Workplace Innovation 2025

The labor market is in a rut. Companies are struggling to hire, and only 22% of employees feel they are thriving. A skills-first mindset—prioritizing capabilities over credentials—helps expand talent pipelines and build diverse, high-performing teams. Yet in addition to skills, employees need the will—the motivation, adaptability, and support to apply skills effectively. By fostering work wellbeing through belonging, flexibility, and growth opportunities, companies can create an engaged, resilient workforce that drives innovation and long-term success. Join two seasoned leaders for an interactive session exploring an integrated framework for skills, will, and wellbeing that will inspire you to rethink how you hire, develop talent, and create a high-performing culture.

SKILLS, WILL & WELLBEING: AN INTEGRATED FRAMEWORK

Conferences

Think you know your top talent and how to grow their careers? Think again. Traditional markers like tenure and past performance don’t tell the full story, and leadership pipelines suffer when promising employees aren’t equipped to step up. A smarter approach can help companies identify untapped talent and prepare them to lead. Through compelling case studies and real-world data, these C-suite leaders share powerful tactics to help businesses spot hidden talent, build stronger pipelines, cut hiring costs, boost engagement, and drive results. Assess where you stand and join peer-to-peer discussions on the challenges and wins faced in developing the next generation of leaders.

RETHINKING HOW LEADERS RISE IN THE NEW ERA OF SUCCESSION PLANNING

AI-driven digital labor is reshaping the workplace—not by replacing humans outright, but by transforming how work gets done. The future of work is increasingly collaborative, dynamic, and augmented by AI agents and intelligent systems -- and organizations that embrace this shift thoughtfully will lead the next wave of innovation. Hear from two leaders who sit at the intersection of innovation, people and technology about the strategies and tools to lead this successfully. 

