Work In Progress

In this Work in Progress episode, we bring you our final WorkingNation panel from the SXSW EDU 2023 conference last month in Austin. Companies increasingly understand the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, in the workplace. Now, the principle of DEI has expanded to DEIA, including accessibility for people with disabilities. That’s important because people with physical or neur...

In this Work in Progress podcast, we take a look at obstacles workers 55 and older face in today's labor market. The reality is that older adults do face discrimination in society and the workforce. Older workers – particularly older women of color – have been shut out of job opportunities and, as a result, live with increased economic uncertainty. We need to start changing the narrative around ho...

In this episode of the Work in Progress podcast, we return to Austin to bring you another panel from the SXSW EDU conference earlier this month. Today, 65% of jobs require some education beyond high school. In the U.S., 62% of working-age adults do not have a degree. Together, these numbers illustrate why we have a skills gap; we need to help more Americans upskill to find sustainable employment....

In this episode of the Work in Progress podcast from SXSW EDU in Austin, I am joined by Patti Constantakis of Walmart.org, Bridgette Gray of Opportunity@Work, and Kenny Nguyen of ThreeSixtyEight in a discussion about how to create better access to good jobs for people without a bachelor's degree. A four-year college degree can be a ticket to a good job and a great career, but it's not for everyone...

Last month, I attended the annual Consumer Electronics Show, CES in Las Vegas, and there I met innovators with tech solutions for workforce challenges, including Stephen Bailey. He's the co-founder and CEO of ExecOnline and my guest on this week's Work in Progress podcast. ExecOnline is a leadership development platform that uses technology to democratize how companies build their talent and grow...

In this episode of Work in Progress, Guild Education's Terrence Cummings joins me to discuss his new role as the company's chief opportunity officer. A lot of this work has been underway at Guild for some time with Cummings leading the way for the last few years, he explains. It's now being more formalized and elevated with the new leadership role. Cummings will be working to ensure tangible and m...

My guest on this week's Work in Progress podcast is Bárbara Gómez, Ph. D., the associate director of the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative (SLEI). Dr. Gómez joins me to discuss the eighth annual State of Latino Entrepreneurship (SOLE) report released this morning. Gómez is one of the principal investigators of the new SLEI report which shows that Latino-owned businesses (LOBs) continue t...

My guest this week on the Work in Progress podcast is Mike May, who holds the title of chief evangelist at GoodMaps, a tech company helping the visually impaired navigate large venues such as convention centers, universities, hotels, and rail stations. "We take the outdoor navigation that everybody's used to and turn it into turn-by-turn navigation with GPS indoors. We do outdoors, but for most pe...

Lumina Foundation has long advocated for the goal of 60% of Americans earning college degrees or other high-quality credentials beyond high school by 2025. In this episode of Work in Progress, Courtney Brown, vice president of strategic impact and planning for Lumina Foundation, joins me with an update on the nation's progress toward that goal. "We advocate for learning beyond high school. We talk...

In this episode of Work in Progress, Jennifer Goldsack, CEO of the Digital Medicine Society, joins me from CES 2023 – the Consumer Electronics Show – earlier this month to discuss how technology is changing the skills needed in one of the most in-demand industries: health care. From nurses accessing digital medical records to checkups via Zoom to interpreting flows and streams of data, nearly ever...

For this episode of Work in Progress, I headed to Las Vegas for CES 2023, the huge Consumer Electronics Show. As usual, there were thousands of cool new consumer products on display, including a wireless OLED TV at the LG booth, all kinds of at-home health care products, and a robot that was roaming the showroom floor apparently on its own. That was all very interesting, of course, but I was mostl...

In this episode of the Work in Progress podcast, I'm joined by Maureen Conway, Aspen Institute VP and Executive Director of the Institute's Economic Opportunities Program to discuss what makes a job a good job. The Aspen Institute's Economic Opportunities Program is focused on policies, strategies, and ideas that help people across the county build better livelihoods and better lives. One of the p...

