Four months before the presidential election, Ivanka Trump, adviser to her father President Donald Trump, is promoting a new ad campaign dubbed, “Find Something New.” Aimed at helping unemployed Americans find new careers, the initiative launched Tuesday with a virtual roundtable hosted at the White House featuring Ivanka Trump and business leaders, including Apple CEO Tim Cook. “Find Something New” was swiftly criticized on social media, most vociferously for its title, which can be interpreted as too simplistic a catchphrase to describe the unemployment meltdown happening for millions of Americans as a global pandemic continues to ravage physical and financial health. CNN
What seems like a watershed moment for diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts could be lost as senior leaders tackle the coincident pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic, racial tensions, and an economic downturn. But HR leaders can keep DEI efforts at the forefront. As organizations navigate the pandemic and its effects, HR leaders can help limit the disproportionate impact on marginalized groups and ensure that DEI remains top of mind for leaders and managers. To do so, they must emphasize company culture and branding during and after the crisis, and help managers and leaders understand the link between DEI and business outcomes (including crisis resilience). Seven ways to rally support for DEI include: Identify highly affected employee segments and provide additional support; leverage employee resource groups, and ensure that rapid response teams are diverse. Gartner
With every global crisis, we also experience a time-warp. Ten years of progress can happen in just a few months. For example, COVID-19 forced companies to embrace a completely new way of working that they were planning to roll out over several years, and now suddenly the home office digital connectivity and new website is up and running a couple of weeks later. Similarly, new HR practices not expected to emerge until 2025 are already up and running in some organizations. Companies will become three-layered networked organizations — fluid, agile, and highly collaborative. They will need a social license to operate and report on their community-building initiatives as much as their profit returns to have any hope of attracting tomorrow’s talent pool. This transformation will be led by the chief development officers. If HR seizes the opportunity and starts leading, they can change the workplace and change the world. Workforce
It might not be Tiger King, but the premier season of Bloomberg Technology’s new podcast, Foundering, is as close as HR can get. The first season of this podcast centers around the story of WeWork founder Adam Neumann, and how his ultimate fall could have been seen coming from the company’s inception. It’s all about how Neumann leveraged his employees’ emotions to motivate them, created offices that were more like bars, retaliated when employees wanted to speak out and interrupt the public image that WeWork was presenting to the world, and other “how not to run a company” stories that range from outrageous (raucous parties at HQ, mandatory “summer camp” that was more like a tent revival show) to puzzling (they used company funds to build an elementary school?). Bloomberg Technology
