An unprecedented upskilling challenge

A conversation with Josh Jarrett, acting executive director, SkillUp

October 13, 2020

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Millions of people remain out of work as we head into the last part of the year. A new nonprofit—born out of this economic and health crisis—is working to help workers who have lost jobs or wages find their way back into the workforce.

Rather than push workers back into jobs just like the ones they left, the SkillUp coalition gives workers the opportunity to build new skills that are needed in current and future in-demand jobs with promising career paths.

“The challenge that we’re facing is unprecedented in most of our lifetimes,” Josh Jarrett, acting executive director and executive board chair explains in this Work in Progress podcast. And, he adds, it is important to use this opportunity to arm displaced workers with the skills they need, creating opportunities for upward economic mobility.

“To solve that, it wasn’t going to be a single organization, a single government entity. We couldn’t leave the responsibility at the foot of any one organization, nor could we afford to leave it at the feet of the workers who are disproportionately be affected by the COVID economic crisis,” says Jarrett.

To that end, SkillUp has brought together an impressive coalition of 40 employers, training partners, providers, companies, tech companies, nonprofits, and philanthropies to try to “create an affordable, equitable, relevant upskilling ecosystem that works well for workers, employers, and society.”

Jarrett says, “There are millions of people who need help. And so the Skill Up Coalition is an organization that has come together to try and pull together the best of what’s available to help those individuals.”

The coalition is attacking the jobs crisis on many fronts—providing career navigation, training programs, and job opportunities “to help frontline workers secure their place in the economy of tomorrow.” The coalition is also using social media and technology to make sure those who need the help the most are hearing about the services and resources in place to help them.

WorkingNation is proud to be a part of that mission and the coalition by helping to shine the light on the partners and programs aimed at putting people in good, family-sustaining careers. As always, we’re telling the stories of programs and initiatives that are successfully attacking this jobs and upskilling challenge.

Listen here for more on SkillUp, its partners, and its mission. Or you can find the Work in Progress podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks for listening! And please subscribe.

Episode 152: Josh Jarrett, SkillUp, Acting Executive Director
Host: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Executive Producers: Joan Lynch, Melissa Panzer, and Ramona Schindelheim
Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4.0.

You can check out all the other podcasts at this link: Work in Progress podcasts

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.