AI IS YOUR NEW EMPLOYEE

Oh come on now. It's not always. Don't know. Yeah. Yeah Please take your seats. Our program will begin shortly. I. like so OK Yeah Yes. Oh Please take your seats. Our program will begin shortly. I Do nothing seems to change. No. And the street of the dreamers, but she often. Let them take what you believe, she said it's better. Another confusion, so the two things are. Yeah. Get a think about. Yeah Give me a. Please welcome Fortune's next to lead editor, Ruth Umo. All right, I hope you all enjoyed your lunch. Thank you and welcome back. Before we begin our next session, a few words from our sponsor calm on the importance of the mind body connection. Calm Health is focused on bettering your whole health, and here's how I want you to think about that. You see, your mind and body are connected. We're here to help you understand the relationship between your mental health and your physical health and how each influences the other. On this journey with us, you'll be empowered with tools and insights to improve both. So let's get started. Let's get started. Indeed, common thinking is that AI at work shouldn't replace real human intelligence. It should enhance it. This means creating powerful partnerships between the two, with AI working on routine tasks and people bringing human elements like creativity and emotional intelligence. We even the two together successfully take strategy and planning. Fortunately we have two guests, real live humans, not AI, to help with that. Mahi Bareti is chief executive officer and co-founder of the global HR technology company Penom and Andy Valenzuela, EVP and COO of Employee Success at Salesforce. They joined Fortune Brainstorm editorial director Andrew Nesca. Please welcome them to the summit. All right, hey everybody, let's give it up for humans, am I right? So we're here to talk about machines. Um, let me, let me lay, let me, let me lay the land a little bit, OK? Um, so there was a poll last month of tech leaders, that's important, tech leaders, OK, not HR leaders. 48% say they are adopting or deploying agentic AI. 50% believe that AI deployment itself will be autonomous in the next two years. So we're going to make the AI deploy more AI, right? Lovely. 43% say more than half their AI budget today is for Agentic. How many people in the room know what agentic AI is? Raise your hand. OK. Now I've laid the land as to like where the mindset of the tech leaders are now in the same breath, recently, Carnegie Mellon and Duke researchers decided what happens if we just make an entire organization out of agents? And they did that. They created a small software company. Are you guys familiar with this study? created a small software company and they staffed it with agents in every function, every function of a modern corporation. And They discovered that the best worker, the best agent. Only completed 24% of its tasks and managed to do so in about 30 steps. So a lot of optimism, some hard realities in all of this. Andy, I'm going to start with you. How should we in this room be thinking about restructuring our organizations? For that. Yeah, look, I mean, the first thing is you should be rethinking it. I think everybody, look, time is now. Everyone should absolutely be one thinking about what are the skills of the future, what are the, how are you rethinking your jobs? every job we talk about it within my work today, every job should be rethought about. You should be focused on investing in talent agentic talent. We have jobs today within our own organization that didn't exist, you know, 60 days ago because we're, we're thinking about this today. Um, and so from an organizational standpoint, I think it is really about creating orgs that are flexible, creating orgs that um are gonna allow for this agenttic capabilities. Um, and leaning in. I mean, I think that's most important. We don't have all the answers today, but I think it's all about leaning in right now. And just to bring the whole room with us, could you very quickly, since your company makes some of this stuff, uh, explain to the room what agentic is vis a vis generative AI and some of the other cases it's not all AI is the same. So just very briefly, could you, yeah, I mean think about Agentic is one step further in the AI revolution. It's actually helping. Taking task, it is smarter AI. It is task. It is able to do things that that plain AI couldn't do before. And so I like to think about it as broader task automation and decision making that can happen via agents, right? Thank you. So Mahe, I have been thinking a great deal about how AI feels very one size fits all, and of course it's a lot more nuanced than that, as you well know. Um, could you please tell me your perspective about how people in different industries should be thinking about this? Your company works across many different kinds of industries, geographies, and so forth, and it's not one size fits all, is it? Yeah. So I'll give you two different variations of how you segment. Yeah. The first one is you have to look at work zones. We actually look at work in 5 different zones, zone 1234, and 51 and 2 are more like. Frontline workers, 4 and 5 are more like knowledge workers. The way you deploy agenttic infrastructure is entirely different based on where you really. Play out within your ecosystem. No company is just zone 1 or 2, just frontline, just knowledge worker. You have a combinations. So now when you're really deploying, how do you think about deployment in an effective format? I'll give you examples of our own customers. Frontline workers, automation is the last 4 years is actually ramped up to a different level. And but like knowledge worker ramp up on automation is limited. The reason is when you're hiring a knowledge worker, the most important thing is not just automation. You have to think about the intelligence piece of it. So we look at every spectrum in 5 different levels, level 1234, and 5. Level 0 is what we call a stone age. Uh, there are many companies who actually live in Stone Age in recruiting and retention and growth. Now, how do you move it to 1234, and 5? So in terms of our research, there are a good number fall between 0 to 1. There are a good number fall between 1 to 2. There are very few who actually fall in level 3. So now when you sit as a company, you have to evaluate that and then you think about should I move one step forward or two steps forward. And like if you're really moving like 2 or 3 steps ahead, like let's say you're in level 2 and if you want to go to level 5, your change management is over the roof and your organizational structure has to take it in a very effective format, otherwise, it creates a lot more complexity. Your leader should be inclined into that particular equation. So, uh, in that particular fashion, agents will work in a beautiful format, but you should be aware of where to deploy when and what particular level. Right. Now one thing I think about is, you know, I said that study at the top about the researchers who created essentially in a vacuum and agenttic company, uh. And it still didn't function very well, but, but you know, we, we don't all have the option to just wipe the slate clean and start over, right? We have living breathing organizations. We have to integrate these what's what's the thing we like to say? We build a plane while we're flying it, right? We all say that now, um, so, so. How should we be thinking about What humans should do versus the agents, what requires automation versus collaboration, Andy. Yeah, I think it's it's extremely important. We think about you have to refocus the right human work, and it is find the opportunities where agents can do incredible things. Like I have a great story. We launched a new pay planning system at the company recently and it's 11,000 planners in the company. Within a matter of days we actually built an agent that did the entire enablement for those 11,000 people. So rather than Days of um meetings and sessions and training sessions to teach this entire workforce we we enabled an agent and literally real time every manager could go engage with this agent and it enabled them on an entirely new system, something we hadn't even thought about doing through, you know, the, the life cycle of the project and two weeks before we go, we're gonna, we said, wow, we're gonna think about enablement completely different and it was. Um, one of those rethink where where's my team broader focused wasn't on that enablement piece. It was, let me refocus them on another part of the work. And so I think it is constantly evaluating where can I get wins and refocus my talents on more critical opportunities. Yeah, Mahe, do you have a different perspective? The most important critical thing what we have seen is use cases, which use cases you can really apply agents. We look at agents in two different spectrums. One is experienced agents, the other one is persona. Agents. When we call experienced agents in the flow of talent ecosystem where all experienced agents can influence the candidate experience can have a con agent, onboarding can have an onboarding agent. Employee engagement can have an employee engagement agent, and you can really use personal action on all those spectrums. So your workflow is much more effective throughout the experience what you're delivering for people who are outside the company. Now you come into the other side of the equation, which is the persona. And we have a recruiter. So if you take a recruiter task, where the recruiter spends most of the time, sourcing is one aspect recruiter spends. The second thing is intake of like what they