Steve Lee Skillup Coalition

Given the unmet demand for workers, older workers should be viewed as a tested asset

Lee: “You're going to get kick-ass workers.”
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With some 8 million open jobs in the United States, employers should be looking at midcareer and older workers as a tested asset when looking to recruit talent, says Steven Lee, CEO of SkillUp Coalition.

“Here’s why. They have a lot of skills and experiences that are going to benefit you as a company. Second, they’re going to bring an attitude of hard work, teamwork, and appreciation,” Lee says. “Not only are you going to get an experienced skilled worker, you’re going to have one with a really good attitude towards teamwork, hard work, et cetera, which is what you want.”

SkillUp Coalition is a nonprofit that works to connect job seekers to skills training and good-paying jobs that don’t require a college degree. The organization counts more than 100 partners, including training and education providers, employers, nonprofits and philanthropies.

Started in 2020, it first helped frontline workers displaced by the COVID-19 pandemic discover new career paths. Since then, SkillUp Coalition says it’s helped more than 44,000 workers land positions while also supporting more than 2.1 million workers.

Steven Lee spoke with me on the subject of age, particularly when it comes to older and midcareer adults in the workforce, as part of the Age in America series, a collaboration between WorkingNation and Scripps News Network which began in June.

Watch a clip from our interview below.

The top 3 reasons you should hire an older worker | Age in America | Steven Lee

As a society, there is a huge benefit to hiring midcareer and older workers. Steven Lee is the CEO of SkillUp Coalition. He calls out employers, urging them to hire these workers because it is good for the worker and good for the company. “One, they have a lot of skills and experience.

Get more of our WorkingNation Age in America articles, videos, and podcasts here.
Get more of Scripps News’ Age in America coverage here.

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.