“There’s a labor shortage and everybody’s searching for people to take on positions,” says Sheryl WuDunn, co-founder of FullSky Partners, which advises for-profit organizations on long-term funding strategies. “We’re seeing right now, if you don’t pay enough you’re just not going to get people. It may be that (employers) have to start paying more to get those people to come join their companies.”
WorkingNation sat down with WuDunn 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.
The federal minimum wage is $7.25 and, according to WuDunn, many people don’t see a job that pays that little as a “steppingstone, unless they’re just out of high school or just out of college. That kind of job is just not uplifting to people.” She notes that jobs are more than a paycheck, that employment should give workers a sense of purpose.
She also argues that the federal government needs to do more to help low-wage workers, and that this lack of good social safety nets has lead to despair and problems such as drug addiction. “Our nation doesn’t provide the kind of net that allows people to fall into it and capture them if they lose that job. There’s no health care associated with a lot of these jobs. There isn’t any kind of support services, job search services, or childcare.”
WuDunn says career guidance should start early and it can be very impactful to make high school students aware of different options. She cites an example of programming in her Oregon town.
“The superintendent of schools recognizes that not everybody is going to go to college. What he’s done is put together a modern version of a vocational training program where he works with the local employers,” says WuDunn.
“He realizes that it is important that these students—even if they don’t graduate—will have one or two years of working in a particular area of vocational training. He recognizes that he’s got to get the level of training up for those high school kids so that when they leave the area, they can find a job in the modern world.”
Click here to learn more about FullSky Partners.
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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.
