How the Workplace and Workforce are Shaping Up Now for the Future
The world of work has been living through the most significant workplace disruption in generations, and the pace will not slow down. What will change is how variable that disruption becomes. In 2022, leaders will need to learn to thrive in a period of upheaval that plays out unevenly across their organizations. This session structured in a “Ted Talk” format is intended to provide different perspectives on what the workplace and workforce are shaping up to be as we come out of COVID. The panelist will provide their observations as a leader on workplace flexibility, high-performing workplaces, and the challenges of equality in the workplace today.
Kathleen Christensen, Ph.D.
Kathleen Christensen, Ph.D., serves as Co-Director of Work Equity at Boston College’s Center for Social Innovation. Previously, she founded and led the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s cutting-edge research programs on working families; the aging workforce; and the impacts of outsourcing on the U.S. workforce, as well as spearheading, with SHRM, the first national campaign to advance workplace flexibility. Dr. Christensen worked closely with the White House on its 2010 Forum on Workplace Flexibility and its 2014 Summit on Working Families. Author/editor of seven books, Dr. Christensen was formerly Professor of Psychology at the Graduate Center, City University New York. She is widely quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other media.
Steve Polo
Steve is Managing Partner of OPX, a design consultancy focused on helping good companies work better. A recognized thought-leader, facilitator, speaker, panelist, educator and mentor, Steve has pioneered a new way of looking at organizations, operations, and culture. By infusing the practice of design with his innovative thinking on business performance, he has created a value proposition in the market through the integration of people, tools, and place with business operations and strategy.
With Steve’s input and support, OPX has also built innovative tools to help their clients work better in different ways. Vium is an app that helps people manage their work lives better, and ESP is an award-winning scenario planning tool that models the qualitative implications of design decisions in a work environment.
Steve is passionate about providing true value to his clients and is committed to open and honest working relationships. His hands-on project approach, paired with straightforward, meaningful communication, allows him to understand client viewpoints and interpret those needs into actionable and effective solutions for organizations around the world.
Clients Steve has served include AARP, Amtrak, Albright Stonebridge Group, ABC News, The College Board, DC Health, Hilton Worldwide, Hogan Lovells, The City of Turku Finland, Nelson Mandela’s Education Initiative, the National Science Foundation, The Institute for Justice, and many others.
As a founder of two businesses before OPX, Steve is also former adjunct professor at The Catholic University of America, and frequently a guest lecturer and panelist at colleges and universities including: Babson College, George Washington University, Virginia Tech, and Georgetown University. Steve lectures on Design Thinking, Demand Creation, Conscious Capitalism, and most recently the Post-Pandemic Workplace.
Steve is a member of and has served in leadership positions on a variety of corporate and non-profit boards, such as Eurasia Foundation, Global Impact UK Advisory Board, the Conscious Venture Lab, Daedalus Systems, Inc., The Smarter DC Challenge, the Krewe of Red Beans, and the Venture Advisory Collaborative. Polo also served two terms as board chair of Global Impact.
Internally, he supports and encourages the OPX team to continue to build an environment of creativity, learning and diversity throughout the company to best deliver on our promise to make good companies work better.
Matt Sigelman
Matt Sigelman is President of the Burning Glass Institute, Chairman of Emsi Burning Glass, and a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Social Policy. Matt has dedicated his career to unlocking new avenues for mobility, opportunity, and equity through skills. Situated at the intersection of work and learning, the Burning Glass Institute advances data-driven research and practice for the future of work and the future of workers. Previously, as CEO of KKR-backed Emsi Burning Glass, Matt and his team invented the field of real-time labor market data, a breakthrough innovation that transformed the way employers, education institutions, policy makers, and workers understand, plan for, and connect with the world of work. By mining billions of job openings and career histories, Matt led the company to become the global authority on the market for talent. Previously, Matt worked at McKinsey & Company and at Capital One. He writes widely on the job market and is consulted frequently by public officials and global media. Matt holds an AB from Princeton University, an MBA from Harvard, and is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Alexander Alonso, Ph.D., SHRM-SCP
Alexander Alonso, PhD, SHRM-SCP is the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM's) Chief Data & Insights Officer leading operations for SHRM's Certified Professional and Senior Certified Professional certifications, research functions, and the SHRM Knowledge Advisor service. He is responsible for all research activities, including the development of the SHRM Competency Model and SHRM credentials.
During his career, he has worked with numerous subject matter experts worldwide with the aim of identifying performance standards, developing competency models, designing organizational assessments, and conducting job analyses. He was also responsible for working on contract task orders involving the development of measurement tools for content areas such as job knowledge (like teacher knowledge of instructional processes) and organizational climates (like organizational climate forecasting in military health care).
Dr. Alonso received his doctorate in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Florida International University in 2003. His works have been recognized for their contribution to real-world issues. They include being recognized by the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology (Division 14 of the APA; SIOP) with the 2007 M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace for the development of the federal standard for medical team training, TeamSTEPPS; being awarded a 2009 Presidential Citation for Innovative Practice by the American Psychological Association for supporting the development of competency model for team triage in emergency medicine; and receiving the 2013 SIOP Distinguished Early Career Contributions for Practice Award.
Throughout his career, he has published works in peer-reviewed journals such as Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, Journal of Applied Psychology, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, People and Strategy, Personality and Individual Differences, Quality and Safety in Health Care, and Human Resources Management Review. He has also authored several chapters on community-based change initiatives in workforce readiness, as well as co-authoring Defining HR Success: A Guide to the SHRM Competency Model in Practice.
Dr. Alonso also served as a columnist analyzing major trends in the workforce for The Industrial Psychologist and HR Magazine. In addition, he has served on several professional society boards including the SIOP and the Personnel Testing Council of Metropolitan Washington.