Future of Work Ater

‘There is a big miss in solving the problem of trying to reach the large underserved community of people who have a visible disability’

Reflections on the big issues shaping our workforce in the coming year from our WorkingNation Advisory Board
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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 2024.

Matt Ater is the vice president of Vispero, legally blind, and an advocate for the rights of the disabled in the workforce. Here are Matt’s thoughts on the future of work in 2024.

Here are his thoughts on The Future of Work 2024.

“I think that we have made some improvements in terms of awareness when it comes to large corporations investing in people with disabilities. I think there’s also a push that’s very focused on counting the number of people with disabilities that you have within your workplace, rather than just looking to make sure that your jobs are more accessible so that you can hire more people with disabilities.

“A lot of companies want to get credit for hiring people with disabilities – which I think is great and they should get credit for that – but the big cultural shift, up to this point, has been more about how can we get everybody to self-identify and how can we get more people counted in that number.

“What that means is that you’re self-identifying folks who maybe are not visible in the community, which is fine, whereas a big chunk of folks who are disabled have visible disabilities and, therefore, are counted anyway.

“I still believe there is a big miss on solving the problem of trying to reach the large underserved community of people who have a visible disability and corporations need to still invest heavily in this space including creating more accessible methods for applying for jobs, recruiting, onboarding, and overall employment, and the accessibility of employment settings.

“While I think that we’ve done a nice job in terms of some improvements, I still think that we have a long way to go.”

There’s a big miss in adequately reaching workers and job seekers with a visible disability

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. Matt Ater is the vice president of Vispero, legally blind, and an advocate for the rights of the disabled in the workforce.

Watch Matt Ater on The Future of Work 2024

Read more from our WorkingNation Advisory Board members on The Future of Work 2024.

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.