Managing the Future of Work - Harvard Business School

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

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

Open-Enrollment Course

Leading an Agile Workforce Transformation

OCT 2020

Corporate leaders and senior decision-makers must seize the opportunities presented by rapid technological advances, shifting demographics, and new employment models to ensure today's businesses endure in the future. To build and maintain competitive advantage, businesses must recognize and manage the risks, while also capitalizing on the changing nature of work, workplace organization, and the workforce itself. This program will help you make the right moves today to develop and sustain the agile workforce you will need tomorrow.

Research

The Caring Company

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Manjari Raman

How Employers Can Cut Costs And Boost Productivity By Helping Employees Manage Caregiving Needs

The Gift of Global Talent

By: William R. Kerr

Room to Grow

By: Joseph Fuller and Matthew Sigelman

Identifying New Frontiers for Apprenticeships

Research Topics

Building the organization of the future

Engaging with the ecosystem

Faculty

Podcast

Prudential’s long position on skills: fostering careers while embracing automation

04 Dec 2019 | Managing the Future of Work

Financial Services giant Prudential is pursuing a hybrid workforce strategy. It’s all-in on automation for underwriting and other data-intensive, but routine, tasks. And it looks to the labor market for certain in-demand skills. But, according to vice chairman Robert Falzon, the New Jersey-based multinational is committed to cultivating the capabilities of its 50,000 employees. Many of its workers are also its financial services customers. This, along with low unemployment in the industry, helps explain why Prudential is working to develop its internal market for skills, identifying both supply (workers) and demand (jobs) in terms of competencies, expertise, and attributes, rather than experience and general categories. Falzon explains how this symbiotic approach leads the company to pursue efficiencies as it also looks to foster the careers of its home-grown talent.

Cases

Vodafone: Managing Advanced Technologies and Artificial Intelligence

By: William R. Kerr & Emer Moloney

19 FEB 2018

Vodafone was operating in the fast-moving telecommunications market where innovation and scale were key. Faced with an onslaught of technological advances-big data, automation and artificial intelligence-CEO Vittorio Colao reflected on how he should change the organization to incorporate these advancements to improve the way the functions work, how to incorporate machine learning and artificial intelligence that de facto improve productivity and slash costs and what can he could do to give back to society and make sure that new opportunities were created for the new generation.

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Transformation at ING (A): Agile

By: William R. Kerr, Federica Gabrieli, & Emer Moloney

15 JAN 2018

In December 2017, Vincent van den Boogert, CEO of ING in the Netherlands, was reflecting upon the company's "agile" transformation, a reorganization of work which had been critical to respond to and exceed rapidly changing customer expectations. Launched in 2015 at the head office, agile had spread to the rest of the Dutch organization, from client services to the branch network, and permeated the overall company culture. It was now time to rollout the transformation to other units of the ING Group, but some questions remained: could agile be as successful in other countries as it had been in the Netherlands? How fast should ING roll out the transformation? How could they build on the experience acquired so far to improve their methodology?

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Hot Chicken Takeover

By: William R. Kerr, Manjari Raman, & Olivia Hull

27 FEB 2019

By December 2018, entrepreneur Joe DeLoss's fried chicken company, Hot Chicken Takeover, has opened three restaurants in Columbus, Ohio using an unconventional employment model that helps people with criminal records get back on their feet. DeLoss is proud of the supportive employment environment he has cultivated, but wonders how to scale it beyond Columbus.

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