Episodes

How do you take someone with one set of skills and gret them ready for a job market that needs a completely different set of them? It is an issue that we had started to grapple with a lot before the pandemic, but the pandemic has really put it into sharp focus as some industries have waned while others have flourished. The reality is that there are skills in demand, and there are workers available, but we do need to make some tweaks before we can match the two. To talk about one possible way to ...

Over the past year we have leaned heavily on technology, but it has kind of been a love-hate relationship. We love technology it because it is cool that we can work from home, but we also get frustrated when it does not work, and we freeze up on screen, or things that are supposed to work flawlessly don’t work at all. So as much as it takes away stress, it seems to create it – or does it? Our guest today is Mohammed Chahdi who is the Director of Global HR for Dell Technologies. Dell has done som...

Our major economic problem right now is the pandemic and its offshoots, but that does not mean the economic issues we had before the pandemic have gone away. One of those issues is technology, or rather the speed of technological change and what that means for the labor market. With the fourth industrial revolution in full swing, the future may mean a very altered reality for workers, or at least some workers. We are going to need all kinds of new skills to cope with that future, and some worker...

Remote work used to be looked at with suspicion, but after nearly a year of trial by fire, everyone knows it is great – right? Actually, not right. Despite having tried it out for months, many managers still view remote work as very much second best and are counting the days until they can go back to (the old) normal. Is that because the old normal was better, or do we just need to do better when it comes to making remote work work? Will we ever change the mindset around it? With hybrid work pro...

Guest: Bretton (Brett) Putter is an expert in company culture development who is consulted by companies and leaders worldwide to help design, develop and build high-performing cultures. Company culture can be a fairly murky concept. Roughly defined as ‘how we do things’ it should be reflection of company values and it should be well-communicated to workers, but that is often not the case. Now, coming out of the pandemic, will we see a focus on creating a positive culture? How will that work wh...

Can an organization actively build a a resilient workforce? Are there ways to create resilient workers? It would seem to be to our advantage to do that: according to a study published by PwC, programs that foster a resilient and mentally healthy workplace returned $2.30 for every dollar spent, with the returns coming in the form of lower health care costs, higher productivity, lower absenteeism and decreased turnover. To talk about ways to do that and to help workers pivot with change,we are joi...

This is Episode 3 of aspecial series on Coming back Stronger sponsored by Microsoft. In our first two episodes we talked about how companies can come back stronger, and how workers can build the resilience to cope with their new stresses. Today we look much longer term and address the reality that tomorrow’s workforce will have to continuously ramp up their education and skills over their lifetimes. Accepting that that will have to happen, what role can post-secondary educations play in that? Tr...

This is episode 2 of a special 4-part special series of Work and the Future called Coming Back Stronger sponsored by Microsoft. In Episode 1 we talked about what organizations should do to come back ready for the post-pandemic world, but what about individuals? Their first task is to get through this next phase of the pandemic, and that is challenging in itself. Finding the resilience to keep going at work can seem like a difficult thing to do The pandemic is lifting our stress levels in general...

This is episode 1 of a special 4-part special series of Work and the Future called Coming Back Stronger sponsored by Microsoft. We are still fighting this pandemic but we are also seeing light at the end of the tunnel. But how are we going to come back? Can we come back stronger? Some organizations can and will, and now is the time to plan for that: to get ready for a world that is not exactly like the one we left, particularly when it comes to the workforce. To kick off the series we are joine...

The gig economy’ sometimes gets a bad rap – people hear it and they think of ride-share drivers who really want to be full time. In fact though the gig economy is a much more nuanced place, one that encompasses different kinds of gig workers, including those who are highly skilled and who very much want to work the way that they are doing. Pre-pandemic, they perhaps made up a sliver of the workforce, but there are reasons to believe that in the post-pandemic world they are going to be increasing...

With the pandemic raging and organizations in flux, is this any time to think about a vacation? In North America in particular, we have a mindset that taking vacations is a little bit lax and with the pandemic and its stresses that mindset is going into high gear. On top of that too, we can’t really travel right now, so it seems like the right thing to do to put off vacations. But is it the right thing? We don’t really need elaborate studies to tell us that working flat out is probably not the b...

Spurred by social media, intergenerational warfare seems to be on the upswing, including in the workplace. And, given the conflict and the idea that generations are working against each other we can lose sight of the fact that we could potentially gain from each other unless we make a concerted effort to do so. Our guest on today’s episode aims to do just that. Charlotte Japp, the founder of CIRKEL a platform that aims to bring people of different ages together with the aim of letting them get t...

