of more practical learning experiences. According to an Insider and Morning Consult survey, 44% of Millennials with a college degree don’t believe obtaining that degree was worth taking on loans.

So what does a viable alternative to college look like? To support and encourage participation in alternative training programs that match the needs of modern workers and the future workforce, the Biden administration must establish incentives — especially for training providers.

Most job training programs similarly get federal workforce funding. First, an organization gets on an eligible training provider list managed by a local workforce board. When a trainee enrolls, the program receives half of the agreed-upon cost of training and then gets the rest of the money around the halfway point. In exchange for the funds, providers have to issue regular reports detailing participant graduation rates and success. Generally speaking, programs that don’t maintain an 80% graduation rate can be kicked off the list.

Although these rational requirements intend to ensure funding doesn’t go to programs producing undesirable outcomes, they do come with a couple of damaging consequences:

• The requirements unintentionally discourage providers from attempting to offer more difficult courses — the kinds of courses that could actually prepare unskilled workers for high-skill, high-demand jobs.
• They also push training providers to adopt smaller class sizes with more individualized learning at higher costs. If providers are incentivized to ensure nine out of 10 participants graduate, they might focus on teaching relatively basic career skills or on developing programs that spend intensively on each enrollee.

How to Better Arm Workers With the Skills of the Future

If we want to equip many workers with sophisticated digital expertise, the Biden administration must change how it allocates public funding. Instead of requiring providers to create elaborate reporting systems to receive federal funds on the front end, workforce agencies should allow programs preparing participants for high-difficulty, high-demand careers to collect payment on the back end — but only when a graduate gets a job.

This arrangement incentivizes providers to place as many people as possible into new roles at the lowest possible cost while taking the public system off the hook for the cost of unsuccessful participants.

Of course, there’s more than one way to approach worker training, but there might never be a better time. When again will the federal government distribute billions to state and local governments to invest in human capital?

Workforce development has never been considered a sexy talking point — in fact, it was conspicuously absent from media lists of crucial campaign issues leading up to the 2020 presidential election. The election results are in, but the leaders who focus on and provide viable workforce policies still have the unique opportunity to gain new supporters from a multitude of unemployed and underemployed Americans.

Certified B Corporations are a growing field of study for the business leaders of the future — the students at a number of universities where faculty are part of B Academics, the global B Corp academic community.

The group’s leaders include Jessica Yinka Thomas, Director of the Business Sustainability Collaborative and Lecturer at the Poole College of Management at North Carolina State University. She oversees the university’s B Corp Clinic, where students can get real-world experience. They work with companies pursuing B Corp Certification or improving their social and environmental impact. She incorporates B Corps into her curriculum, including her undergraduate business ethics class.

“We look at how businesses can operate in a socially, environmentally, and ethically responsible manner, studying B Corps throughout that class,” she says. This includes a case study on New Belgium involving open-book management and employee ownership as strategies for engaging workers and speakers. An alumnus who works at Athleta also shared what it’s like to be a B Corp within a major multinational brand that offers products with innovative materials and an empowerment message for women and girls.

Professor Thomas says awareness of B Corps has grown in the last few years among students. They embrace the shift toward a stakeholder capitalism model as a primary method to confront the climate crisis and economic inequalities projected to worsen in their lifetimes.

“It’s a combination of a very clear and ambitious vision for the movement, and a comprehensive and clear framework for explaining what it means to have a strong impact across your business stakeholders,” she says. “Something just clicks with the students. They say, ‘I get this. I want to work at a B Corp. I want to buy from B Corps. I want to learn more about what it means to be a B Corp.'”

Thomas and I recently talked about the group’s history and plans for growth as part of my research on the B Corp community. She shared more about the B Academics group’s plans to expand knowledge and awareness of B Corps among students of all ages. They also plan to grow the number of participating faculty around the globe.

Christopher Marquis: Share a little bit more about the student experience. How are B Corps incorporated into curricula? How do students react if they are first learning about the B Corp community?

Jessica Yinka Thomas: I’ve had the opportunity to work in academia for about 15 years now. And I have never seen anything that really captures the imagination and inspires students like B Corps. There’s something about having such a clear framework for impact that’s very accessible and understandable, and at the same time very rigorous and comprehensive but not a one-size-fits-all. It can be understood by entrepreneurs and by business leaders simultaneously, which makes it really accessible and attractive. It’s also engaging for students as a movement that includes well-known brands, like Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s, Seventh Generation, and New Belgium.

It’s a combination of a very clear and ambitious vision for the movement, and a comprehensive and clear framework for explaining what it means to have a strong impact across your business stakeholders. Something just clicks with the students. They say, ‘I get this. I want to work at a B Corp. I want to buy from B Corps. I want to learn more about what it means to be a B Corp .'”

