Work In Progress

In this episode of Work in Progress, Alison Ascher Webber, director of strategic initiatives, U.S., with EdTech Center @ World Education, joins me to discuss adult digital literacy. Digital literacy is an essential skill for today's workforce, yet 30 millions of adults are still struggling to learn basic technology and one in five Americans still don't have internet access. The digital divide rema...

In this episode of Work in Progress, I'm talking about dual mission institutions with Carrie Besnette Hauser, Ph. D., president and CEO of Colorado Mountain College in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, and Marion Fedrick, president of Albany State University in Albany, Georgia. Here’s a phrase you’ll hear us say a lot at WorkingNation: "the best solutions to education and workforce issues are local." Th...

In this episode of Work in Progress, Stan Ball, vice president and chief litigation counsel for Eaton Corporation, and I discuss tearing down barriers to employment for people with a criminal record. There are more than 80 million people in the U.S. – one in three Americans – has some type of criminal record. Even when it includes only a misdemeanor arrest or conviction, that record poses a signif...

In this episode of Work in Progress, Dr. Mardy Leathers, director of the Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development discusses an innovative new career training program available to all the state's high school juniors and seniors. More on the new Launch Missouri's Workforce initiative a little later, but first an update on how the state's workforce has bounced back from the j...

In this episode of Work in Progress, my guest is Maria Heidkamp, director of program development and a senior research the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. Long-term unemployment continues to be a long-term problem for the nation's oldest job seekers. In June, more than a quarter of job seekers over the age of 55 were out of work for more than 27 weeks, according to...

In this episode of Work in Progress, my guest Josh Christianson and I discuss continuing efforts to increase inclusion and accessibility in the workforce for people with disabilities, both physical and cognitive. Christianson is the inclusion and accessibility lead at Wheelhouse Group and also serves as the project director for the Partnership on Inclusive Apprenticeship (PIA). In both roles, he w...

In this episode of Work in Progress, Code.org founder and CEO Hadi Partovi and I discuss a call to action aimed at the nation's governors, asking them to make computer science part of the basic K-12 curriculum in every U.S. school. Right now, the United States has over 700-thousand open computing jobs, but only 80-thousand computer science majors graduating from college each year. In high school,...

In this episode of Work in Progress, SHRM president & CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., joins me to discuss the movement toward skills-based hiring, how hiring managers and employers are navigating this shift, and what job seekers can do to increase their chances of getting hired. In my conversation with Taylor, we discuss how employers and hiring managers can better signal the skills they are looking fo...

In this episode of Work in Progress, as the Horizons 2022 conference kicks off in New Orleans, I speak to Jobs for the Future (JFF) president and CEO Maria Flynn. There's a shift in thinking about the path to career success. There's a growing awareness that four-year degrees don't have to be the gold standard, that skills and credentials are just as important, maybe more so for starting or advanci...

In this episode of Work in Progress, CompTIA president and CEO Todd Thibodeaux discusses the continuing unmet high demand for tech talent across all industries and what is stopping more people from taking the career plunge. There are about 10 million people in the tech industry in the U.S. Half work for full-on tech companies, but sometimes not even in a tech role – think customer service, adminis...

In this episode of Work in Progress, we take a look at the challenges the midcareer workforce faces in a labor market reshaped by a health pandemic. The majority of the long-term unemployed are over the age of 45. A majority of hiring managers admit hesitating when it comes to hiring an older worker, fearing they don't have the necessary skills for today's jobs and are not tech-adaptable. Converse...

In this episode of Work in Progress, we examine the critical issue of closing the digital divide in the Hispanic community. Hispanic workers are 14% of overall workers, but represent 35% of workers with no digital skills and 20% of those with limited digital skills. Digital skills are crucial to obtaining gainful employment and resources to support their families. In March, WorkingNation partnered...

In this episode of Work in Progress, my guest is Ai-jen Poo, president of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA). We got the chance to sit down together at the Milken Institute Global Conference last week in Beverly Hills to discuss the status of domestic workers in today's workforce. The NDWA supports policies and programs designed to give the nearly 2.5 million nannies, housecleaners, and...

