Future of Work Buban

‘How are we communicating to employees the types of skills that they need?’

Reflections on the big issues shaping our workforce in the coming year from our WorkingNation Advisory Board
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We asked our WorkingNation Advisory Board to share their thoughts on the most important issues and challenges facing the workforce and the labor market in 2024.

Jill Buban is the chief growth officer for EdPlus at Arizona State University. She is one of the nation’s leading working learner experts and is passionate about increasing access to educational opportunities that make a concrete difference for these learners.

Here are her thoughts on The Future of Work 2024.

“When I think about going into 2024 and what some of the biggest challenges are to get workers going into high-paying jobs, I have to think about the connections between education and corporate America.

“How are we communicating to these employees the types of skills that they need for these jobs? Do they need a degree? Is it a micro credential? And what is that pathway to a higher-paying job?

“I think that we’re very good at building different opportunities, whether it be through some nonprofit consortiums or higher ed. We’ve built it, now how do we get them there?

“So, how are we communicating to the labor force? How are we bringing post-secondary ed and ed tech companies in this space together to identify the skills needed and demonstrate a pathway that can be communicated to employees?

We have to help adult learners succeed in their dreams of financial stability

We asked our WorkingNation Advisory Board to share their thoughts on the most important issues and challenges facing the workforce and the labor market in the coming year. Jill Buban is the chief growth officer for EdPlus at Arizona State University.

Watch Jill Buban on The Future of Work 2024

“I’ve always been focused on the adult working learner for the past couple of decades of my career and really seeing those adults be successful.

“I’m the one in the back of the Uber that talks to the driver and asks if they’re taking advantage of their benefits. I’m always asking people – my friends tell me to stop talking to the waitresses and waiters and telling them to go back to school – but I’m always thinking about how can we not only encourage the adult population to go back to school, but how can they be successful at that?

“The first step is getting an application in is the easiest step. But that success towards their dream, towards a new credential, towards more financial stability – that’s what I think about. Being able to talk about the array of offerings that are beneficial in the workforce and beneficial depending on the type of worker and their goals really keeps me going and passionate.

“So the more people we can upskill and get them situated towards a more stable life, lifestyle – the more I can feel I’m doing good in the world.”

Read more from our WorkingNation Advisory Board members on The Future of Work 2024.

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.