When I first started teaching about B Corps around 10 years ago, I would ask “How many of you have seen this logo?” And you might get a hand or two. Now I would say it’s a majority of students I have the opportunity to interact with who are at least familiar with the concept of a B Corp.

Christopher Marquis: As a co-founder of B Academics, how did you come up with the idea? How did the group get its start and gain traction?

Jessica Yinka Thomas: I learned about B Corps around 2009. I was running a sustainable business accelerator at the Center for Sustainable Enterprise at University of North Carolina Kenan Flagler Business School. We were looking for an impact measurement tool for the companies going through the accelerator. Two people who were critical in the early days were the other co-founders, Rosanna Garcia and Joel Gehman. Since then, we have been, from a grassroots level, building what is now a global network of educators and researchers who have this shared vision of studying business as a force for good. We want to teach the next generation of business leaders, entrepreneurs, and workers how to embed impact into business.

For the first few years, it was a very informal network. We hosted regular webinars, an annual B Academics Roundtable, and started to build out a founding leadership team. In 2019, we became a 501(c)3 nonprofit and have really started to formalize the organization. B Academics is an independent organization from B Lab, the nonprofit that oversees B Corp Certification.

We had about thirty people attend that first B Academics Roundtable in 2016. Now we have a mailing list of close to 2,000 people from at least 52 countries, representing more than 600 academic institutions or organizations that have expressed interest in engaging with B Academics. There is a core group of 12 board members at different academic institutions worldwide who are deeply involved in our work.

We’re building a resource platform with over 400 paper abstracts, cases, videos, podcasts — just a range of different research and teaching tools that will be accessible to members. Often, the research that academics publish is not easily digestible by non-academics. So we are developing a series of briefs that will translate some of the faculty and our network’s research in a way that highlights the lessons that industry can take away.

Christopher Marquis: Can you tell me a bit more about the B Corp Clinic at North Carolina State and the work students do there?

Jessica Yinka Thomas: We’ve been through many iterations of the B Corp Clinic since we launched the program in the Summer of 2015. Over the last 11 semesters, we’ve worked on 68 projects with more than 60 companies — from start-ups to multinationals — from various industries and from around the world. Some are on the road to B Corp Certification, and others are recertifying. We’ve worked with 15 companies that have become B Corp certified.

We have coaches who are typically leaders from North Carolina B Corps who provide guidance and subject matter expertise to the teams. In the first four years of the program, we designed a co-curricular model where students applied to participate in the program. At that point, we had students from seven different academic institutions across the state, including public and private universities, community colleges, and HBCUs.

Each university looks a little different, and you can adapt the model to meet the needs of the companies and the students you’re working with — undergraduate, grad students, business school students, or those from different disciplines.

The typical CEO works 14 hours a day for 300 days a year, which totals around 42,000 hours annually. Even before ‘work-from-home’ became a global phenomenon, the modern business landscape had increasingly shifted toward one that blurs the line between work and our personal lives.

Today’s culture teaches us that success is getting paid to do what you love, and if you get that opportunity, you must prove your dedication by living, eating, sleeping, and breathing your work. This is true for employees, but more so for CEOs and those in leadership roles.

However, the sad irony is that this systemic cultural push toward overwork not only fails to yield happiness — that doing the work you love is supposed to deliver — but it also leads to its antithesis: job dissatisfaction and burnout. These affect job performance and bleed into your personal life.

The solution to this paradox is just as paradoxical: To prosper at your job and thrive in your work, you must actively find ways to regularly separate from your work. That means leaving the office at the office, even if the office is inside your home.

Not sure where to start? Here are some suggestions.

Take control of your physical space

As a leader, your physical environment can be critical to your team’s connection, ability to feel empowered and excel in their jobs. But at the same time, however, a leader also needs their own space to complete their tasks throughout the day.

When working in the same facility as your team, try moving to a different floor, so you’re still in the same building but not so readily at hand. If your firm is working only partly from home, spend one day a week working from a conference room onsite.

Whether you’re working onsite or at home, take the occasional break to change up your scenery. Go on a walk around the block, or use your lunch break to go on a small hike, weather permitting. This can help trigger an energetic shift in your thinking, creativity, problem-solving, and motivation. You could have a large goal of moving to a different space altogether, or simply rearranging or redecorating your current space.

Rediscover your identity

People are generally different at work than at home, which is usually for good reason. You have a specific job to perform in the office that requires you to be professional, timely, and efficient. Your role defines you because that’s what you’re hired to do.

But when the lines between your identity at work and at home begin to blur, it’s hard to see yourself as anyone but ‘vice president’ or ‘HR director’ or ‘software developer’. It get’s tiring, and soon you’ll find yourself struggling to love your job like you once did.

