WorkforceRx

“It's hard to bring what happens in the living room and the dining room into the boardroom,” says Paurvi Bhatt, board director of the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers and corporate executive. "I don't think we can do that anymore." Put another way, most of us are providing care to a loved one, and being open about that with colleagues, she thinks, can create a culture of understanding that...

“One of the trends that we'll see in 2023 is a reimagining of benefits. You'll see more employers thinking about how they can meet an employee where they are so they feel valued,” says Dr. Angela Jackson, who is the embodiment of a future-focused leader in workforce development. Employers would also be wise to understand the lived realities of employees in order to address what Jackson has dubbed...

Every day, nearly five million direct care workers support older adults and people with disabilities across the United States, and the critical need for this workforce is only increasing as the proportion of people over sixty-five continues to grow dramatically. Given an existing shortage of workers and a high turnover rate in the profession due to low pay, lack of training and poor management, th...

Even if all of the unemployed people in Connecticut took one of the 109,000 open positions in the state, there would still be thousands of jobs left unfilled. What that says to Mark Argosh, chair of the Governor’s Workforce Council, is the state needs to get more people off the sidelines. “We have to be able to increase the labor force participation rate in Connecticut, and what that means is espe...

There’s mounting skepticism about the value of higher education among prospective students and their parents, causing alarm among policymakers on the implications of this trend for the quality of the future U.S. workforce and economy. A continuing sharp decline in college enrollments is perhaps the key proof point, but there are many other symptoms and causes which Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinli...

As a new school year gets underway at colleges and universities around the country, it's a good time to take stock of where higher education finds itself after several very challenging years brought on by a massive public health crisis and unprecedented economic turbulence. On this episode of WorkforceRx, Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan turns to veteran higher ed leader Dr. Marjorie Hass, Pres...

When it comes to the impact of artificial intelligence on the workforce, there is still a major split between those who worry about “robots” replacing workers, and those who think employees will benefit from AI if it is harnessed the right way. On this episode of WorkforceRx, Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan asks one of the world’s leading experts in the field, Dr. Tom Mitchell of Carnegie Mell...

There’s growing interest in the integration of oral healthcare with medical care, and there’s good reason: about 30 million Americans who visit their dentist annually do not have similar contact with a primary care provider. Our guest on this episode of WorkforceRx, Dr. Nader Nadershahi, says this presents a tremendous opportunity for an additional way to identify problems such as diabetes and hea...

What would veteran workforce training leader Jane Oates do to improve the hiring system if she had a magic wand? “I would take away all of the buts, as in ‘I would hire you, but you don’t have experience, but you have a disability, but you’re too old.’” It will not only help achieve equal access to employment, she tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, but right now employers could really use...

From building a model HIV/AIDS program in Iran to creating a long-distance program to train doctors in war-torn Syria, Dr. Kamiar Alaei has overcome daunting obstacles to make a broad impact on global health. On this inspiring episode of WorkforceRx he shares lessons learned both in the trenches of public health and the corridors of Harvard, Oxford and other top universities with Futuro Health CEO...

Johnathan Holifield spent many years deeply involved in neighborhood and community development work without really moving the needle until he discovered the game-changing nature of the innovation economy. “The stuff we were doing was good work, but we were focused on largely inelastic career opportunities versus what you find in the tech sector and innovation economy, which are elastic opportuniti...

Obstacles - from language proficiency to digital literacy to family care - make it difficult for adults to get on, and stay on, an education path towards a career they desire. Our guest on this episode of WorkforceRx, Jacque Burandt, spent decades at University Health System in San Antonio, Texas, breaking down those barriers and is here to share her recipe for creating and sustaining successful u...

As the unprecedented misalignment in the U.S. labor market between employers and workers continues, it’s a good time to take a look at the extensive federal infrastructure in place to support people seeking jobs and skills. Millions of Americans access 2,400 American Job Centers located throughout the country and its territories every year, which are powered by a network of 500 Workforce Developme...

