shutterstock_630500720

After nearly two decades of shaping the future of technology, Google is turning to shaping the future of work with its two-year, $50 million investment supporting nonprofit organizations already helping workers transition to the new economy.

The company’s philanthropic side, Google.org, made its announcement earlier this week and it comes on the heels of Google’s foray into the job search market. The tech giant said it is taking action now because the threat of automation, changing labor force demands and the widening skills gap has the potential to negate economic growth and push millions out of work.

Google.org president Jacqueline Fuller said in a blog post that her organization, Google and parent company Alphabet are recognizing the shifts underway in employment and are committing to expand economic opportunity to as many people as possible. So the company will use a multi-faceted approach to deliver support through funding and volunteer power to help nonprofits scale their efforts outward.

The investment is going to selected nonprofits and targets three areas: connecting workers with jobs, transforming skills education and improving the lives of low-wage workers. These nonprofits already have boots on the ground and have innovative and proven programs which have delivered results. Though the initial investment is in U.S. and Europe, with plans to expand to Canada and Australia, Google wants to make these nonprofits success felt worldwide.

Nonprofits like Code for America and Bayes Impact in France are already using the power of technology to connect workers to their local government job boards and to employers, Fuller said. The company will also lend its knowhow behind Google Jobs to help them improve their data analysis and better serve their users.

While empowering workers with better search capabilities is within Google’s DNA, securing the jobs of the future will be next to impossible without scalable and evolving methods of skills training. Google is investing in one nonprofit, Social Finance, who is working with governments in analyzing training programs for young people. Through its “Pay for Success” public-private program, Social Finance is helping policymakers understand which programs bring the most return on investment and steering money to effective, but underfunded ones.

Fuller noted that strengthening the social safety net for low-wage workers will improve their lives and provide stability through unemployment or major illnesses. Citing statistics showing an increase in low-wage service sector workers, many of which are represented in vulnerable and underserved demographics, Google said that it will invest in a program from the National Domestic Workers Alliance that serves as social insurance for these workers. NDWA’s Alia service collects small amounts of money from its pool of members and when one of them faces a crisis, the fund can help cover their rent or healthcare.

Google.org’s giant leap into philanthropic remedies to problems brought on by automation, artificial intelligence and the erosion of economic security is much for us at WorkingNation to cheer about. Google is inverting the threat of technology by investing in these nonprofits, who in turn are using Google’s technology for the betterment of society. They are proving that technology is providing solutions to overcome disruption.

Join the Conversation: What do you think of Google’s investment into the future of work? Have your say on our Facebook page.

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.