In this episode of Work in Progress, Gary Shapiro, president & CEO of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), joins me to talk about the world’s biggest tech event – the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2023 – underway this week in Las Vegas. More than 100-thousand people are expected at CES to get a look at what’s ahead for us in 2023 and beyond from more than 1,000 exhibitors. "What we're goin...

In this episode of Work of Progress, Dr. Jill Buban, general manager and VP of EdAssist by Bright Horizons, joins me to discuss the impact of employer-offered education benefits on closing the labor shortages in health care and other industries. Industry experts have been sounding the alarm about the staffing shortages in health care for decades, and that shortage has evolved into a crisis followi...

In this episode of Work in Progress, Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute, joins me to discuss the how changing skills are disrupting the way we work, and what every job seeker and employer should do next. In a report released December 1, How Skills are Disrupting Work, the Burning Glass Institute looks at how fast-emerging skills are disrupting the labor market. "These four ski...

Entrepreneurship is part of the American Dream and it is booming. A record 5.4 million new businesses were started last year, as workers across the country struck out on their own, searching for a different path to a fulfilling career and economic mobility. But that road isn't always a smooth one for some new business owners who hit roadblocks such as access to financial capital, lack of a strong...

Entrepreneurship is part of the American Dream and it is booming. A record 5.4 million new businesses were started last year, as workers across the country struck out on their own, searching for a different path to a fulfilling career and economic mobility. But that road isn't always a smooth one for some new business owners who hit roadblocks such as access to financial capital, lack of a strong...

Entrepreneurship is part of the American Dream and it is booming. A record 5.4 million new businesses were started last year, as workers across the country struck out on their own, searching for a different path to a fulfilling career and economic mobility. But that road isn't always a smooth one for some new business owners who hit roadblocks such as access to financial capital, lack of a strong...

Entrepreneurship is part of the American Dream and it is booming. A record 5.4 million new businesses were started last year, as workers across the country struck out on their own, searching for a different path to a fulfilling career and economic mobility. But that road isn't always a smooth one for some new business owners who hit roadblocks such as access to financial capital, lack of a strong...

It's National Disability Employment Awareness Month and this October we've been highlighting organizations that are on a mission to help people with disabilities join the workforce. First, let me acknowledge that technical difficulties and a bit of a bug got the best of me this week. The audio quality on my part of the latest podcast is not the best – and I'm a bit under the weather, so no chance...

In this episode of Work in Progress, I'm joined by Todd Greene, executive director of WorkRise, a research-to-action network on jobs, workers, and economic mobility. Greene is also an institute fellow with the Urban Institute which hosts the WorkRise initiative. We discuss rethinking and reframing how we value workers. Greene explains the research-to-action mission. "WorkRise is really about...tak...

In this episode of Work in Progress, David Socolow, executive director of the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and Tracy Palandjian, CEO and co-founder of Social Finance join me to discuss a new, first-of-its-kind state workforce development project which is financing training for family-sustaining careers. The New Jersey Pay It Forward Program is a partnership between the...

In this episode of Work in Progress, Opportunity@Work CEO and co-founder Byron Auguste joins me to discuss the new Tear the Paper Ceiling ad campaign launched last week by Opportunity@Work, the Ad Council, and nearly 50 partner organizations, including WorkingNation. Approximately 70 million U.S. workers have in-demand skills and experience, but they are being overlooked for higher-wage jobs becau...

In this episode of Work in Progress, I speak with Charlotte Gossett Navarro, chief director of the Hispanic Federation Puerto Rico about efforts to rebuild and revitalize the island territory five years after the worst storm in its recent history. Almost five years to the day, Hurricane Fiona slammed into Puerto Rico this weekend, causing massive flooding and knocking out power to the entire islan...

In this episode of Work in Progress, WorkingNation founder & CEO Art Bilger and WorkingNation president Jane Oates join me to discuss how the labor market and workforce priorities continue to evolve after two-and-a-half years of global disruptions. September marks the sixth anniversary of the launch of WorkingNation, the nonprofit media organization founded by Art Bilger focused on the evolution t...