In a world where civility is in short supply, is there a way to keep our workplaces civil? These days, politics often divides us, with feelings running deep, and the extra stress of the pandemic can bring tensions to the fore. Still, there are ways to keep things civil and to keep relationships between co-workers productive. Our guests today are the brains behind something called ‘The Civility Project’, and they have concrete ideas on how to do all of that, even at times when it seems like it is...

The gig economy gets a lot of negative press, but is it actually a bad thing? Although some think it is synonymous with income insecurity and bad management practices, in fact for many it is the way they choose to work. For professional workers who have in-demand skills, working on a gig basis rather than accepting one job can be more lucrative and give them more control of their time. For employers, using gig workers allows them the right workers to do the work they need rather than pay workers...

We are getting close to a vaccine for Covid-19 and a return to something approaching normal in the workforce. But will normal look like for companies? And how should companies plan for the post-pandemic future of work? Our guest today is Cathryn Barnard a Partner at ‘Working the Future’ which is UK based consultancy firm helping businesses with organisational future-proofing.’ She has been working with companies to talk about how they should position themselves to be ready for the world post-the...

Are you afraid of unemployment or are you sure you are forever employable? As the economic outlook becomes increasingly uncertain, many people would put themselves in the first category but would certainly like to be in the second. Our guest today is Jeff Gothelf, author of ‘Forever Employable: How to Stop Looking for Work and Let Your Next Job Find You’ and he believes you can be, by cultivating your strengths, growing your personal brand and figuring out how to monetize your expertise. For som...

We are re-imagining everything else, so maybe we need to imagine the office as well. The physical office we are familiar with has its roots in designs first imagined a hundred years ago, with a bit of a Dilbert-style reboot thrown in during the 1950s. Now, as we think about physical safety as well productivity, how should we re-design offices? Is there a way to physically work together and not spread any kinds of viruses? is booking desks any better than working in a cubicle? And does any of thi...

Are there things that animals can tell us about how to cope wth work stress and ultimately how to work better? Our guest today is a psychotherapist with a passion for horses, and she has found a way to marry the two together. As she points out in this episode, human beings are mammals, but they are mammals who do not do a good job of being attuned to their own needs and acting on them. At a time when many of us feel that our lives are not completely in control, it may be time to take a cue from ...

Six months into the pandemic and with more months to come, most workers are coping but not without difficulty. Whether it is stress about being home and isolated, or stress about going back to work and possibly getting sick, a lot of people are under strain, and there are indications that that strain could last for years after the pandemic is over. Is there a way to avoid the stress, or at least to manage it? From asking for help when needed (not always an easy thing to do) to dealing with the a...

It may have been a bit of a struggle to make it work, but the pandemic has forced many companies to keep their teams intact even when they are not under the same roof. As workers have de-camped to far-flung places, perhaps permanently, we are struggling with what the future of cities will be, and what offices will look like in future too. But there is another questions that goes with that, and it is how we should compensate people. If your team members are in different places, with different cos...

What does flexible work mean to you? It might mean leaving a few minutes early to catch your kid’s soccer game, or it might mean totally restructuring your job so you can travelfor a few months. In both cases, however, employers have traditionally been hesitant to open up the floodgates and embrace too much of it. Our work-lives have tended to be defined by barriers that set up when and where we work, and although there has been some fraying around the edges, for decades there has been reluctanc...

The school year is starting and the pandemic is not ending and Generation Z will have to deal with that. In fact, they will probably have to deal with the impact of the pandemic for years as the effects of it shape the way that they approach their lives and careers. But never mind the future: right now their parents are trying to figure out how to configure their own work with the educational needs of their children. It is a work in progress. Our guest today is Rebecca Holmes, who is the Presid...

It is something you hear about a lot – the need to be innovative. We hear that innovation is the key to economic growth, or the companies need to encourage innovation – but what does that really mean? Our guest on today’s episode is Anders Haugeto who is the founder of a company called Iterate which is a tech company whose main purpose it to become more innovative. He believes there are actionable things you can do to be more innovative, and that by doing them you can improve your own company’s ...

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is in full swing and according to the World Economic Forum, the transformation it imposes on us will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. For business to weather this revolution and come out on the right side of it will take the right leadership, particularly as this revolution intersects with the pandemic. To talk about how that can happen, we are joined on this episode by Jeffrey Russell , who is the President of Accenture Canada. We talk about ...