Rethink Ready: What American workers think about the future of work

A sneak peek at the WorkingNation American Workers Survey on Axios

August 27, 2020

The majority of Americans (63%) believe that technology is rapidly changing the way we do our jobs, but they say the nation’s workforce doesn’t have the skills they need to keep up with those changes, according to the first WorkingNation American Workers Survey to be released on Labor Day.

Skills development is now viewed as a critical piece of the existing workforce’s thinking.

The way we work has been changing for decades and it continues to change. To be sure, in light of the pandemic, the change is accelerating and the path to future jobs and careers will look different than it did a few months ago.

We are a nation that has a robust and capable workforce that needs a new road map. This means upskilling our workforce now to ensure that each man and each woman has the skills they need in an economy that is putting more emphasis on technical skills, knowledge-based tasks, and automation than ever before.

Now is the time to point towards workforce solutions that already exist—and may need to grow larger out of necessity—and towards new solutions that are evolving out of this crisis.

How they think they should get those skills, and who should be responsible for helping them get them, is all a part of the new survey, conducted on WorkingNation’s behalf by Frank Luntz and his company, FIL.

Watch the Axios interview

Luntz presented a sneak peek of the full findings in an interview with Mike Allen, co-founder of Axios. The Axios event—The Future of Employability—was co-presented online by Microsoft and looked at how we need to embrace the future of work.

Making sure workers are ready with the skills they need for constantly changing jobs is key. It is time to #ReThinkReady.

“This is not a political issue. This is not a partisan issue. This is not based on income or education. At any time, you could lose your job because of automation or because of globalization or outsourcing, and you have to be prepared,” said Luntz.

He went on to say that policymakers and business leaders should be “working together to ensure that we are prepared for any contingency” and ensure that workers learn the skills they need. So “they can learn what they need to know to be competitive and to be prepared for college, career, and life, and that working adults are prepared for any event, and that they actually embrace the future.”

The full results of the WorkingNation American Workers Survey will be released in our new digital magazine, Inquire Within, on Labor Day, Monday, September 7.

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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.