should talk to a hiring manager, what they should talk to an employee and all that stuff, then scheduling, then you can really think about like screening. So for all those we actually created agents specifically to do that. Then we have on the other side, which is HRBP. Where you really look at like, OK, what are the agents we can build for the HIVP primarily on the side of If you want to do one on ones or feedback loops, can you do like what do you call as performance management and all that stuff? How can you schedule employee and the manager meetings quite often? What's the frequency? So all that you can really do it with a lot of agents, and that's what's effectiveness. If you ask what is the single most important organization like organism. Which is super organized in the, on the planet Earth. What is that? What is the most organized? Infrastructure on planet Earth. What's that? The human body, I think it's ants. So what, the the most important thing is, agents are like ants. They take the ants work. And that's what we'll delegate to. It's repetitive, constantly really uh like which most of us really irritate to ourselves. We don't need to do it in that same. Diengaged passion. So part of it can be really engaged with an agent. That's what is the biggest aha the impact what it can create. Yeah, yeah. I want to come to the audience for questions because I know a lot of folks are thinking about agenttic, but I have another for you. So. We've been talking a lot in the last two days about skills, right? Upskilling, reskilling, this skilling, that skilling, you know, just skilling for AI, and I'm thinking a lot about that vis a vis agenttic. Uh, we had a conversation yesterday in which one of the speakers from Microsoft, Colette raised, uh, the, the, the idea of the concept of managing teams of agents, like a new skill that we will, we, we will all have to learn, um. What are your thoughts about that, Andy? Is that where we're headed? How should organizations be thinking about skilling for an a agentic future? Yeah, I think it is absolutely where we are headed. This will be a world of do they file expense reports? OK, just, just checking if they do, hopefully they're really small. Yes, yes, I hope I hope we automate that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, great. So no, we should absolutely be hyper focused on it. I mean today we are, we are. Looking at in our service centers or in um ES operations we are absolutely looking at how do I balance workload between agents and humans score we're building scorecards to evaluate that and look at it. So we are in the midst of doing this today, so I do absolutely believe it is going to be a core part of the future. And we, we absolutely have to build the skills so that someone knows how do I do that? How will it operate differently? How is I as a manager going to operate with both agents and and with humans? We got to, we have to help our folks work through that. Yeah, daunting. All right, let's go to the audience for questions. Hands if you don't mind. If not, I certainly have more of them. All right, we've outlined our, our robotic future and they're terrified. Um, so, so. We can't just deploy teams of agents in our very complex, uh, uh, uh, you know, revenue driving regulated industries without a little bit of concern. So Mahe, uh, I want to talk to you a little bit about Something the technology folks love to talk about frameworks, governance frameworks. How should we be thinking about deploying these agents in a responsible and ethical and Cogent way in an organization today. So the most important thing is why are we deploying agents? It's about autonomy. That is the most fundamental fabric what we want to really get to a system to really be autonomous. So now, when you really look at autonomous, there are 3 types of Autonomous deployment you can think about. One is operational autonomy. The second one is functional autonomy. The third one is a hierarchical autonomy. Now if you really think about operational autonomy, it's about tasks. What task for which personas I can give it to agents so that it can be autonomous. Now you go to functional side of it, it's about which particular business unit or a functional unit. I want to operate in which particular format and in that's like what is my agent is going to do for what particular section, either by automation or augmentation of intelligence. And the third one is hierarchical. This is where actually it falls flat. Every organization is super hierarchical, whether we agree or not. In a hierarchy, where is the agent operating at what particular spectrum? Let's say a company has level 7 or band 7 to band 0. If you're really operating, are the agents operating in particular bands or combination of bands? Is it crossing the limits? Because What happens is the control on the power changes when the band changes. And that is how companies are organized. Now, in that particular infrastructure, how do you deploy agents is very critical. Now, The previous point about what I really said about frontline versus knowledge worker. But when you really take front line, retail businesses, hospitality businesses, logistics. If you really look at like anything to do with uh high volume hiring. In those spectrums, you basically can think automation much more heavily. You can go to an advanced automation in terms of both. Operations and also what you call as um functional. But the minute you come into knowledge worker space, the most important thing you have to think is hierarchical organizational structure is very important. And how do you really deploy agents in that particular framework is critical because power shifts and the decision making is very expensive. Are you picking up what Mahe is putting down? I'm, I'm listening. I'm learning at the same time. Yeah, yeah, I, I, the thing, the thing that I'm, it's a very intriguing way to think about this. The thing that I'm stuck on is if we deploy these agents in our organizations, how do we ensure that they act? The way we expect human workers to, uh, that they are not biased or or overly biased in a way that hurts the organization, that they are accountable, right? What happens if an agent, if if an agent is working for a payment processor, how do you make sure that agent just keep processing fraudulent payments and actually, you know, uh, uh, are there ways Andy that we should be thinking about. These, these concerns that we would have for normal humans, but you know it's a bit abstract with the agents. Yeah, go back to the framing of its humans plus agents. Yeah, I mean the idea here isn't that they're going to completely go off and do everything on their own. We've got great examples with our customers. One that I always think is super impressive is the loan process. And the amount of paperwork and amount of checks and balances that have to happen in a loan process that takes a tremendous amount of human time than an agent can do in a matter of seconds. And so you know we have customers deploying agents in that space, and an agent can look and evaluate and make a recommendation on whether somebody is viable for a loan or not. But it's still completed with the human. The human has to come in and validate what the um what the viewpoint is of that agent. And so I think that's where the balance comes into place is if you are making core decisions or you're leveraging um critical information that. There is some human element to it to do that agent validation. Yeah, I'll give you an example. So Thermo Fisher is one of our customers who deployed our automation infrastructure specifically to automate 20% of their workflow, specifically recruiting manufacturing units. So they have like 30 manufacturing units and that they have to recruit constantly. They deployed the complete automation, which is about like level 4. It's all about agents and how it is deployed. And they thought like the recruiters are not required until there is an awful lot really popping up. As things are really going in, there was a huge influx saying like the part does not work. And the product is not working primarily because it's not about the recruiter not working out. The managers who are actually sitting on the manufacturing units. Don't know how to interact with an automation infrastructure. They're only used to really working with pure recruiters. So in that particular format, what happens is they actually converted the recruiters into relationship managers and deployed them in the local manufacturing units. So that kind of change nobody had expected, but the leader actually made that change, saying like, The fundamental flaw is not about deploying. It's not working. It's about there is a nuance which I have to really bring in, and if that nuance works, then things will work out. Well, gentlemen, thank you for giving us a glimpse into our agentic future. I feel like we could go much, much deeper, but we do certainly don't have time. Thank you so much. A round of applause for these guys. Thank you. All right, our robo.

Jeremy Hindle, the visionary production designer behind the cultural phenomenon Severance, will discuss how his designs bring the TV show’s haunting exploration of workplace identity and corporate control to life. From the jarring retro-futurist feel of Lumen Industries’ office to its fluorescent-lit hallways and minimalist break rooms, learn how every design choice reinforces the psychological and emotional landscape of the modern workplace. This behind-the-scenes conversation offers a rare look into the creative collaboration required to create the unsettling beauty of Severance’s corporate world.  