You have passions. You have hobbies. You even have professional development goals outside of your current career path. Connect with these interests again. Take time outside work to explore other areas that you’ve been curious about for a while. You’ll rediscover the joy and satisfaction you once knew, and continue to cultivate a new identity for yourself. Or, at the very least, remind yourself that who you are at work isn’t the only version of yourself. 

Spend time away from the office

Executives typically work as needed, leading them to lose sight of how much they’re working. When you work this way, it’s more difficult to feel comfortable using sick days or PTO. This is counterintuitive to your success and that of the company, as the very act itself of taking time away from the office, for whatever reason, can help refresh and rejuvenate you for when you return.

Leaders often pine for personal time, but fail to allow themselves any. Whether you believe taking personal time sets a bad example for your team or you simply feel too busy to leave, you’re developing a bad precedence for the rest of your company — but, more importantly, yourself. Leaders who take sick days when they need them or go on frequent vacations throughout the year are more satisfied and effective in their work and personal lives. This prevents burnout and facilitates creativity.

Get creative

The average executive spends close to 58 hours each week on the job, with an average of around 10 to 11 hours each day. It can’t always be easy to get time away — for a hobby or a vacation — with this type of schedule. While you won’t always have control over every aspect of your calendar, you can change how creative you get with the time you have. If you commute to work, figure out how you can spend that time more rewardingly, such as listening to a podcast or carpooling with your kids to school.

The most effective leaders are not the ones who work the most but the ones who work the best. In other words, leaders who maximize their focus, attention, and productivity at work perform better than those who spend the most time at work. It’s not about working harder, it’s about working smarter so that you can live harder.

As your organization takes its place in the digital transformation that’s underway everywhere, you’ll inevitably need to create or update a large number of different products. But just because you think your shiny new app, website, service, or other digital offering is great doesn’t automatically mean the customer will.

According to Nielsen, 85 percent of new consumer products fail in the marketplace. Yours doesn’t have to be one of them. Just make sure your “solution” isn’t less desirable than the problem you’re trying to fix.

Sometimes what seems like a great idea doesn’t resonate with consumers. The problem is that you can spend a lot of money on an innovation that unintentionally detracts from the customer experience rather than improves it.

Back in the early 2000s, I moved my business into a shiny new skyscraper in Times Square. The building had a keypad-controlled elevator. Instead of “calling” your elevator and having to pick a floor once you got in, you used a numerical touchscreen that you had to touch only once.

To request an elevator, you typed the number of the floor you wanted and received a response from a screen with a letter of the alphabet that corresponded to an assigned elevator. You went to “your” elevator, and when it arrived, you got in, and it automatically took you to your floor. Presumably, this got you there faster. 

Maybe. But people found the new system extremely confusing and off-putting in other ways.

For instance:

• If you were already in the elevator, there was no way to change your mind without getting off at the wrong floor, and then repeating the process above.

• Even if you didn’t change your mind, you didn’t like the feeling that you couldn’t. You were locked in a metal box that was taking you to one place, and you felt powerless.

Frankly, you just didn’t want to relearn a skill you had already mastered — knowing how to work an elevator — (even though it took only 30 seconds).

It’s not that people are unwilling to learn new things. We’re happy to learn to use iPhones and Kindles. But these devices delivered enough value that it justified the investment to understand them. The keypad elevators didn’t provide enough value to overcome the pain of change — and this is why they haven’t caught on in a significant way (though they are still found in some very large buildings). One office building in Houston went so far as to remove these “smart” elevator controls and revert to the “old-school” form due to so many tenant and visitor complaints.

The good news is that there are specific methodologies to massively reduce the likelihood of this outcome (like Design Thinking). For now, though, let’s focus on a few of the big reasons new products fail.

Reason #1: The Wrong Value Proposition. For a product to be successful, it has to meet customers’ needs and do so in a way that is “worth” more than the cost the customer is asked to bear. Furthermore, it must offer a value that is superior to competitive options at that price point. This “value proposition” is the core of any product idea — a specific solution to a customer problem delivered at a defined price point and revenue model. 

The quality of a Skype call may not be the same as expensive teleconferencing equipment, but it’s free. So, for many customers, it’s a more compelling value proposition. Of course, other customers prefer to pay more and have more reliable connections. That’s fine as well; both are valid propositions and address different markets. 

The “right” idea for a successful product is one that will resonate with its intended customers, be worth the cost, and be either better than the competition or cheaper. Ideally, both. How do you find it? Understanding your customers’ unmet needs, pain, or problems is the starting point. But some solutions may work well for the customer, while others might just not be worth the trouble, like the numerical elevator keypad.

