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What You Should Know About the Carrier Announcement

By Kristin Falzon
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In the day following President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement at the Indianapolis Carrier plant that 800 of the 1,400 jobs that were going to be shipped to Mexico will be staying, economists have had the chance to analyze the impact of the deal.

And while the short-term story may be the fact that the deal helped the workers at Carrier, the long-term story is how Trump’s tactic in this instance will impact the workforce and our economy.

What we know about what would be best for both companies and workers moving forward is to be realistic and practical about the future of work.

At the Carrier announcement Thursday, parent company United Technologies talked about investing $16 million to upgrade the plant, which can only mean bringing in the latest technologies to cut costs and increase production. If that happens, which is nothing new (we’re producing twice as much as we did in the 1980’s with 7 million fewer workers due to technology), jobs will be lost and workers who remain will have to be retrained to work with machines.

What workers and companies everywhere have to accept is that the days of monotonous, steady work are coming to an end. We all are going to have to be constant learners and problem solvers. Businesses will have to constantly learn how to remain competitive and workers will have to constantly add to their skills set.

MORE: Carrier Deal a Victory for Trump, But What Can Really Help Workers the Most?

So the biggest takeaway for the workers in this case at Carrier and in other factories and industries is, complacency is the biggest threat to your paycheck. Carrier employees get to breathe a sigh of relief for the moment, but change is still coming and hopefully this incident was the wake-up call they, and others across the country, needed to take seriously the need to get yourself ready for the future of work.

QUIZ: How FutureProof Are You? 

Here are some other stories about the Carrier fallout we found interesting:

New York Times: Trump and Carrier: How a Modern Economy Is Like a Parking Garage

Justin Wolfers, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, compares the American economy to a parking garage that is a constant state of flux, with cars (businesses) moving in and out of the garage (market).

“The deal at Carrier is akin to Mr. Trump’s intercepting a driver on his way to his car, and trying to persuade him to stay parked a little longer — perhaps by pointing to the enticing Christmas specials at the nearby stores,” he writes.

Wolfers argues that Trump should not be focusing on the businesses that are already in the parking garage, but “on the millions of potential entrepreneurs who might open the next generation of businesses.” He says the government’s best hope for creating jobs is to create a positive business climate.

Vox: Donald Trump and the Indiana Carrier factory, explained

Vox reporter Matthew Yglesias analyzes the huge PR coup for the Trump Show that’s almost certainly economically irrelevant.

CNN: The Wall Street Journal hates Trump’s Carrier deal

CNN reporter Chris Isidore breaks down The Wall Street Journal’s scathing editorial, “Trump’s Carrier Shakedown,” that argues President-elect Donald Trump pressuring the company not to move jobs is bad for the economy, and for the workers in the long run.

Bloomberg: Trump’s Consequences: Business Message From Carrier Corp. (video)

Bloomberg Stephanie Baker and Bloomberg Intelligence’s Carl Riccadonna report on “Bloomberg Surveillance.”

CNBC: Plant Workers Still Losing Jobs Tell Trump: Don’t Forget About Us

Reporters Vaughn Hillyard and Phil Helsel speak with workers at the Rexnord plant in Indianapolis near Carrier and United Technologies’ other Indiana plant in Huntington both of which are closing and moving jobs to Mexico.

Washington Post Editorial: Don’t reward companies like Carrier with tax cuts — or punish them with taxes

The Washington Post Editorial Board argues that “preserving and enhancing those competitive advantages, not selective pressure on politically unpopular business decisions, is how government can best assure growth and economic opportunity.”

Indy Star Editorial: Indiana’s skill gap leaves workers behind

The editorial cites a 2012 Georgetown University study that found that “only 42 percent of working-age adults in Central Indiana had acquired the education level they need to fill jobs in growing sectors such as the life sciences, technology and advanced manufacturing.” It then highlights a new effort, Ascend Indiana, aimed at bridging the gap between workers’ skill levels and employers’ need for talent.

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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.

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