“We have an unemployment crisis. Now what?”

Jewish Journal cover story on solutions to the jobless crisis by WorkingNation

July 10, 2020

For the past five years, WorkingNation’s team of business leaders, educators, journalists, and storytellers has crisscrossed the country to learn all we can about solutions to the employment issues caused by a mismatch between the skills an employer wants and the skills jobseekers have.

We’ve shared the stories of programs and initiatives that are working to close that gap here on our website and in interviews and appearances at conferences.

In the wake of COVID-19, the issue has become even more urgent, with tens of millions of people losing their jobs and facing uncertain financial futures. In the latest edition of the Jewish Journal, we take a close look at what experts are saying now about what needs to be done to get people back to work, both for economic reasons and for emotional reasons.

Here are two off the many takeaways in the article We Have an Unemployment Crisis. Now What?:

“…there are going to be some bigger, longer-term changes in the workforce in the coming months as the country tries to restart the economic engine. Even jobs we don’t historically think of as being technologically oriented will be impacted, such as jobs in retail and hospitality. These industries will be looking for workers with tech and digital skills that enable them to multitask in new ways.”

“Upskilling is key to rebuilding the workforce and, importantly, making certain unemployed workers are able to find good jobs and careers, and a sense of purpose.”

You can read more about the changing workforce in the article written by our Editor-in-Chief Ramona Schindelheim at the Jewish Journal website.

Ramona was also the guest on the Jewish Journal’s Pandemic Times podcast, joining publisher David Suissa to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on employment and how upskilling can help address the crisis.

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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.