A new report from the U.S. Federal Reserve System – Worker Voices – examines how job seekers and workers in lower-wage roles navigated the labor market throughout the pandemic.
“[The] project was really an effort to elevate the voices of individuals who are workers or job seekers and understand how they’re navigating the labor market right now,” says Ashley Putnam, director, Economic Growth and Mobility Project, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
WorkingNation sat down with Putnam at JFF Horizons in New Orleans.
Putnam notes, “We learn they’re really shifting their expectations. They’re looking for better quality jobs. They’re looking for jobs that provide them career pathways. They’re looking for jobs that treat them with dignity – something many of us would want in any job we would have.”
She explains that many workers who were interviewed for the project were lower-wage workers who performed frontline jobs during the pandemic.
Putnam says, “Workers are also really looking to understand how they’re being managed. I think a lot of this work actually may be about the managers of frontline workers.”
She adds there were some unexpected responses from workers, “One of the things that was really surprising was the number of people who are willing to leave the labor market entirely and start a business or pursue entrepreneurship because they’re not finding economic opportunity within the job market. I think there’s some concern there that we really should be creating a job market where everybody can have access to opportunity. And the answer isn’t, ‘I’m just going to work for myself.’”
Learn more about Worker Voices here.
Learn more about the Economic Growth and Mobility Project, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
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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.
