As we continue efforts to recover from the pandemic, business leaders are looking for several things as they hire, according to Joseph B. Fuller, professor of management practice at Harvard Business School. A combination of hard and soft skills, and more diverse, inclusive workforce.
Fuller says companies need to be proactively thinking about who they are looking to add to their payroll. “Employers have to accept the fact that candidates aren’t just going to drop out of the sky and be available to them with a skills profile they want. Willing to work for what they’re prepared to pay.”
“Companies needed to adopt a supply chain management-type approach to this. Meaning, they’ve identified sources of people with the skills that fit their needs. They’ve cultivated a relationship with that group. Whether it’s a skills intermediary at community college or private sector training company. They’ve thought ahead about what their demands are for skills and that they’re not constantly relying on the spot market for labor to fill urgent needs.”
Fuller also notes that learning with long-term social impact should start at an early age. “If you look at the way we approach education in K through 12, we don’t design our curriculum to cause people to develop better social skills starting in the earliest part of their educational cycle.”
“We don’t design curriculums to emphasize the types of social skills that are really going to be critical to getting on pathways, to good paying jobs, and keeping them in the future. It’s a big opportunity for innovation in both education and the commercial space.”
Click here to learn more about Harvard Business School.
WorkingNation—a collaborating partner of the ASU+GSV Summit—sat down with Fuller in San Diego as part of our #WorkingNationOverheard social media series.
Hear from more innovators in education and tech in the public, private, and nonprofit spheres attending the ASU+GSV Summit 2021 here.
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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.