‘It is incumbent on the workforce community to ensure that our nation’s most vulnerable – and older job seekers – are in the front line of this transformation’

Reflections on The Future of Work 2023 from WorkingNation Advisory Board member Gary Officer

December 27, 2022

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.

Gary A. Officer is a seasoned social entrepreneur and founder of CWI Labs, a nonprofit that champions innovative, inclusive workforce development programs.

He recently wrote about the challenges ahead for the American worker– particularly the older worker – for CWI Labs. Here is an excerpt for our The Future of Work 2023 series.

“The tight labor market and the corresponding shift to a increasingly hybrid workforce has created a unique window of opportunity for older workers. A recent Forbes magazine article by Luciana Paulise noted that ‘[a] Gallup survey in June of 2022 found that 8 in 10 people are working hybrid or remote, while only 2 in 10 are entirely on-site. And an AT&T study found the hybrid work model is expected to grow from 42% in 2021 to 81% in 2024.’

The inevitability of the gathering momentum towards a total transformation in our relationship to our jobs – and how and where we perform our tasks – will require a new set of technological and digital skills for employees to be successful. For low-income and older workers, this will require a renewed investment in workforce training.

One example of a unique approach being undertaken is the Center for Workforce Inclusion’s Digital Certification Program (DCP). This program is targeted to low-income job seekers aged 55-and-over who have made the decision to return to work, but who lack the digital skills for today’s job market.

The DCP is designed to meet the job seeker at their current skill level, to provide digital and technological training and, once completed, to assist the individual in securing a job. Job seekers who finish the DCP training will have the skills and tools to compete for employment opportunities that afford the opportunity to work from home.

In 2023 the U.S workforce development community must provide our nation’s job seekers with the tools to compete and succeed within our fast-evolving workforce. The timing for such development efforts could not be any better.

The movement towards certifications and industry recognized credentials as evidence of skills preparedness – in conjunction with the deemphasizing of college degrees as the gold standard for job readiness – is gradually transforming our nation’s hiring practices.

It is therefore incumbent on the workforce community to ensure that our nation’s most vulnerable – and older job seekers – are in the front line of this transformation. There are millions of American job seekers who are relying on us to get this right.”

You can read the full article here at CWILabs.org.

You can read all The Future of Work 2023 articles from our WorkingNation Advisory Board here.

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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.