Managing the Future of Work - Harvard Business School

Managing the challenges posed by the changing nature of workManaging the challenges posed by the changing nature of work   

Multiple forces of change – demographics, technology, automation, globalization – are coming together at an unprecedented pace and scale. How can leaders prepare their organization and create the workforce of the future?

Featured Reports

Healthy Outcomes

By: Joseph B. Fuller

10 JAN 2024

An analysis of employers who offer employees caregiving support services shows that there is indeed a positive return on such investments. Such support benefits help reduce absenteeism and increase the hours at work for employees struggling to balance work and caregiving responsibilities.

Skills-Based Hiring

By: Matt Sigelman, Joseph Fuller, & Alex Martin

14 FEB 2024

Closing the gap between policy and practice requires revising internal processes to increase opportunities for non-degreed workers. This more equitable form of hiring boosts employee retention while expanding the talent pool.

Podcast

Help Wanted: Workforce boards face greater demands and more strings

11 SEP 2024 | MANAGING THE FUTURE OF WORK

With legislative changes looming, federally funded boards must juggle the demands of workforce training, economic development, and long-term systemic goals while ensuring accountability to both local communities and federal oversight. Brad Turner-Little, President and CEO of the National Association of Workforce Boards, explains.

Featured Research

The Partnership Imperative: Community Colleges, Employers, & America's Chronic Skills Gap

By: Joseph B. Fuller & Manjari Raman

Dec 2022

To close America’s chronic middle skills gap, U.S. employers have to partner much more actively than in the past with local community colleges. Due to waves of disruptive automation, the nature of middle skills jobs is evolving much faster than educators’ abilities to change curriculum.

The American Opportunity Index

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Matt Sigelman, Nik Dawson, Alex Martin, and Gad Levanon

Oct 2023

Launched in 2022, the American Opportunity Index ranks corporate employers according to how well they promote economic mobility. The 2023 update offers an expanded view of how firms can bolster careers as an integral part of attending to the bottom line. The new analysis draws on almost 5 million career histories, job postings, and salary information relating to workers at Fortune 500 firms. The Index evaluates employers based on hiring, pay, promotion, parity, and culture. The 2023 AOI provides insights on the connection between promotion prospects and employee retention, the link between pay and business results, opportunities for non-college graduates, and how equitably firms promote their employees.

The Gift of Global Talent: How Migration Shapes Business, Economy & Society

By: William R. Kerr

27 May 2020

The global race for talent is on, with countries and businesses competing for the best and brightest. William R. Kerr combines insights and lessons from business, government, and individual decision making to explore the data and ideas that should drive the next wave of immigration policy and business practice.

Research Topics

Building the organization of the future

Engaging with the ecosystem

Reports

Building From the Bottom Up

By: Joseph B. Fuller & Manjari Raman

Hidden Workers: Part-Time Potential

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Manjari Raman, Eva Sage-Gavin, & Francis Hintermann

Building the On-Demand Workforce

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Manjari Raman, James Palano, Allison Bailey, Nithya Vaduganathan, Elizabeth Kaufman, Renée Laverdière, & Sibley Lovett

The Caring Company

By: Joseph B. Fuller & Manjari Raman

Faculty

Cases

Unilever's Response to the Future of Work

By: William R. Kerr, Emilie Billaud, & Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej

7 APR 2020 (Revised 28 OCT 2020)

In February 2020, Nick Dalton, executive vice president HR business transformation at Unilever, reflected on the changing nature of work marked by rapid advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation. Launched in 2016, Unilever's Future of Work initiative aimed to accelerate the speed of change throughout the organization and prepare the workforce for a digitalized and highly automated era. Despite the success over the last three years, the program still faced significant challenges in its implementation: How should Unilever, one of the world's largest consumer goods companies, adapt and accelerate the speed of change throughout the organization? Was it even possible to lead a systematic, agile workforce transformation across several geographies with local context differences? How could Unilever prepare and upscale its workforce for the future?

Catalant's Operating System for the Future of Work

By: William R. Kerr, Christopher Stanton, James Palano, & Kendall Smith

24 Feb 2020 (Revised 24 AUG 2020)

This case touches on the topics of project-based work, agile methodology, and skill and talent management through Catalant's evolution as a company. Catalant's journey to becoming a software platform and talent marketplace provides context for students to explore new models of work and ways companies are mobilizing talent internal and external to their organization. This case urges students to contemplate how these considerations might shape the critical decisions business leaders will need to make about how to manage their organizations and use their resources to capitalize on their own vision for the future. This case also provides valuable lessons for technology entrepreneurship, introduces students to important gig economy concepts, and asks students to consider the unique challenges facing companies like Catalant that are selling a gig platform as part of their product or service.

Wellthy: The Economics of Caring

By: Joseph B. Fuller, & Brian Trelstad

28 FEB 2020 (Revised 30 JAN 2024)

In 2014, Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (MBA '09) founded Wellthy, a B2C business that coordinates care for working professionals seeking help to support loved ones with chronic diseases or aging parents. With personal experience as a young professional providing care for her mother, Jurist-Rosner spotted an opportunity, given the long-term demographic trends in the United States. As she raised capital, built out a technology platform and recruited a team of care coordinators, Wellthy's growth remained slow until she piloted a B2B product with the Hearst Company. Jurist-Rosner wondered whether Wellthy should fully pivot from B2C to B2B, how fast she should ramp up the recruitment of care coordinators, and as she looked to raise another round of capital, whether she should position Wellthy as a B Corporation delivering social impact alongside commercial returns.

The Golden Triangle: Back in Business (A)

By: Joseph B. Fuller, William R. Kerr, Manjari Raman, & Donald Maruyama

08 FEB 2018

The Golden Triangle Region (GTR) is a three-county area in rural Mississippi that suffered a steep decline as manufacturing companies faced pressures from automation and overseas competition. Between the mid 1980s and late 1990s, several textile, toy, and tubing factories that accounted for a substantial share of local employment closed and forced GTR residents to make a difficult choice - leave their homes and communities behind for better employment opportunities elsewhere or stay and face a lower quality of life. GTR LINK, the local economic development agency, brought in a new leader in Joe Max Higgins, Jr in order to stem the flight of businesses from the region and offer locals the hope that they could stay and still enjoy a better tomorrow.