CREATING THE WORLD OF SEVERANCE

Future, the show's production design is as much a character as the people on screen. It enhances the show's themes of control, identity, and disconnection and adds to the company's eerie vibe. It's a master class in how design can shape mood and narrative. We're excited to welcome welcome the creative force behind the strike in visual world, Severance production designer Jeremy Hindle in Conversation with Fortunes with Kristen Stoller. All right, um, because I have been known to spoil things, I'm gonna quickly ask who here has seen severance? Raise your hand. OK, so I will try not to spoil it, but I am going to ask a lot of good questions. Why not? I can. All right, I got permission from him. You'll spoil one thing and then they'll maybe it'll be interesting. Yeah, OK, so Jeremy, because not everyone is as much of an IMDb pro nerd as I am, I'm just going to brag about you for a little bit. You were nominated for an Emmy for your work on Severance, and our audience might also know you for your work on movies like Zero Dark 30 Top Gun Maverick. So very. Impressive career, but I do just want to talk about severance. So what I love about the show is that it feels frozen in time. It's like part 60s office park, part tech dystopian startup. What was the initial spark that unlocked this aesthetic for you? I mean, the script when I first read it was really, it read like The Office. It was written like The Office. It was budgeted to shoot in a like just a regular location. Ben said it to me and I was like, I don't want to do this. And I said and then I thought, you know what, what if I, what if I just took 2 days and I, I, I'm gonna make, let me see what I can do in 2 days and I'll, if I come up with something, let's meet and I kind of had this idea that it it reminded me of Twin Peaks, there was something strange in the script. The words were weird, it was playful, but it was, it was just an office environment, which was nothing for me to design. So I thought, what if I just create this world that I want to make. And I did in like 2 days, I had this, I just had this lookbook that I loved and we met and I said, look, I'll do the show if you want to do this. And he's like, great, let's go. And then we had the battle of how to do it and how much money, much more money it's going to cost, and then everything exploded, but everyone really supported it and um it's became this sort of entity and I think it was interesting because I wanted the show to be timeless. It was, I didn't want anyone to really know where it was, when it was. It's, it's especially underground when, you know, the MDR, the main set. We wanted the technology to really be quite confusing. It, it's all functional, but if you were if any was to escape to the outside world and could describe it, it would make no sense. Like my son doesn't know what a trackball is. My daughter, then they don't know what this tech is, but now it's kind of funny. They're all fascinated. Now they all want these damn keyboards and it's kind of fun and it's, it was just, it was also to make it really playful like it's, there was a movie Playtime that I love from the 60s and it had, I kind of threw that a band like what if we just make the show playful along with this really Interesting story that Dan wrote, which is really about the work-life balance, which is a huge problem right now, like how do you go to work and go home and because of this damn iPhone we all have our technology, it's 24 hours a day and how I think that's kind of it was like how do we make this fun to also talk about something that's really important. How to set boundaries. I like that you say playful when it's such a dark show. That's the thing there are elements of it because the idea is it's really totally dark. It's like, and people say like, oh, I, I would do that. It's like, really just for work or just for the dentist or just like you. It's like you people don't want to live experiences anymore. They just wanted to be always happy, and you don't know what happy is unless you're sad. You don't know severed yourself. Never. OK, why not? Uh, because I love, I love all the emotions and I liked, you know, like I'm 2 weeks ago I did conflict this conference. I I did this, but in front of 10,000. People, which I don't do. Like I stood on the Muscone alone for 35 minutes talking and I didn't take what are the what what's the drug a lot of people take when they speak propozole or there's something that people take all these tech guys said you didn't take it. I'm like, I didn't know what it was. I'm like, no, I was just like going to vomit the entire time. But we have a bucket, but I, but I wanted that experience. I want to, I like to be terrified because once you're terrified, you can do something really interesting, you can be really honest, and then you, then you, that's living and I don't know. I want to live. Speaking, I love that. And speaking of terrifying and vomit inducing, I want to. Pull up on the screen here something that terrifies me about the show, which is the hallways. They are so iconic. Uh, the season two opener is just running through these empty hallways with Adam Scott. How did you create this? Is this one set and, and what was your thought or inspiration behind it? It's funny because this is a drawing. This is one of the original concepts. Um, it was trying to create. We needed to create like a maze for people to get lost in like the innies are not allowed to escape, but they feel free. So they can rebuild so many hallways and obviously in visual effects we extend them, but as I told you, you know, people get lost. John Turturro and Christopher Walken did get lost and you can, so I was trying to create something that was like it felt. Um, aesthetically pleasing, but also like really void of like, like it made you feel uncomfortable trying to create for me it was always trying to create an emotional response to the script and when people are watching it, that you're doing something that's either counter or it helps infer the story as opposed to just the dialogue of the actors telling the story. It's like, how do I tell the story and put these, put them in these environments that they feel real in because they're doing something that's quite absurd. And make it feel believable at the same time. And this hallways particularly like we tested 25 whites on camera to come up with which white it was. And Ben and Ben said he's like, why are we testing 25? And I was like, because we won't know until we see it. Like you'll see and we all sat in this room after we did them. They, it was about 10 of us and We came down to two colors. 23 of them were so wrong, and it's because emotionally it was like that didn't make me feel what I should feel like they just didn't emote something in, in, in what your brain and in what your heart wanted, and it came down to 2 and then that that's, it was, but we it was learning how to be that particular to tell a story um how how much of the actors themselves like Adam Scott influence what you designed for each of the episodes? Not at all. Oh really? OK. No, honestly, Mil this last season, um, no, because they're kind of like we're all, especially the first season was during COVID, like zero interaction almost at all, um, but mostly they, you know, we're all, it's an interesting show the scripts, it's not like a regular TV show. Most shows you get a script and you really shoot the script like Law and Order that you just shoot the script. Um, we, I get a script and I completely alter so many ideas and then I present, oh, what if there was this set? What if we told the story this way visually, then they rewrite it. Jessica, the DP does. Ben, we all have a lot of ideas and we fight and argue and there's zero egos. Like it's insanely collaborative. What's the biggest disagreement you've had with them? It was always actually was Ben and I on the ceiling of the next 10, OK, let's go to it. It was this one. It wasn't an argument. It was I wanted it to be insanely claustrophobic, but in a really big space, which really the scripture said 4 desk large room, and I, and then I came up with this bonkers thing, and I, I wanted the ceiling to be 7'6, which I could touch. I wanted to be able to touch it with my finger and For when you're in a room that big, it's just the presence it feels and how it makes actors like John Turturro hated it because he's really tall. So for him it was, it was really claustrophobic and it made him really uncomfortable, which I think you see on screen. Yeah, like you start to feel like these things can create, we all feel these things and if I create spaces like this, it's no different than real life. Um, but Ben and I, so we had, we built a chunk of the set and we had the ceiling on hydraulics so we could raise and lower it, and I had 76 and he wanted 86, and I think we got to 79 and then I I was like that's it. And we agreed that was literally our biggest argument and that wasn't, you know, it was, it was more we just push each other to make it perfect. It's a show that um it's really hard to get people to understand, even when you're working on it to train the crew to. That there's nothing that isn't perfect. Every detail is we don't, Ben won't shoot it if it isn't perfect. I won't let them see it unless it's perfect. It's every little prop, everything is like camera tested and Well, that I wanna ask on the camera testing before we come to the audience for questions is my brother and I always talk about how do you decide what is color in the show because like you have the green here microdata refinement you have, you know, these blue balloons and you have, you know, different colors in mostly a very gray white 25 white tested world. How do you decide what. and what doesn't. I mean, the two, the two colors are the two colors we look at the most. They're grass and sky, and they basically I wanted they're, they're the innies are children like when Dan said, I said, why are they, why is she lying on a boardroom table? Like what, how does this show open? He said, Well, it's kind of obvious it's the birthplace of the office. It's, it's the womb and I'm like, that's that obvious. And so I was like, so I'm like he said, so they're children, like they're, they're, they're children, and I was like, so I made this like a playground, like it's grass, the desk is interactive. In the second season I made it it can spin like like honestly like a merry go round in a park. Like it started to become all those things that I could play with, that you don't really know why I'm doing that, but you, but it's, it's not only just entertaining, but it, it's uncomfortable, it's engaging. You know, it's funny because when you ask me now and I remember my original idea for this was Steve Jobs when he was he didn't do the iPhone. He was so particular about the paper and the box, and I'm sure some of you know the story that he sent people around the world until they found the perfect paper and I think it was in Sweden, and then they bought the company to manufacture the box. The box was more important than the phone. And I was like, wait, what if I'm like Steve Jobs? What if I, because it's kind of godlike. What if I what if I'm obsessive like that with everyone on the show that they have to do it exactly like this in the same way in the same tone, it's kind of became really. The crew loved it. They loved the rules. They loved working on it, and it became really addictive to everyone. And now people watch the show and I, I think it's why it works. It's that same kind of like Steve was right. People really want the best. And when you do the best, it's like it's like an Apple store. It's not that different. Yeah, absolutely. I think we have time for one question. Does anyone have one? Oh, I see right up here, Chris. One's coming to you. So a big, big fan of the show. Thank you for all your work. So my question for you is, I mean, we spent a lot of time, I think in business thinking about the environment that we create for people to work. So you created an environment that was deliberately claustrophobic and create. What is your work environment? What do you require in order to do the kind of creative work that you do? But you know it's funny, film offices are usually really crappy. Because they're always like, you know, it could, it's not, it's could be a warehouse, who knows? um I like. I love, honestly, I'm a big, it's what's happened in the last few years has been really hard for all of us, and I don't know if it is for you, but for creative people, COVID was terrible. I hate Zoom. I hate all of that stuff. It's functional for some stuff, but I like to be interactive with everyone I work with. I need to see them. I need, you can tell immediately like if someone in a day might be good for what you're going to give them, like the painters, that you kind of have to. I have, I have hundreds of people that work for me and I have to read them all day long. How are they, is this the right person to give this task to? You can tell the look in their eyes. I need that to know who I can deliver things to and so you kind of just, I, I have a huge desk in my office that I had built. I always have it built for every show I work on and every meeting is basically on in my desk in my office and it sometimes has 30 people crammed around it. And it's always the same and I have all these hidden shelves underneath where I hide everything. So everyone comes in and it's nothing, and then I slowly pull things out and I always have a monitor and I rehearse all my, all my meetings for everyone for band, I rehearse them, I rehearse them, and then everything slowly gets slipped out and slipped out. So it feels and you know, you're like you change things as you're presenting, you can tell what's going to work or not going to work. If it's, if you get the vibe, don't show like I, it's, you have to be. A little bit of controlling and reserved on what's the right time to show something and will they respond to it, especially, you know, um, studios or directors particularly like it's, it's that environment is really important to me that I have. Everyone around me and then I used to actually put it in the middle of the room so I would work around, everyone would work around me and they could see what I was doing, but on Severance it became really, it's such a long show, like it was 2.5 years for me this last season. So I kind of needed my own office and I've also realized a great technique that I really started about 6 years ago was every day at 2 o'clock I take a 22 minute nap. And I have a sofa and everyone knows the entire show knows. Do not knock on my door because at 2 to 2:22, I don't really nap or I might, but I wake up with a billion more ideas. If I don't, I might as well go home. I don't have anything left and you just like shut down, no nothing, just no tech and just daydream and then I wake up and I'm like, oh my God, there's so many more ideas. And then so starting to, that's how I started to learn how to really work in command like this is how I need to work in an office environment was that. And I think everyone's kind of different, but I can I ask Jeremy because um you've said before that you your critique about you know the workplace today is it's too home like there's too many like benefits perks, pictures, um, uh, but Lumen is like is is the opposite of one thing when you said it was based on the John Deere building, which is a real life building, can we end with any, you know, thoughts you have for company leaders, uh, workforce leaders, designers about anything they should or should not take. So, so when I realized with the, you know, in the 60s you basically had a pen, a Rolodex. You had four things. You had no family photographs, you didn't have family life, you didn't have a phone. There was no, your kids don't text you all day. I hate school. You just went to work and I think it was way more productive. I personally do. I think office spaces were designed well, so you, you felt like you were in a in a place that was respected, that you could be creative. And I think trying to get back to that and keep a little bit of, you know, If people, if you're trying to make people work for 16 hours, you need to have their home life in there. But I think people are only productive for 8, 10 hours max anyway, so just make it work. And I've started to notice the young people really want the work environment. They want to have their home environment separated and I know it was blended for a long time and probably the 90s, 2000s, but maybe it's just, you know, and I've worked a lot of advertising too, and advertising agencies love the fun stuff. They've got the draft machines and all the and I'm like, well, because they want them to work 18 hours a day. And I, I, I, I I don't. I think that's terrible. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. All right. I know we're out of time really fast. What character do you most identify with? 20 seconds or less. On the show? Oh, Hallie Hall, why? Um, because I think I, you know, it's fun to have those kind of personas like hers. I think she's the fun, she, she is the funniest person on the show to me. Because she's, you know, she's running the company, but underneath she's, she's got this warm heart. Um, it's like she's playing the game and because she knows all the rules. Yeah, that's it. Well, thank you so much, Jeremy. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. All right, well thank you all so much for coming. Thank you to our speakers. We appreciate all of your insights and your expertise. A giant thank you to our founding partner indeed and our partners Calm, Guild, and McKinsey and Company. Thank you for helping bring all of this together and thank you to all of you, the delegates who traveled far and wide to join us for all of these important conversations. I encourage you to please check out Fortune's website for upcoming events, uh, for you and all your other C-suite colleagues. We have the COO summit coming up in just two weeks in June, uh, Brainstorm Tech, uh, in September and the Fortune Global Forum in October. Now I invite you all to please join me for our closing reception, which is getting underway right outside on the Pacific Terrace. Thank you all.