In this episode of Work in Progress, we take a closer look at cities that are creating tech innovation centers outside of the traditional hubs of Silicon Valley and Boston. In March, WorkingNation partnered with SXSW EDU to bring together a fantastic panel looking at the subject: Building Innovation Hubs Outside of Silicon Valley. PBS Newshour anchor and senior correspondent Hari Sreenivasan moder...

In this episode of Work in Progress, columnist and author Kerry Hannon discusses her new book, In Control at 50+: How to Succeed in the New World of Work, which examines how changes in the workforce – accelerated by COVID – are impacting older, midcareer workers. This is a space Kerry Hannon knows a lot about. She's a renowned expert in the employment and workplace space, writing and speaking abou...

Friday is Earth Day. So, in this episode of the Work in Progress podcast, we want to look at how protecting and repairing the environment is not just good news for our planet, it is also good news for the American worker. The demand for workers with green skills rose dramatically last year in all industries – from tech to health care to the skilled trades – and is projected to grow even more this...

We did so many great interviews about how Tulsa is shifting its economy to become a more tech-centric innovation hub, we couldn't get them all into our 5-part Destination Tulsa: Tech Hub in the Heartland series in February and March. So, we decided to share some of them in a special bonus episode today. What does it take to reinvent a community, revive a local economy, and reinvigorate a workforce...

In this episode of Work in Progress, Kathleen deLaski, Education Design Lab founder and CEO discusses the Lab's new report: Skills Visibility: Why and How a Skills-Based Economy can be More Equitable. We had a great conversation on the profound shift to a skilled-based economy and how it it is changing the relationship between (l)earners -(a combination of learners and earners), employers, and lea...

After two years virtual, SXSW EDU 2022 was back in person in Austin earlier this month! It was an amazing four days of amazing conversations. By far, one of the most inspiring ones for me was the one I had on the Cognizant Foundation podcast stage with three women whose career paths have been changed by tech training programs that opened the doors for them in an industry that hasn't always been th...

What does it take to reinvent a community, revive a local economy, and reinvigorate a workforce? In this five-part Work in Progress podcast series – Destination Tulsa: Tech Hub in the Heartland – we look at how Tulsa, Oklahoma, is embracing in-demand tech industries to do just that. At the heart of the effort is a strong foundation of education, entrepreneurship, health care tech, energy tech, and...

What does it take to reinvent a community, revive a local economy, and reinvigorate a workforce? In this five-part Work in Progress podcast series – Destination Tulsa: Tech Hub in the Heartland – we look at how Tulsa, Oklahoma, is embracing in-demand tech industries to do just that. At the heart of the effort is a strong foundation of education, entrepreneurship, health care tech, energy tech, and...

What does it take to reinvent a community, revive a local economy, and reinvigorate a workforce? In this five-part Work in Progress podcast series – Destination Tulsa: Tech Hub in the Heartland – we look at how Tulsa, Oklahoma, is embracing in-demand tech industries to do just that. At the heart of the effort is a strong foundation of education, entrepreneurship, health care tech, energy tech, and...

What does it take to reinvent a community, revive a local economy, and reinvigorate a workforce? In this five-part Work in Progress podcast series – Destination Tulsa: Tech Hub in the Heartland – we look at how Tulsa, Oklahoma, is embracing in-demand tech industries to do just that. At the heart of the effort is a strong foundation of education, entrepreneurship, health care tech, energy tech, and...

What does it take to reinvent a community, revive a local economy, and reinvigorate a workforce? In this five-part Work in Progress podcast series – Destination Tulsa: Tech Hub in the Heartland – we look at how Tulsa, Oklahoma, is embracing in-demand tech industries to do just that. At the heart of the effort is a strong foundation of education, entrepreneurship, health care tech, energy tech, and...

In this episode of Work in Progress, Opportunity@Work senior vice president, Insights, Papia Debroy and I discuss Rise with the STARs, a new report from the nonprofit. If you are not familiar with the term STARs, it is a word championed by Opportunity@Work to describe the more than 70 million workers who are Skilled Through Alternative Routes. "There are a lot of different pathways by which our wo...