Reason #2: Failure to Execute. It’s not enough to have an idea with the right value proposition because ideas are not products. You still have to bring them to life. Many products born of grand ideas fail in their execution. Take the beloved 2017 Galaxy Note 7 smartphone. Even though it launched with rave reviews, Samsung’s valuation dropped by over $26 billion when the phones’ batteries started catching on fire. The point? Some products just don’t work quite the way they are supposed to. 

My team was brought in to help “save” a project management software tool that a client had launched. They built what they thought was a “killer” app, but the market was rejecting it. We conducted some market research and found that while the tool had excellent features aligned with what customers wanted, it had one problem: It was slow. It required so much computational power that each change to your project plan took 5-10 seconds to “recalculate.” That was all it took for users to reject it. This is a big challenge of product development: A lot can be right, but if one critical thing is off, it can tank the whole thing. 

We improved the project management software in part through performance optimization but mostly by removing features that weren’t “worth” their impact on speed. After that, the product was more successful.

Reason #3: Lack of Awareness. You know the adage (attributed, perhaps falsely, to Ralph Waldo Emerson) about building a better mousetrap and having people beat a path to your door? It’s not true. There have been 4,000 patents for new ideas for mousetraps, yet the world continues to use the classic (grisly and dangerous) “snapping” model. Even though this customer journey has many pain points — from the need for insect-attracting peanut butter to the disturbing front-row view of a dying mouse — none of those new designs have overshadowed the original model. Even if an idea is well-executed, it can still fail if nobody knows about it. 

Awareness does not just mean customers know your product exists. It consists of three critical components:

• The product’s existence and core value proposition. 
• The product’s claim of differentiation. Why choose this one over all the other options? 
• How to take action — where to order the product and how to access it. 

In “old-school” product development thinking, you’d consider these marketing issues. But if you embrace a Design Thinking approach, you realize you can’t split them out that way. Every stage of the customer experience must be considered together.

By no means are these three obstacles insurmountable. When you address them head-on, you’re all the more likely to launch a highly successful product.

A Finnish start-up, Rens, is making shoes from waste coffee. Every pair is made from 300 grams of used coffee grounds— the equivalent of 21 cups of coffee. They are waterproof and vegan and also contain the recycled material of six plastic water bottles. Founded in the heart of Helsinki, the idea started as a conversation between two sneakerheads — Son Chu and Jesse Tran (pictured below) — about the environmental impacts of the global sneaker industry and the less-than-stylish sustainable options on the market. Thousands of pairs have been sold across the world since their launch in November 2019.

The start-up is not the only company to reinvent food waste. Luxury German brand Hugo Boss has made shoes from pineapple leaf fibers, and Swedish fashion retailer H&M makes the soles of sandals from algae. British designer Stella McCartney is even making clothes from mushrooms. The fashion industry has a huge environmental impact, consuming large amounts of land, energy, and water, with the United Nations estimating that the fashion sector generates 20 percent of the world’s wastewater.

Salespeople have gotten a notorious reputation for being dishonest. Some sellers do bend the truth, and worse, to put their product in the best possible light. 

In sales, as in all aspects of life, many people fall victim to someone else’s inappropriate behavior. I recall the case of a worker in a bakery who was about to dispose of stale bread. The bakery owner stopped the worker, demanding, “No, sell it as fresh bread!” Should the worker have followed his boss’ dishonest instructions or disobeyed them, throwing away the stale bread?

What if the worker could not afford to lose his job by refusing his boss? And, once the worker dishonestly sold the stale bread as fresh for the first time, would subsequent times become easier? A person becomes desensitized when performing dishonest behavior repetitively. Unethical behavior becomes easier to do.

A Better Way: Creativity

If you are stuck between a rock and a hard place, it is not always an either/or choice. There are alternatives if you think creatively. For example, the worker could have suggested to his boss that the bakery repackage and sell the stale bread as crispy breadcrumbs.

This alternative would provide the boss with a profitable, creative idea without misleading buyers. Why not? It works for bagels in Brooklyn: I remember the day-old bagels transformed into gourmet chips sold in neighborhood shops.

One of the most ancient frauds was a seller diluting wine with water and selling it as pure wine. Some people said diluting wine with water was not a crime if it was the local custom to water down wine, which is to say if it was known and sold at an acceptable price. Others said it was not permitted since it was an easily tempting deception.

To make matters worse, often in ancient times, the wine was thick and required dilution before consumption. The marketplace was in turmoil, and all the wine labeling was in doubt.

An astute salesman, looking for an alternative solution, thought about mixing a weaker wine with a stronger wine and selling this ‘blended’ wine at a slightly lower price. After many attempts, he introduced the first wine blend, and it was an overwhelming market success!

