Educational providers can’t fill the needs for talent on their own. That from WorkingNation president Jane Oates. She says educators, employers, and nonprofits have to collaborate better and communicate better in order to move people into unfilled jobs and good-paying careers.
WorkingNation sat down with Oates at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2021 in Beverly Hills as part of our #WorkingNationOverheard interview series. With Charting a New Course as the guiding theme, thought leaders and innovators shared ideas about the changing economy, worker development, education, tech, philanthropy, and more.
Oates notes that the U.S. has the “best higher education system in the world,” but she adds, “We need to really concentrate better on linking those people that we train for entry-level jobs to higher-level C-suite jobs.”
“We need to build partnerships from the high school to the community college to baccalaureate and graduate programs, so we’re ensuring an immediate job for those who need it, but also a clear pathway into higher-paying jobs with better titles and more flexibility.”
Oates also says getting out the word about education and training opportunities requires finding new ways to communicate, including the use of social media. “I think too often we talk to ourselves. The same people go to conferences. The same people go to meetings. The same people are excluded from those events.”
She adds that we need to be spreading the word in alternative places. “We need to be looking at places we haven’t looked at before – Boys and Girls Clubs, churches, community organizations, basketball leagues, sports organizations. We need to make sure that not only young people are getting the idea, but they’re taking those ideas home to their parents and they’re talking about them at the kitchen table.”
Follow the conversation on social media: #WorkingNationOverheard #WorkingNation #MIGlobal
© Copyright 2024 by Structural Unemployment, LLC dba WorkingNation
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.
