Work and the Future

  Have you ever been asked to do something at work that you thought compromised your morals? It could be something big and dramatic like in a movie, where a worker is asked hide a report on safety even though it might mean people die or might be something more mundane. Maybe you were asked to tell your team that their jobs were safe even though you did not know if that was true, or maybe you...

How we work impacts many things including the environment and equity and income distribution as wel I and there are indications that  moving more work remote could help us achieve our societal goals. To discuss why remote work could have so many spin-off benefits, Linda Nazareth is joined on this episode by   Chase Warrington, Head of Remote at Doist.  Guest: Chase Warrington  Head of Remote, Dois...

Is there a way to turn the Great Resignation into the Great Retention? For the past year we have heard a lot about the  Great Resignation, the rush of people who are quitting jobs because they are not happy where they are, often for reasons that have nothing to do with compensation. That is leading to some good conversations within organizations about how to make people happier. To talk about some...

  This is a special episode of work and the future sponsored by Microsoft, and it is on a special topic as well, the subject of disabilities in the workforce. More specifically it is about the disclosure of disabilities because there are far more people dealing with them than is easily visible to the eye. Disabilities span a wide swathe from mobility issues through to having a chronic illness...

Is leadership training going to the wrong people? Typically organizations give leadership training it either to very senior people or those who they have identified by conventional metrics as future senior people, but maybe that is not the best way to do things. On this episode Linda Nazareth is joined by Navio Kwok Vice President of Research and Marketing at Kilberry Leadership Advisors, and Winn...

As companies scramble to find hourly-paid workers, what can companies do to attract them? One thing would be to recognize that many of their workers are dealing with considerable financial stress, and that helping them to counter that would be of mutual benefit to workers and company. To talk about that, Linda Nazareth is joined on this episode by Sabina Bhatia, Chief Customer Officer of Payactiv...

Toxic workplaces are everywhere and are frequently cited as one of the main reasons why people quit their jobs. What kind of culture allows toxic workplaces to flourish? And if you are a manager, what can you do to turn things around? To talk about how to avoid creating a toxic work culture, Linda Nazareth is joined on this episode by Charlie Sull, the Founder of Culture X and the co-author of an...

How do art and the world of work go together? If you are an artist, is that a conflict with working in a conventional environment? And if you are running an organization, is it good or bad to have artistic people working for you? The knee jerk is to say of course, we need people with creative minds so we embrace all kinds of skills, but the reality tends to be a little different.  In many organiza...

  When you hear the word ‘negotiation’ you probably think of a high stakes deal being made, but the reality is that  we all have to negotiate in our work lives as well, whether that is for a raise or a promotion, or with workers that we manage. Many people however, have never really had a chance to develop those skills. Andres Lares is the Managing Partner and CEO of the Shapiro Negotiations...

Is hybrid work the best of both worlds or the worst of it? Even before the pandemic  organizations struggled to find  the right mix of having workers in the office or elsewhere and two years into it many are still trying to find the right model of work. To talk about this options, Linda Nazareth is joined on this episode by Prof. Nicholas Bloom, economics professor at Stanford University. Prof. Bl...

How will work have to change to accommodate longer life spans? A child born today has a 50 per cent chance of living to one hundred, but even now we know the workforce is aging. In turn,  that means we need to change both organizational policies and our own actions. Ken Stern, host of the new podcast Century Lives joins us on this episode to talk through the issues as we focus on the likelihood of...

How do we give graduates the skills they need to make a decent living and give organizations the tech skills they need to operate productively?  Ryan Craig is the Managing Director of Achieve Partners and he joins us to talk about ways to give students outside of tech programs the skills needed by companies, with a view to both growing the economy and putting graduates on the path to making a soli...

What do space missions and remote work have in common? A lot as it turns out, which means that there is a lot that remote workers and those who manage them can learn from looking at what it takes for astronauts to operate effectively when so far away from their base stations. our guest on this episode is Dr. Louis Brennan, Professor of Business at Trinity Business School at the University of Dubli...

How do you not just accommodate hybrid work but actually create an effective hybrid culture? To talk about the effective strategies for doing that, we are joined on this episode by Carolyn Byer, HR Lead for Microsoft Canada who shares her experience of leading a hybrid team during the pandemic and discusses the best strategies to create and manage a hybrid culture, not just through a crisis but fo...

Virtual meetings bring people together but as they do they also shift power dynamics as compared to live meetings. Who will be the winners and losers in this virtual world? As we virtually bring people into our homes, how are we changing our work lives? And what does it all mean for diversity outcomes?  Our guest today is Laura Simpson, Chief Intelligence Officer of McCann Workgroup. She shares so...

  We put so much into our careers, trying to do our jobs well and impress management with our performance – but is that enough? The fact is that there are career skills that go beyond the scope of our job and a lot of people are not cognizant of them. Our  guest today is  Mark Herschberg, and as well as being  a startup executive for the past 20 years has taught for a class called ‘Career Suc...

All of a sudden  the term ‘The Great Resignation’ is everywhere as worker leave their jobs in droves  in the wake of the pandemic. The U.S. has seen this hit record numbers, and we have seen it in Canada and in other countries as well. There are  lots of reasons for why people are quitting, but one of the ones cited most often is that they feel unappreciated in their current positions....

If some of your workforce is ‘visible’ in an office and some are ‘invisible’ at home,  how can you ensure that everyone is treated fairly? There are many considerations for managers, particularly since hybrid work may disproportionately affect some groups of people, whether they are parents or older workers or anyone else; To talk about all of it, we are joined on this epis...

How do you bring together workers from different organization with different corporate cultures?  Combining organizations  may make sense from a business point of view, but when you do it you are often bringing together many disparate parts. Doing it effectively means crafting a communications strategy to get everyone communicating with each other, and then putting out a coherent message to the ou...

If you watch any kind of high level sports, you have to marvel at how much training it takes to get to an elite level as well as the training it takes to perform on game day. Doing things under pressure is not the same as doing them day to day in practice, and that is something to think about in the business arena as well. What are the lessons that elite athletes can give business leaders in terms...

  At one time mental health may have been a subject that organizations wanted to avoid discussing, but those days are rapidly disappearing .  With the pandemic still ongoing, this is a very difficult time for many and as it is taking a toll on mental well-being.  In turn, organizations are starting to realize that supporting their workers means supporting their productivity.   Our guest today...

It is  the fourth quarter of 2021 and we are still in a state of flux in the work world.. Companies are struggling with whether to bring everyone back to the office, there are labour shortages all over, and just what normal looks like in terms of work is not really clear. But some organizations are handling things better than others. Our guest today is Tammy Browning who is President of KellyOCG. ...

Even in a post-pandemic world, it seems unlikely that we will ever go back to an old-style workplace where everyone comes into the office on a daily basis. Work from home arrangements and hybrid workplaces will be the norm, which means we will lean on technology more heavily than ever.  The digital workplace will be our reality, but what makes an effective digital workplace?  Our guest on the epis...

With the pandemic not behind us yet, how can organizations be agile and  willing to change up how we do things, maybe several times more before we get to the end of this? And how can workers come together to get things done effectively as we go through this phase of the pandemic? Jason Brommet,  Head of Modern Work and Security Business  with Microsoft Canada. joins us on theis episode to give us...

Can you turn departing employees into loyal alumni? When a worker leaves, most companies bid them well, perhaps doing a hasty exit interview on the way out.  That, however, may be a short-sighted way to do things. Today’s guests are Dr. Alison Dachner of John Carroll University and Erin Makarius of the University of Akron, author sof a recent article n the Harvard Business Review on the subj...