Sage Advice Applies Today 

Some sages feel that the act of luring a buyer is not misrepresenting the product since the buyer knows what is being offered for sale before deciding to purchase it. But the majority of the sages disagree since the seller is advertising a fictitious deal that lures the customer into the store.

The seller is stealing a person’s mind and attracting the buyer under false pretenses. Even if the actual sale does not happen, the seller is still fooling the buyer, so the seller’s behavior is unethical. 

There are many ancient examples of stealing the mind of a buyer. For one, there’s the practice of sprinkling a wine shop with a superior-quality, fragrant wine in an attempt to fool customers into believing that all the wine sold in the store is of the same high quality.

People rely on their sense of smell when purchasing products such as wine and oil. The sprinkling of fine oil or expensive perfume and then selling a cheaper product can be misleading to buyers.

In today’s times, did you ever buy a product online and discover that the advertised product appeared larger and better made than the product that you received? The deception of the eye is even more predominant than the deception of smell.

A seller should compete fairly, and the market rules should apply equally to all sellers. Some sages state that a storekeeper should not distribute treats to children because it lures the parents into a buying situation. But the majority of the sages agree that there is nothing wrong with such inducements. The storekeeper can say, “I may give out parched corn (popcorn), while another storekeeper may give out nuts.”

Bait-and-switch is unethical. However, the transparent attraction of customers can be fair. In ancient times, sellers captured the attention of customers by enticing their children, and, today, restaurants give away toys and have special rides for children.

Here are two important points to keep in mind:

First, there is no need to slander the competitor. You can benefit your products’ features, and by doing so, you will imply what the competitor lacks. You should always take the higher road.

Second, you should never manipulate a buyer by their fears. It is unethical. An effective salesperson can be persuasive and even forceful but never manipulative.

A wise man once said, “When you sell, do not oppress your brother.” That means more than overcharging a buyer. The emphasis is not on money but the human side of oppression. When you take advantage of a buyer’s trust, you cause distress. But, as you might well ask, “What if I have knowledge that could help win the sale? Shouldn’t I say so?” Yes, but you need to be careful and absolutely honest.

A buyer knows a competitive seller cannot be completely objective; even if his or her statements are accurate, they will be one-sided and subjective. A seller cannot be an expert advisor since he or she will always be subjective.

Salespeople may offer recommendations but should avoid giving advice and also not apply high-pressure sales tactics. In fact, when you sell ethically, your sales territory will grow through customer referrals.

I continually teach ethical lessons to my salespeople, such as the importance of selling without manipulating buyers, especially by using fear and treating competitors fairly. I even teach the benefits of recommending competition for the right reasons. I explain how genuine and honest intent is essential. First, you make the right decision; then, you reap the rewards of earning a customer’s trust and respect.

People in the business of sales can be innovative without being dishonest. Ultimately, customers will appreciate alternative approaches as long as they’re delivered with transparency. 

Joel Malkoff’s new book is Selling Ethically: A Business Parable Connecting Integrity with Profits.

To build on the promising momentum around inclusion last year, organizations should expect more from executives, tackle gender equality in broader ways, and continue to uncover the full humanity of their employees.

George Floyd’s murder, the subsequent global protests, and pandemic-related solidarity were explosive. They were powerful developments that could accelerate progress on inclusive workplaces in 2021, or simply be remembered as mere engine backfires, and become wasted opportunities that damage the long-term health of companies by stifling human potential.  

Much depends on how organizations embrace the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Agenda (DEI) for 2021.

Many organizations responded to last year’s racial reckoning by pledging to renew their DEI efforts. But with so much work to do — and with much attention now focused on the very health of our democracy after the Capitol riot — it would be easy for the energy and goodwill around diverse workplaces to dissipate. It would also be easy for company leaders to revert to business-as-usual, avoiding the uncomfortable conversations and structural reforms needed.

That’s why we suggest the DEI agenda for 2021 be narrowly focused. And why the three priorities we identify concentrate on senior executives and the straight white men who make up the bulk of their ranks.

1. Expect more from the powerful — in the professional, public, and personal realms

Advocates for greater diversity have known for years that their efforts aren’t likely to go far without the support of CEOs and other top executives. This is the year to double-down on that message and expand on it. COVID-19 and the racial protests showed us that conversations about equity and belonging could not be contained within a company’s four walls; they require engagement by executives in the wider culture and policy arenas. Even more importantly, senior leaders must wrestle with the profoundly personal dimensions of privilege and power. There’s no other way to arrive at a genuine commitment to an inclusive organization and world.

