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  • May–June 2019
  • Article
  • Harvard Business Review

Your Workforce Is More Adaptable Than You Think

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Manjari Raman, Judith K. Wallenstein and Alice de Chalendar
  • Format:Print
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Abstract

In 2018 the Project on Managing the Future of Work at HBS teamed up with the BCG Henderson Institute to survey 6,500 business leaders and 11,000 workers about the various forces reshaping the nature of work. The responses revealed a surprising gap: While the executives were pessimistic about their employees’ ability to acquire the capabilities needed to thrive in an era of rapid change, the employees were not. The employees were actually focused on the benefits that change would bring and far more eager to learn new skills than their leaders gave them credit for. This gap highlights a vast reserve of talent and energy firms can tap into: their own workers. How can a company do that? By creating a learning culture, engaging employees in the transition instead of shepherding them through it, developing an internal talent pipeline for the entire workforce, and collaborating with outside partners to build the right skills in the labor pools it hires from.

Keywords

Management; Employees; Attitudes; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation

Citation

Fuller, Joseph B., Manjari Raman, Judith K. Wallenstein, and Alice de Chalendar. "Your Workforce Is More Adaptable Than You Think." Harvard Business Review 97, no. 3 (May–June 2019): 118–126.
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About The Author

Joseph B. Fuller

Entrepreneurial Management
→More Publications

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  • Michael Lomax at UNCF By: Joseph B. Fuller, Sarah Gulick and Susie L. Ma
  • The Great Resignation Didn't Start with the Pandemic By: Joseph B. Fuller and William R. Kerr
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