Van Ton-Quinlivan, CEO of Futuro Health and host of the show, is also author of the best-selling book, WorkforceRx: Agile and Inclusive Strategies for Employers, Educators and Workers in Unsettled Times. In this episode, Van welcomes leading workforce and economic development experts to discuss the strategies and insights from Chapters Nine and Ten that resonated most with them. Check out their li...

What do all of the changes in healthcare wrought by the pandemic mean for the future healthcare workforce? On today’s episode of WorkforceRx, Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan draws out thoughtful answers from someone with a broad and deep view of the healthcare system. Dr. Imelda Dacones has been confronted with all of these changes -- many of which were brewing before the pandemic -- over deca...

“I did not ever think of private equity as a career option for me,” admits Dr. Adaeze Enekwechi, and not only because she saw it as a male-dominated profession. The former head of health at the Office of Management and Budget under President Obama and Ph. D. in health management expected to make a difference through public policy. But as an Operating Partner at Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe, s...

“While we believe that education is a great equalizer, in fact, it is not. There are structural inequalities in place that hold back the most talented low-income and minority youth,” says Dr. Jeff Strohl, whose research at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce focuses on equity and socio-economic differentials in outcomes. And that’s not all he has to share with Futuro He...

Van Ton-Quinlivan, CEO of Futuro Health and host of the show, is also author of the new best-selling book, WorkforceRx: Agile and Inclusive Strategies for Employers, Educators and Workers in Unsettled Times. In this episode, Van welcomes leading workforce and economic development experts to discuss the strategies and insights from Chapters Seven and Eight that resonated most with them. Check out t...

The pandemic brought a lot of new stressors for physicians, but even before COVID, there were major trends impacting doctors including burnout, adjusting to new technologies, and accommodating new roles for mid-level providers. On this episode of WorkforceRx, Laurie McGraw of the American Medical Association provides a close look at the challenges facing physicians and the support they need to ove...

You might think improving healthcare quality is largely in the hands of the clinicians providing the care, but much of this challenging work is actually done behind the scenes by professionals who focus on quality indicators. On this episode of WorkforceRx, we get an inside look at this critically important workforce from Stephanie Mercado, CEO and Executive Director of the National Association fo...

The rapidly growing presence of digital technologies in healthcare — from telemedicine, to artificial intelligence, to at-home monitoring devices — is creating demand for a skilled workforce to maximize their potential.  It is also accelerating the need for common standards to ensure the compatibility and integration of all of this tech. On this episode of WorkforceRx, we turn to Gora Datta who is...

Van Ton-Quinlivan, CEO of Futuro Health and host of the show, is also author of the new best-selling book, WorkforceRx: Agile and Inclusive Strategies for Employers, Educators and Workers in Unsettled Times. In this episode, Van welcomes some of the nation’s leading workforce development experts to discuss the strategies and insights from Chapters Five and Six that resonated most with them. Check...

The practice of impact investing -- also known as socially responsible investing – has been in place in the U.S. for decades, but more recently, a subset of that field has focused on improving economic mobility.  In this episode of WorkforceRx, Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan is joined by Tracy Palandjian, CEO of Social Finance, who is focused on reimagining the role of the capital markets in...

Van Ton-Quinlivan, CEO of Futuro Health and host of the show, is also author of the new best-selling book, WorkforceRx: Agile and Inclusive Strategies for Employers, Educators and Workers in Unsettled Times. In this episode, Van welcomes some of the nation’s leading workforce development experts to discuss which strategies and insights from Chapters Three and Four resonated most with them. Check o...

As U.S. employers continue to struggle to find workers, they may want to turn their attention to populations who have the skills they need but lack proficiency in English. This describes many people in immigrant and refugee populations who are currently overlooked by employers and make up part of what is called the “hidden workforce.” On this episode of WorkforceRx, Katie Nielson, PhD, joins Futur...