Pioneers are blazing brave trails here. They are saying, in effect: “I thought I was doing enough for others, and I now realize I’m not.” Among the standouts is Tim Ryan, senior partner, and US chairman at professional services giant PwC. He began his soul-searching around racial inequality several years ago, oversaw the publication last year of a “warts-and-all” report on PwC’s corporate diversity, and spearheaded a new business initiative to advocate for racial equality in public policy.

2. Advance gender equality — by tackling both sides of the equation

In December, women lost a total of 156,000 jobs, while men gained 16,000. That disparity builds on a broader 2020 trend of women leaving the workforce at a much greater rate than men. Principle reasons for the inequality are childcare duties and remote education support, which have been falling far more on the shoulders of women than men. We are losing an entire generation of female professionals. This is what happens when businesses fail to stimulate more fundamental, systemic culture changes. To be sure, organizations should bolster programs that help mothers and caretakers return to work.

But gender fairness work has to expand beyond the female part of the equation. Company leaders — most of them male — ought to shine a spotlight on outdated, unhealthy views of masculinity that perpetuate inequality at work and home. Leading organizations will advocate for a “liberating” masculinity — one that frees men and their partners to share in the burdens and joys of parenting, that encourages greater self-awareness of the advantages of their gender, and that promotes an inclusive approach to leadership.

3. Continue the “Great Uncovering” — even post-pandemic

COVID-19 changed our definition of performance and tore down the facades we’ve been conditioned to hide behind in the workplace. We’ve finally broken from the “worker as widget-maker” once and for all, and our lives have flooded onto the screen. If someone was closeted before the pandemic, perhaps they can’t be now because their same-sex partner is walking behind them on Zoom for all to see. In this “Great Uncovering,” our lives have been on display like never before: our mental health challenges, our family constellations, and our socioeconomic status as made visible by our work-from-home setups.

This is cause for celebration. It has prompted new levels of vulnerability, acceptance, and community. In many cases, it has enabled those historically marginalized in corporate settings to finally feel seen and welcome. But the forcing function for this intimacy and human connection — the pandemic — will not last forever. Overall, that’s great news, but it threatens to return our workplaces to less warm, less holistically human, less inclusive cultures. We ought to work hard to preserve our newfound authenticity as we evolve from virtual operations to more traditional office arrangements.

In outlining the agenda above, we didn’t even touch on the business case for DEI. But make no mistake: the organizations that fail to accelerate their inclusion efforts risk falling far behind competitors. 

As DEI advocates accustomed to slow progress, we know the dramatic momentum of last year could well sputter and die. But in the wake of great sacrifices and authentic awakenings in 2020, we dare to dream. With a focused agenda that asks for a genuine commitment by male executives especially, we can speed ahead this year toward diverse workplaces that work for all.

Here’s how to avoid the most common mistakes and stack the deck in your favor.

Many companies turn to lean thinking and practices in hopes of achieving breakthroughs in efficiency, profitability, and customer satisfaction. Too many, however, fail in their attempts. What began with a bang ends in a whimper, leaving executives and business owners feeling frustrated and disappointed.

Moreover, such failures dissuade other leaders from even considering lean in their own companies. If you’re one of them, we have good news: With the right preparation, you can avoid the most common mistakes and stack the deck in your favor.

To begin, work with your leadership team or closest advisers to ask five critical questions.

1. Is lean right for us right now?

While lean can undoubtedly help a company, it isn’t right for every business, every time. For instance, if your business is losing ground due to outdated or second-rate products, start improving your product line first. Or if market demand is declining — as it may be now, for example, amid the current COVID-19 pandemic — think about a diversification or marketing initiative instead.

By contrast, lean might be a great fit if your business has significant efficiency or effectiveness issues. Perhaps customer demand exceeds capacity, lead times are lagging behind the competition, or costs exceed what the market will bear.

Takeaway: Fit and timing are essential to lean success.

2. Are we up to adhering to lean’s core conditions?

Lean can work with almost any leadership style and work culture if — and it’s a big if — two core conditions are consistently met: 1) leaders maintain consistency, with no wavering or walking back; and 2) leaders walk their talk with regular and frequent follow-up.

Takeaway: Lean requires a commitment to consistency and support.

3. Are we willing to align our business practices with lean principles?

Like it or not, many of your company’s existing business practices — incentives, metrics, SOPs, and the like — stand an excellent chance of colliding with lean principles. For instance, a lean goal like minimizing work in process inventory can conflict with standard cost accounting. How sales commissions or performance bonuses are structured can be at odds with crucial lean behaviors. The key is to be flexible and reconcile what is currently in place with lean principles, not vice-versa. Otherwise, lean will lose every time.

Takeaway: Lean requires incentives that are consistent with lean principles.