Trailblazing Hollywood agent Tracy Christian has shaped the careers of Oscar, Golden Globe, and Emmy winners from the ground up. She’s a master in the art of talent scouting, strategic career development, and negotiating high-stakes deals – all while navigating the unpredictable world of showbiz. Discover how her strategies for advocacy, influence, and resilience in the entertainment sphere reveal real-world lessons in human capital leadership.

STAR MAKING: LESSONS IN HUMAN CAPITAL FROM A HOLLYWOOD AGENT

Ready. Our next guest of the afternoon works her magic in Hollywood. She's a renowned talent agent who's a left a mark on the entertainment industry. Tracy Christian is founder of TCA Management. She has a keen eye for emerging voices and a sharp instinct for career building. Some of her clients include Octavia Spencer, Elizabeth Moss, and Jeremy Piven. Tracy excels at crafting long-term trajectories and brokering pivotal opportunities. There are skills that can be applied across any industry. And that's why we have her here to talk with us today. Please welcome Tracy, along with Fortune's Ruth Umo to the summit. Very excited for this conversation. Thank you, thank you for joining us. Thank you for fortune, uh, talent Asian. I think I am a star myself, but I think only in my mind. Uh, we're delighted to have you here because obviously there's so many parallels between what you do as a talent agent and what everyone here does, which is attracting and recruiting and supporting and developing talent. So let's jump right into things because one of the many jobs of HR heads, as I said already, is to spot and develop high potential talent. So when you spot someone with that raw star power, what are you seeing that signals that they're worth betting on? Oh God, um, I think really early on when I started my company, I wrote out the things that I thought made a really great agent, a really great client, and I'm looking for those things, right? When I'm, um, when I'm when I'm when I'm being more corporate, I'm looking for those things, but really it's a gut feeling. What I think we all are hoping for is what I call the cocktail party story. You're looking for that person that you met and their resume really was not demonstrative of who they are, but you saw something in there, you saw the carbon that could be pressed into a diamond and worked with them or they, you know, they came into your infrastructure and that's what happened like truly. That's what a star is. So there's an agent that I know, um, very famous named Patrick Weitzel, and I would always tease him about representing Matt Damon. Like Matt Damon is a good looking straight white Harvard grad like, oh it was so hard to tell he was gonna do well. Oh, who knew that Matt Damon would make money, you know, as opposed to, you know, when you look at someone like um. I won't go too esoteric like Linda Hunt. I represented an actor named Michael Kenneth Williams who, if you ever watched a show called The Wire, he was Omar and he was, you know, dark skinned with a scar, a real scar that bisected his face, and it took convincing. You know, to, to, um, convince my colleagues that he had value, the industry that he had value, but once we got him in front of a camera, he just kind of exploded. So I'm sure that's what you're doing too. And if you're investing in your skill set by coming to things like this and you've been doing it a while, I bet your gut is pretty, you know, finely honed, finely tuned, uh, before I ask the next question, I think we're getting a bit of feedback. Oh. my hairstyle. I just wanna make sure that everyone's able to hear you and hear you hear you well. um, do a, do a hair slip there we go. When you are reaching out to talent or signing talents, I'm sure that they're getting a number of shiny offers from other talent agents. What do you think? Why do you think they come to you? What do you think? What is it about you and what you represent that attracts them? Can't you see how fabulous I am. Must you? Must I explain? um. That's a good question, uh. I think it's for me, right? I am so enthusiastic about what I do and how I do it, uh, and I've just, we'll use Michael again. Uh, when I met Michael, he was flying to Los Angeles just to meet with two agencies, William Morris, which is, you know. Very large company I think it's the oldest agency in the Hollywood right now, and I was at a teeny tiny agency called PSA and I just said to him, uh, you know, I'm your agent. Like I, I get it. You're gonna meet at William Morris and they're great, and who's who you're gonna meet over there and they would do a great job for you. They would, but I have the ability to pull your future into the present. I know what it, I know what it is that you need to make you a star, and you'll sit here and you'll tell me that you just want to be a working actor, and that's not true. In your heart of hearts you want to be a nasty, greasy, multi-million dollar polling movie star and you actually have the ability to do that. If you work with me. And um so I feel like, you know, you guys, you're kind of the casting director meets producer meets agent for talent and people are attracted to your company like we're all somewhat I feel like high performers generally are somewhat narcissistic and they want something and they may not voice it. But again, you've got the experience, you know who this person really wants to be and pull that out of them and say, I'm not just looking for, you know, a square to fit in this slot. I'm not just looking to fill this position. I am looking for stars in my industry. And you are one of them. Let's work together to bring out your full potential. And if that means that you're only here 10 years and then you're gonna leave and start your own thing, I can help you with that too. But for now, and I, I think when people see that you are really a cheerleader and you see who they really are, they plug into that and you're off to the races. Let's decode that it factor. Is it born or is it made? I don't know. That's a good, you know, I don't, I don't know, but my dad had an expression called you can't teach height. Right? And we've all met someone who's. Impossibly, you know, charismatic. And I've identified uh kind of things that have happened in actors' lives. Like if you look, you know, if you write down three of your favorite actors and then you look at their history, you will generally find none of them come from like perfect all American kind of families. They have a lot of. Um, drama in their path and they are looking to you know, correct something over and over again in their life. Um, so, you know, do the, do the work to find out what are the high performers, what, what's the background of the high performers in your industry. Yeah, I'm sure that you often uh spot greatness before the person has a proven track record. How do you convince skeptical stakeholders, whether it's studio execs, so I guess in everyone's case here, business leaders, the teams you're hiring for to take a chance on. Talent that hasn't yet really proven itself. It doesn't have that track record yet. Well, I have the track record, so if they don't, what the reason they put me in the position is because I'm a good handicapper, right? So, um. Very, very early on, uh, I had the opportunity to work with a group called Marcy Films, and this was a film company that Jay-Z started. Now Jay-Z was already Jay-Z at the, at that point, right? So it wasn't like, you know, I saw him when he was in high school or something, but um. I was going around Hollywood and, you know, saying, oh I got Jay-Z and and everybody, the first thing that they thought is, oh great, I have this project and we'll put Jay-Z in the project and you know, and I said, let me tell you, Jay-Z cannot act. Daisy cannot act and they'd be like, well how do you know? Did he know, I just, I've been dealing with actors enough that he I know he can't act and he probably doesn't want to act. I said, but. I would never bet against this man. Ever. And I, and I'd say again, I use my cocktail party story. I said, you want to be the person, well, here's who you don't wanna be. You don't wanna be at the Vanity Fair party talking about you have the opportunity of doing this documentary with Jay-Z who was not married to Beyonce yet, um, to be in business with this person, and you said no. Or to produce this with this person, and you said no. And And I just convinced people that, you know, in Hollywood that he was more than, you know. A multi-platinum rapper that he was, uh, I'm not gonna quote his lyrics but you know that he was a businessman right that everybody that you should feel lucky to have access to you're gonna be telling that story one day or and here's another story. So my one of my clients and good friend, she owned a management company called Violator and um one of her clients was a young Curtis Jackson, 50 Cent. So I talked to 50, so I was like not really repping him but kind of repping him, and I spoke to 50. His album hadn't come out yet and uh I was calling around different casting directors. I've got this, you know, um, young rapper. I really believe in him and you have time to sit down with him and no one in Hollywood. was interested in meeting him. And except one show, Sabrina the Teenage Wolf, I mean teenage teenage, uh, which, which. So he went in and he met the casting director for Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and uh the casting director later called me and said that was the most charming man I've ever met in my life. Like he had on some, you know, big chain, but he came in and he was like super nice to the ladies and he put the chain on them and they took, you know, *** are like. You know, 50 year old white women that live in the valley, so, so you know they took pictures with them and he told everybody his story about how yep he'd been a drug dealer and then he'd been shot so many times and there was a bullet still in his jaw and how he had to teach himself to talk again and. And people were just captivated, you know, by him, and I, and I said to folks, OK, so this album is gonna come out in February and life will never be the same, and you'll be telling your grandkids that you hung out with 50 Cent, which is exactly what happened. And then when I, I have those stories, the next time I call about someone, they get in with no question, right? And again, that's what all I think that's what you have to do in your infrastructure. Uh, you said that high performers, top performers, uh, are a bit narcissistic, uh, certainly in the corporate world, sometimes the top performers can also be the most difficult. So how do you manage brilliant but difficult and challenging personalities oftentimes very ego driven. You know what, I look to um sports, and I'm not like a big sports person, but I look at what it takes to command respect from someone like Michael Jordan. Like if you're Michael Jordan's coach, you know. You still have to coach. You can't just say, OK, uh, we're playing today and give the ball to Michael. Alright, you know, right, right. You still have however many other people on the team. So that goes into my relationship with the talent. I got to have some idea of who they really are and what they really want. And it's never as simple as more money, a title. There's something else that makes them tick. There's somewhere else that they want to go and you pivot them, you continue to pivot them. You're gonna tell them and like the way to success is a team. And it's true. Nobody gets anywhere alone. Michael Jordan, arguably the best basketball player in the history of the game, but if Scottie Pippen wasn't on that team, if, um, what's the other guy with the hair, yeah, thank you. Dennis Rodman wasn't doing his thing and I don't know who else was on the team, you know, I know the coach. I, I was gonna say the coach's name is Phil something, right? Yeah, OK. Oh, this is very interactive, right. So if there wasn't that alignment, Michael Jordan would still be Michael Jordan. He'd still be amazing, but, but with that team, he's unbeatable. He's like kryptonite to every other team in the league. So when you have your Superman or your superwoman, you're telling them, I'm. Holding the Avengers around you, right? You might be Superman, but even Superman has Kryptonite. So we need a Wonder Woman who can lasso that Kryptonite and get it away from you. We need, uh, you know, Batman, no, not Batman, he's um DC. You know what's the other, Ben Affleck. Oh, he's Batman. Yeah, Batman. OK, so you need, uh, so you need him who can afford everything. I feel like the Avengers would all be on welfare if it wasn't for Batman. But right, you need that team and part of what you're gonna do for this person is build a team around them so that they can be at their best they can be a success and you tell them, OK, so here's what's gonna happen you're gonna start I'm gonna start you in this department and you're gonna hate it because this person is head of the department and they are micro. Many and you can come in here and bitch and complain, but you're staying on this team, staying on this team for 3 years. Why? Because after 3 years this is what it's gonna look like on your resume and blah blah blah and then I'm gonna promote you to this position and here's what you're gonna learn here. Whatever it is that they want, you're gonna kind of um road map for them how you can get them to the position that they, they want to get to. And when you tell them what's gonna happen and how it's gonna happen when you have another uh company that comes in and tries to steal that key employee, that person is gonna say. Tracy told me that was gonna happen. She said after I got that series regular on the TV show that CAA was gonna call me and if I was stupid or if I just want the fast money that I could go there. But if I want this thing that nobody knows about, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, play this out and I can't tell you how many of those stupid. I've gone to like the client comes in they're like, well, hey, you know, I see him. Yeah, but I told you I see him was gonna, yeah, you did, you did. I'm just calling. I'm just, we're having dinner because I wanted you to know that it's happening and I'm not going anywhere, but you know I'm gonna stick to you stick with you, Tracy, but if such and such doesn't happen in two years, like you said it like uh shut up and eat your meatballs. I wanna quickly jump here and take one audience question. We do have mic runners. Any questions from the audience, raise your hand and the mic runner will come to you. Anyone, right, I'll end with this question, um, because it's over now, because to your point, uh, you know, when, especially as they become more, uh, popular, um, they rise and, and acquire more star power. I'm sure that there are other agents who are looking at them reaching out, sliding in the DMs as Gen Z calls it. So how do you, uh, kind of establish that loyalty and build. Attention with your with your clients. To me, one is all about that pivot. You usually people will act as like I said, especially your high performers, they're gonna act in their own self-interest. And if you can show them that you know how to get where they want to go, that you have that roadmap, people will normally act in their own self-interest, which means to stay with you. It's not 100%. It's and people have a lot of damage that you can't correct from your office, but normally. If you pivot them, if you let them know that you know how to get them where you wanna go, they wanna go, and then if you can even support them even outside of your infrastructure. You know, because maybe their idea is, hey, I want to open the same kind of company. All right, great. So you're not the person who's gonna work for the company for 30 years, get a gold ring, and retire. That's fine too, but I need you in this position for 3 years. And if you give me that 3 years, I'll introduce you to such and such and such or I'll make, I'll help you attain that dream. Certainly a lot of parallels set at the top of the conversation, uh, with what all the people in this room are doing uh as it pertains to human capital and talent. So thank you so much, Tracy for you for having me. This was fun. He's gonna come help you. Uh, all right, you all may be familiar with the hit series Severance, the sci-fi drama on Apple TV with a cult-like following. It's set in Lumen Industries, a company that surgically splits employees' consciousness into two distinct beings a work self known as an innie and a personal life self known as an Audi. All of this is happening in a dystopian future.

