WIP-Josh-Davies

The pandemic exposed cracks in our workforce development ecosystem

A conversation with Josh Davies, CEO, Center for Work Ethic Development
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There’s a lot of discussion around the challenges workers and jobseekers are going to face in 2021 as we navigate a jobs recovery that lifts up everyone.

So many questions: Do workers have the skills they need for the jobs that will be coming back? Are workers getting the training they need to compete for those jobs? Who is responsible for that training-employers or workers themselves? How do we make certain that the education and hiring doesn’t leave any group of jobseekers behind?

We don’t have all the answers. No one does. But we definitely need to be talking about this.

Last month, during the Pasadena City College 2020 Future of Work Virtual Conference—which I co-hosted with Salvatrice Cummo, executive director of PCC EWD—we saw a presentation on the state and future of the workforce from Josh Davies, the CEO of the Center for Work Ethic Development.

I thought it was pretty comprehensive, so I asked Davies to be the guest on this, my final podcast of 2020, to discuss the presentation. I think you’ll find it does a good job of summing up where we are and what we need to be doing moving forward.

You can listen to the podcast here, or download it wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also watch the 2020: Foresight, Not Hindsight presentation for yourself.

Thanks for listening in 2020. See you back here on January 4, 2021, with a brand new podcast.

Download the transcript for this podcast here.

Episode 161: Josh Davies, CEO, Center for Work Ethic Development
Host: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Executive Producers: Joan Lynch, Melissa Panzer, and Ramona Schindelheim
Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4.0.

You can check out all the other podcasts at this link: Work in Progress podcasts

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.