4. Are our expectations about lean and our company’s maturity in sync?

A lean initiative can’t, and won’t, go the distance without managing expectations, especially concerning speed and success versus your company’s overall maturity. For example, if your business is more accustomed to putting out fires than operating smoothly and functionally, be sure to adjust your objectives and timelines with room to spare — thereby allowing for any fits and starts — and fully communicate them with everyone involved. This way, you can head off any angst or uncertainty at the pass.

Takeaway: Be realistic about your company’s maturity and manage people’s expectations about lean accordingly.

5. Which approach to lean would be most compatible with our company?

There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to lean. To be successful, it’s incumbent to adopt a lean approach compatible with your business. Each approach — and there are many — offers differing levels of complexity and versatility, making researching and understanding those differences imperative. Besides traditional lean, you’ll find everything from Six Sigma, which emphasizes the use of statistical techniques, to Paul Akers’ “2 Second Lean.”

Takeaway: Do your homework and find a lean approach that fits your company.

Ready? There’s more to lean than asking these five questions, but you can avoid the most common mistakes by addressing them first and thoroughly and stack the deck in your favor.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed where, when, and how people work. Most who have now experienced remote working are questioning the ways we used to work and the purpose of the office. Answers to these questions will have repercussions for the future of our cities. 

Even before the pandemic, the traditional meanings of the workplace and the office had been reshaped by technology. With good connectivity widely available, easy access to the internet, and effective cloud computing, any space could become a workplace. Once the pandemic forced a work-from-home requirement, employees proved to holdout employers that they could meet their deadlines and work obligations while working remotely.  

As a result, the pandemic is disrupting the commercial real estate industry that has long rested on its laurels, believing that businesses required roofs over their heads to carry out their operations. Just as other companies have had to grapple with changing customer needs, commercial office space providers have now been hit in a momentous fashion by the need to become customer-focused.  

These days, consumers are less likely to take on long-term lease commitments and demand greater operational-type services based on user experience and well-being. For commercial real estate companies and corporate real estate departments, this will require a shift away from the long-running business model of “build it, and they will come” to taking on more responsibility for workplace effectiveness.  

The emerging landscape of a “liquid workforce,” with companies becoming more reliant on talent who work on contract, has already reshaped how businesses consume office space and led to a burgeoning alternative office market. Witness the influx of flexible workspace providers, including WeWork (with 625 locations in more than 127 cities in 33 countries), Convene, LiquidSpace, Knotel, and The Office Group — all jostling to get a piece of the flexible space action. This trend opens up a completely different range of possibilities. For example, flex-space product offerings could run alongside traditional leasing models. 

Commercial office space suppliers must now work in new ways with consumers to provide product offerings better suited to delivering tangible business value. This also means that, on the demand side, business leaders must focus on the actual needs of their enterprises — as opposed to simple headcounts. This will require reviewing how their internal support functions enable work and productivity. The status quo of static office buildings where workers are confined in a sea of cubicles needs to be reimagined with a people-centric focus that offers smart and agile alternatives. 

In reimagining the post-COVID-19 workplace, characteristics of a new, responsive supply model can include: 

1. Inviting input from a broad spectrum of stakeholders. A new office supply model that allows input from multiple perspectives can replace the outdated and one-sided landlord-tenant relationship. Instead of a linear process, it will enable a fluid and flexible system for the provision of offices that meets the demands of a distributed and engaged workforce. This will shift the paradigm to a more customer-focused relationship, and clients will receive real value-added services. 

2. Creating alternatives to traditional leasing. While the conventional vanilla leasing system will continue, it likely won’t remain the market’s dominant component. Property owners could develop portfolio-wide propositions for customers as an alternative, or extension, to the long-term lease offer. 

3. Looking beyond the building. Landlords tend to focus only on construction, build-out, and leasing of their office spaces. On the other hand, tenants need to understand better how a building enables employees to perform their best work. By closing this gap and shifting the thinking beyond a traditional deal-oriented mindset, landlords can offer space as a service that helps enable their tenants to work efficiently and effectively. 

4. Upgrading property management services. Customers now expect a consumer-friendly digital presence to facilitate service delivery. International property databases such as Proptech are driving the availability of accessible information, including providing a reliable and accurate picture of the value of real estate. They have accelerated property transactions considerably, and expectations for digitalized services now need to be met.  

5. Upholding corporate values. User experience and well-being and sustainability concerns — such as transforming buildings to reduce emissions or limiting the use of harmful materials — have become critical corporate responsibility considerations. The global community is increasingly discerning about the environmental and ethical practices of employers and auxiliary service providers, which extends to the real estate management industry. 