As talent volatility and accelerated transformation upend the workplace, the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) is emerging as one of the most strategically vital roles in the C-suite. What lessons can today’s leaders take from the world of private equity—known for precision, performance, and value creation—about how the CHRO role should evolve? Learn groundbreaking insights from a foremost leadership effectiveness expert on how HR leaders in any industry can shift from being reactive problem-solvers to strategic drivers of long-term business success. 

Think Like an Investor, Lead Like a CEO: How CHROs Can Reshape Their Roles to Enhance Impact

In fact, I know a lot of you already know this. Chief human resources officers are now recognized as the cool kids of the C-suite. It's a role that's critical to a company's growth, innovation, and success. In a time of talent volatility and rapid transformation, no position may be more pivotal. And who better to dive into this than Rosanna Tresatti. She's the chief executive officer of Oliva Executive Leadership Advisory. She's a performance psychologist, an expert in executive effectiveness, and she's here to share a fresh perspective on how HR can shift from reacting to leading and to drive transformation that lasts. Please welcome Rosanna to the stage. Would it surprise you to know that the single biggest indicator of a CHRO being replaced has nothing to do with the CHRO? Alongside a very talented team, I spearheaded a longitudinal study over the course of nearly a decade where we looked at what differentiated the CHROs that were rated as the highest performers. Now we did this work largely in investor backed businesses, but as you'll see, the insights that I'm going to share apply equally to businesses of all ownership structures. And our findings are pretty interesting because they clustered into essentially two different groups. We found a number of variables that were very effective at predicting which CHROs would be rated the highest performers, and we quite cleverly called those success factors. We also found a completely different group of variables that were extremely effective at predicting the CHROs that were most likely to be rated as low performers, and we called those failure modes. And for the CHROs in our study, we found that there were two really clear and compelling failure modes. First, the quality of the relationship with the CEO was the single biggest predictor of a CH of how a CHRO's performance would be viewed. So much so in fact, get up, check this out. So much so in fact, that a change in the CEOC led to nearly 7 out of every 10 CHROs being being replaced eventually. Now you may say, well, it's not that unusual a CEO comes in and likes to tweak their leadership team, but we found that no other C-suite leader's perceived performance had anywhere near that level of dependency on the CEO. The second failure mode emerged when we saw CHROs who were running HR functions that had administrative noise or inefficiency. Those CHROs were significantly more likely to be rated as low performers and or exited. So the failure modes are really helpful. I like to talk about these as the hygiene factors or the absolutely necessary, though utterly insufficient conditions for success. The success factors, on the other hand, are interesting because they give us the real insights around what the CHROs who are really leading the way of the future, what they're doing that's different. But before I go there, I'm getting, as I tend to do, a tiny bit ahead of myself. First, I want to share with you a perhaps pretty obvious, though often um unnamed contextual reality. Consider that at the end of 2023, 11.8% of all C-suite rolls in the S&P 100 were held by women, only 11.8%. But that picture is actually even more lopsided when we double click into the data, because 72% of all CHRO role holders are women. So now go back and think about the failure modes that I just shared with you, where the quality of the relationship with her CEO and her ability to keep her house in order become the non-negotiable prices of admission for her role. Now, in case you were curious, we've done the same research with CEOs, CFOs, CEOs and CTOs, and the CHRO failure modes were the most distinct among that group. So these roles, largely held by women seem to come with the implicit expectation that she will be managing her household. This is essentially the corporate equivalent of making sure Sally has what she needs for soccer practice and Jimmy's done his math homework and everyone goes to bed with enough food in their bellies. This becomes the necessary threshold to be seen as adequate at your job. OK, but in the interest of time, let's focus on what are the skills and mindsets that actually help CHROs. Uh, irrespective of gender, re-script and move beyond this notion of the very important, the limiting expectation of being a business administrator to being a business accelerator, and we found four really clear clear success factors the CHROs who were doing this, what they did. First, think like an investor. So this leans really heavily on disciplined financial fluency. Be very clear on what investor investors call the value creation plan, which is essentially the strategic roadmap for how your company will drive its financial aspirations. If you know the strategic the value that your strategy is meant to drive and for which stakeholders, you can speak with greater specificity, relevance, and impact. 2, lead like a CEO. And this means doubling down on commercial acumen. It's business-wide over functional thinking. It requires strategic and systems view of the interconnected way in which your business operates to achieve its goals. 3, measure what matters. This is my favorite. If you think about how to build um dynamic data-driven insights that are not just descriptive but also predictive, that is a real driver of differentiation. So to bring this to life, employee engagement is a great measure, but it's descriptive. If you can tie employee engagement scores to what it's what outcomes it's actually driving, it's much more powerful. So one company I worked with, for example, was able to tie its employee engagement scores to key areas of the business to sales acceleration. That may sound something like, um, for every 4% points of increase in employee engagement in our sales function, we saw a 9% increase in sales in the subsequent quarter. Powerful. Number 4, and lastly, Lead from the front. Our data, which by the way, is not unique from any other meta-analysis on CHRO impact that you'll see in this particular regard, showed that the CHROs that were rated at the very highest of the performance group were seen as change leaders. So this is about, um, systems thinking. Um, and driving, excuse me, systems thinking and really becoming a, um, a mobilizing and focusing force for organizations around driving cultural and business change. This current CHRO of Apollo, Matt Brightfelser, who's both a real vocal advocate for high impact CHROs, as well as a role model for what that looks like, aptly points out that people are almost always the single biggest line item on a company's P&L, and furthermore, almost always the single biggest lever to driving and accelerating value for the company. Through that lens, it seems really obvious that these roles hold real commercial heft. So when you're visiting a foreign country, the more you speak the native language, the richer the set of experiences are that you have access to, the more doors open to you. And what these four success factors clearly show is that CHROs who learn the native languages of business are much better able to pick up the pen and re-script and broaden the understanding of their roles. To access that pen and shift the paradigms as well as shape your businesses. Think like an investor, lead like a CEO, measure what matters, and lead from the front. Thank you.