Employees’ ability to work remotely during the pandemic signals that it’s now possible to consider various operating modes. Suppliers of office space, to remain relevant, must move from a building-centric mindset and come to terms with changes in customer needs. Reimagining the workplace in the post-COVID era will require applying a holistic perspective and providing choices for more agile 21st Century enterprises. 

WhereIsMyOffice.com / Where is My Office?: Reimagining the Workplace for the 21st Century

What can you do when a global pandemic cuts your best-laid career plans short? 

An August report in Time Magazine indicated that 40 million jobs were lost at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, and 42 percent of them are likely gone forever. If yours counts among the lost, your best bet for finding a replacement might be to aim your career trajectory towards one of the sectors that are growing exponentially, such as artificial intelligence. 

AI has increasingly made its mark on business over the last few decades. One recent report listed nine different industries that have already been, or soon will be, majorly impacted by AI — from manufacturing and transportation to education and retail. By 2022, one in five employees can expect to be partnered with AI; studies estimate that as many as 65 percent of the students currently in school will wind up taking jobs that do not exist at present.

With jobs disappearing and technological disruption steamrolling in from the horizon, companies and workers alike have been forced to ask themselves — how can they reorganize their old skillsets for an AI-savvy job market? 

Upskilling is the most obvious and promising method at hand. By retraining workers for the future economy, employers ensure their employees stay ahead of the curve and maintain relevance amid the widespread disruption. If you have been furloughed, you may be able to take advantage of company-provided learning opportunities as part of your return to the office. 

Amazon and AT&T, for instance, have made sizable commitments to retraining initiatives. The latter company discovered that half its 250,000 employees required STEM training before shifting to new positions. 

Other companies offer education as a benefit, where they agree to pay for employees’ schooling. Amazon, for example, provides education opportunities and certification programs for employees transitioning out of the company through its Machine Learning University and further enables current workers to hone their software-development talents at Amazon Technical Academy.

Of course, many workers who have lost their jobs to the pandemic likely will not have access to corporate upskilling initiatives, nor the time and resources to go (back) to college — but that lack doesn’t leave them bereft of options.

Today, intensive academic boot camps offer working professionals the opportunity to gain marketable tech skills at a low cost within three to six months. While this type of program is best known for teaching software development, boot camps for AI adjacent sectors such as digital marketing, UX, and cybersecurity are also available. 

According to recent market reports, boot camps graduated 33,959 learners in 2019 and, as of the summer of 2019, were available in no less than 71 US cities and 38 states. 

Such programs are often well-regarded by employers. Seventy-two percent of hiring managers surveyed by HackerRank say that Bootcamp-trained professionals are “equally or better equipped for the job than other hires” and often have other desirable traits, such as a penchant for learning new skills quickly and an eagerness to take on new responsibilities. 

While it would be overly optimistic to say that a tech boot camp could fully prepare laid-off workers for a job in AI, upskilling programs may help them reframe their skills within a more tech-friendly context. 

“One of the big obstacles in a job interview, when you’re older, is that people think you’re inflexible and can’t learn new things,” Liz Beagle-Bryant, a former administrative assistant who was laid off from her job at Microsoft in 2011, told reporters for The New York Times. 

While Beagle-Bryant struggled to find a new job, she eventually landed her dream role as a document control coordinator at the public transit agency Sound Transit. The key to her success? Learning to code. 

“Coding gave me an edge. I developed a confidence I didn’t have before,” Beagle-Bryant explained. 

As Beagle-Bryant’s experience demonstrates, not all professionals need to pivot their careers to suit a highly technical, AI-focused role. Instead, they need to obtain a sturdy foundation of technical skills and recontextualize their existing experience to do jobs that would require them to interface with AI and other highly-technical platforms. 

While those entering the AI field for the first time would do well to have earned a degree in computer science or mathematics, tech giants like Apple and Google no longer see college degrees as being essential. Instead, it is a matter of having “curiosity, confidence and perseverance,” as Microsoft executive Dan Ayoub told Best Colleges, as well as adaptability to the ever-evolving field.

In other words, soft skills still matter at least as much as hard skills. The professional talents you’ve gained over a lifetime of working still have tangible value — you just need to reorganize them within a more tech-savvy skill set. Abilities like creativity, the ability to solve complex problems, and the ability to think critically will continue to be valued. Workers can gain the necessary technical skills by leveraging corporate upskilling programs, independently earning certifications, or enrolling in Bootcamp-style educations. 

As significant an impact as AI is having at present, it will only grow over time. Those who grasp that — who show curiosity, confidence, and perseverance — stand to put themselves in the best possible position to work with AI in their professional careers, rather than against it. Opportunities come through change, whether we want that change or not. AI-related careers can be a strong option for those affected by Covid-19, potentially opening up even better careers in the future.