Boasting multi-billion-dollar valuations, Handshake and Remote are doing things differently than the Fortune 500 — and they say it’s paying off. Handshake’s laser-focus on Gen Z is transforming early-career recruiting by connecting college students with employers through a social media-like platform designed for digital-savvy users, prioritizing accessibility and inclusivity. Remote is  creating global workforces, allowing companies to easily hire, pay, and manage talent in over 180 countries, cutting onboarding time from weeks to days without needing a local entity. These cofounders will reveal how shaking up the HR game isn’t just good for innovation – it’s changing the future of work for businesses and job seekers and leading to long-term profitability.  

The Billion Dollar Startups Changing Hiring Forever

Hustle culture is no longer the badge of honor it once was. In fact, many say it's counterproductive—and that it’s time for a strategic reset. But leaders today face a uniquely complex challenge: Managing five generations in the workforce for the first time ever while navigating the rapid integration of AI. In this new era of work, what does high performance truly look like? How can leaders move beyond outdated norms of overwork and urgency to cultivate cultures that are empowering, collaborative and inspiring? This panel will share emerging frameworks for redefining success and building performance cultures that fuel human potential and unlock innovation.

REDEFINING HUSTLE CULTURE IN A MULTIGENERATIONAL WORKFORCE

Complex and sometimes challenging when each generation has different values and measurements for success. Add Gen AI into the mix, and workplace culture can become less like a melting pot and more like a mess. We want to help you avoid that. Joining us with insights on building cultures that work in harmony and drive success for employees and businesses alike are Joan Anderson, chief people and community officer at Digital Workforce coaching platform Better Up, and Cesar Carvalho. Chief executive officer and co-founder of the digital wellness platform Wellhub. Please welcome them alongside Fortune senior writer and summit co-chair, Phil Weber. Well, good morning. Um, When uh I was told that I would be moderating this panel, I kind of chuckled and wept a little hustle culture. Um, you know, We've heard a bunch of tech CEOs, maybe one in particular, uh, in the last few months, talking about the value of, oh, people should sleep at the office so that they can work 19 hours a day. But also in the last few years we've heard about all the importance of wellness and mental health and rest. So I'm just big, big picture question to start. I uh hustle culture back? Did it ever really leave? And are we back to glamorizing over work? Um, well, I never thought I would be on a panel that references perhaps a Jay-Z song with being a hustler, um. Or many many other hip hop songs referencing it, I guess I would say uh the word requires redefinement and reclaiming of what exactly it means to be in a hustle culture. I think high performance and sustained high performance and that leading to business outcomes has never gone away. However, I think what has happened is that we often lack the metrics to demonstrate what exactly is going to lead to outcomes. And as a result, that's been replaced with this idea that face time. That just showing up that spending more time in the office is going to lead to better outcomes when in fact you look at the data and it's exactly the opposite. So at Better Up we've done research of the over 410,000 employee sources that we have as a result of our platform being able to be connected to the workplaces with these. Conventions that help connect coaching and data and science to really what drives workplace outcomes and we've seen that over the past few years despite this existence or this idea of hustle culture of people just working harder, the data shows us that they're not working smarter and we've seen performance decline we've seen that. Despite all of the efforts when we look at performance across three categories, uh, sort of execution, basic performance, collaborative performance which is around communication and alignment and adaptive performance which is about innovation, it has declined across every level and the reason why we see those declines is because we've seen a drop in what really fuels high performance, which is agency, optimism and motivation and when we. Add interventions and we focus on the things that drive those outcomes then we see performance rise. So I guess I would say I think we need to reclaim and redefine what it means to be in a hustle culture or a sustained high performance culture and no longer use metrics that aren't really focused on the things that drive key business outcomes there. So before I share my opinion, a caveat here, I am a tech founder. I built a $3 billion business, and 13 years later, I'm still the CEO running the company and I want results. OK, I want Performance. But the issue I think with the hustle culture as you defined as we're talking about here is that It is a liability for organizations and glorifying burnout is a liability. And for me, for 3 reasons. The first one is that very quickly we lose the connection from results and we quickly shift to hours worked and we start focusing on the input. Very quickly, we use hustle culture and other things to have a license to disempower leaders to doing their thing, you know. And there's nothing more nonsense that founder mode, you know, and as a founder, I'm glad to say I'm anti-founder mode, a license to this empowered leader and it hurts organizations in the long run. And the third part I think the hustle culture, uh, the, the risk is like we kind of focus too much on individuals at work and at the workplace, and we forget about all the other hours that are not related to work. Um, when we're at home, when we're with our families, and etc. if that part of your life is not in good shape, if you're not sleeping well, if you're not exercising, if you're not eating well, it will have huge consequences on the way you perform at work, and we can't forget that part. So, you know, the last part, I take issue with the overemphasis on the hours we spend at work. The um coming out of COVID we heard so many beautiful things from employers in this country, bring your authentic self to work, your mental health, your well-being, your this through that, and I'm just, um, but we're also hearing about a worker shortage and now it feels like the balance of power swung back towards employers. Does this mean it's a tougher environment now for to advocate for more training for employees, more coaching, more memberships at gyms or things like that? So what's sort of the environment right now that you're seeing? Well, I think it's the other way around, you know, like, uh, to me I look at those things training, upskilling. Wellness as key components for higher productivity. I think employees will deliver more if those things are in place, you know, if we're active, if we're exercising, you know, like if we're treating ourselves as expected, you know, we're going to show up better at work every single day, we're going to have more resilience when we start facing challenges and make no mistake, there will be a ton of challenges out there. When we research employees and we ask the relative importance of wellness versus salary, 93% of them, especially in the youngest generations, they say that their wellness is as important as their salary. So if you overlook those things, you're gonna be having to pay more for the same talent and you're still gonna have issues. Yeah, I think I, it's a, it's a really good point and I think back to one of the things that I I has already been a little bit consistent this morning I think. The reason why we see challenge around those things is because they weren't necessarily connected to outcomes and being measured appropriately, um, so when things do when anything that's performative or just done for the sake of doing it without connecting to a strategy and being connected to outcomes that show is this working for my organization? is it connected to my bottom line I think those things are always at risk of being questioned or feeling optional. However, when we to your point, focus on wellness. And mental health and building resilience, it's a direct tie to whether or not people are driving the right outcomes in the organization. So I think too often solutions have been put in place without having the right metrics and outcomes to say is this tied to my strategy and then that feels optional. uh, so that's the, that's the myth I think it's it's always a little bit of the execution issue I think when we have these things that can sometimes feel more programmatic than they should be. You talked about younger people valuing their wellness as much as their uh as as income. I mean, are is it do younger people have a spicy leading question. Do younger people have the same ethic work ethic as their parents and grandparents did? Um Hard to say. How are you defining work, you know what I mean? That's the, that's the question. Are young people having to work in an industrial revolution environment where they're, you know, on a manufacturing floor or are young people leveraging AI to deliver things in faster, smarter. Different ways I think, I think it's how we define work and work ethic and what's required in today's environment and it's not fair to me it's not an apples to apples comparison in my opinion. 100% and the definition will change like the same capable people. Person, the same capover that would take 3 days to build the report, you know, can build that report in 30 minutes now with AI, you know, do you want to judge based on the quality of the report or the amount of time that people invested, you know, so, um. There's a transformation happening and that will continue. The next few years are going to be quite exciting with those changes. We're talking a lot about this today. Um. But you know it's here to stay. I, I think, I think that I think advocating for our younger generation, I think they get a bad rap, um, and sort of suggesting that what they value and their willingness to drive outcomes isn't, uh, the same as other generations. And I think kudos to them for prioritizing, you know, wellness and resilience and lifestyle because those are the things that ultimately is going to sustain any high and give them longevity. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, I mean we always hear the cliche that it's a marathon and not a 5K sprint, you know, for sure, although you know I live in New York and all I still hear is people bragging about how little sleep they get yeah and I mean I think that's our fault as a generation has come before. Uh, of not of using, you know, we have so much better data and insights that really tells us what good is, what valuable is, what output matters, and yet we rely on old models and, and I think that's our fault for sort of modeling the wrong behaviors and suggesting that those are the things they're gonna drive, um, success. So speaking of young people, um, What's your, what's your take now on the, the appetite of corporations to, to offer training and coaching to young people? Um, and giving them a sense of the career path because I sometimes I anyway, I have a, I'll leave this for the last question, but you know, young people skepticism has some sort of foundation if they, you know, you wanna work smart now and not, uh, just, uh, work insane hours for, for what, not much of a result. So what's your sense of, of the appetite in corporate America for offering coaching and training and these kinds of benefits? Go ahead. Look, um I think for all sorts of benefits a shifting mindset that is happening is directly looking at whatever you're offering and if people are indeed using them every single month, you know, um, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, every single company would be talking about how many people signed up for a program but not actually if people finished the program, how, how many people are using that thing every single month. Uh, in the space I work at, wellness, physical activity, nutrition, sleep, you know, it's very often that those benefits are implemented. A year later, you have 4, 5% of the people actually using them, and that's a lot of money wasted, and the employees are developing the filter in which they understand if a company truly cares about that or if they're just checking the box. And that is a reality of every single workforce. And one of the things I am proud the most about what we do as a company is whenever we launch a benefit related to wellness, we more than triple the number of engaged employees with those activities, so we offer that at scale, and the clients that are more engaged gets to 40% of participation every single month, you know. So a message on that is utilization is really, really important and, you know, It's just like dog food for a dog. If they like it, if the, if the service is right, they're going to go and use it, and that's a great way to track if it's relevant. I think the perception of the need to invest in these spaces is critically important, um, and I think listen in environments where budgets are challenged back to, you know, the theme that I've been discussing like you have to demonstrate the outcomes and the connection. But I also think if organizations aren't truly invested in this space, truly, uh, focused on building things like resilience and really focused on how you improve mindset, particularly in this AI moment you will be left behind. uh, there is a gap to sort of embracing new technology, new ways of working, and allowing your own organization to continue to drive innovation. Um, and you know our research and data has shown us that some of this perception around AI as a support system or as a tool or somehow cheating the system, uh, decreases adoption and that's concerning. I think that's concerning so I feel like organizations who aren't embracing the idea of training and coaching and enablement and mindset evolution. Uh, at some point are going to see them fall behind from a technology adoption perspective. So I want to open it up to the room and I'll come to you in a minute. So raise your hand and then, uh, we'll come to you. But since we also have the notion of multi-generational in the title of this uh of this panel, um, how about adopting, um, benefits to reflect multi-generations in a workforce it, it just seems it's a bit one size fits all. So, uh, what, what can, what can companies be doing better. You know, to reflect a workforce that has young gen Zers to old farts. I'm not saying anyone here is an old fart, but you know what I'm saying. So I have one tip, you know, with wellness. There are no one size fits all solution, and you should not be picking what works for your employees if it's A or B and C. You should be investing your time and attention on providing platforms or providing the tools for them to make the choice that works for them. And it's like their fingerprints. Everyone has its own. People who like A won't like B, and they will never change, and it's good as long as people are engaged and are using those services are treating themselves, and they're getting better at that. I 100% agree this idea is allowing optionality, flexibility, things that are individualized and personalized again with today's technology, there's so much opportunity to design personal solutions things. That feel accustomed to themselves we look at evolutions we're making in our coaching platform and leveraging AI and someone feeling like this this coach, this agent has been designed just for me because it's based on my input who I am as an individual, where I am in my life cycle, uh, and I think that goes across the benefits of of just allowing people to choose where they are in the moment, uh, whether or not you might be trying to pay off student loans. Or have a child or buy a home or care for aging parents or plan for retirement. There's so much opportunity to provide a lot of flexibility in the benefits that we make available, and I think it gets back to the point around how that can give people agency around their experience at work. We have a question there. Can you just state your name and your affiliation? Sure, uh, Kyle Forrest with Deloitte, um, thank you both for, for sharing your thoughts and. I was reflecting yesterday there was a conversation on burnout, uh, and then even the potential role of the manager in some organizations and I'd love to hear from you both if you're seeing examples of where organizations are helping build accountability, you know, leadership manager, etc. because if you think about um. How you actually give people the time and space to take advantage of some of these things if you have a healthier employee, a happier employee, more engaged employee, absenteeism down, more productive, those those are things that are measurable business outcomes. So I'd love if you all can maybe connect from yesterday to today and and share a couple of thoughts. I love the question. Uh, and there's a story. I was in Europe last week, uh, meeting with other founders and CEOs of companies. And the founder came to me and shared. He struggled with the fact that he He needed to leave work during the lunchtime, and he figured out the best use of his time was to do a CrossFit section at that time, and he didn't share with anyone because he was afraid of how it was going to be perceived. After a long reflection, he knowing how great that meant to him and uh and how much better he was because he took that break to exercise, he shared and the results were amazing. The feedback was awesome to him. What we see on our own data is when the leadership is involved, you know, with. Wellness, physical activity of taking better care of yourself. The number of employees that engage with wellness as well almost triples. So it is a watershed, you know, separation of when leaders are involved or not, and that's because of the role model, you know, like that all of you are for your organizations and all leaders are for their organization. Yeah and same in our data we of course see that where you enable managers to have that connection with their employees to prioritize wellness prioritize uh building resilience within their workplace to be just good managers which we. All been focused on for so long as a people based community it absolutely drives outcomes we've seen across our data that you know we'll see things like resilience and output triple uh when you really focus on those manager interventions so I think to your point it's about both changing the narrative and role modeling what makes sense but still continue to focus on those upscaling opportunities with their managers because they are often the unlock in the employee experience. I, uh, I appreciate your, your comments, Cesar, but I, you know, I can't help but wonder sometimes there's so much f fetishization, whatever that word is, um, you know, for endurance sports, extreme sports that we've seen, you know, like the Wall Street Journal always has the CEO went climbing Kilimanjaro without any extra oxygen, and I'm just wondering if, if that doesn't, you know, if that doesn't intimidate a certain kind of. Everybody should do exercise, but then everybody needs to do hardcore. So what what's your take on that? The hardcore part is counterproductive and the big issue I take with the sports brands like I won't say names, but you know like you all see them sponsoring great athletes and that being the role model for what physical activity is, you know, that is not inclusive at all, like it makes people shy away from, uh, engaging, and I heard so many times people saying they need to lose weight before they. Go to the gym, you know, and there could be nothing more insane in my mind, uh, and this is why we need to encourage normal people who have a job, who struggle with their goals, who have kids and are balancing it all to share their stories and you know like my CHRO. She started like showing up to our town halls with a bottle of water and she would stop in the middle of the presentation, say, look, I need more water, and you know, she stopped and she was talking about it and that had an impact on people. So you like don't, don't underestimate the impact you have on others, and the small habits work. It's about practice. It's about building a habit. It's about building a model and I love Wellubb and Better at being on this stage together because it's about the physical attribute of that, but it's also about the mindset practice, and both really matter. So on that note, we'll encourage you all to either go for a walk if that's your fancy or go run to San Diego and come back. Yeah, and share with your team and be mindful about it while you're doing it. So please join me in thanking Julen and Cesar for joining us. Good morning.

AI can analyze data, make predictions, and automate processes—but it can’t empathize, inspire, or build trust. As automation supplements what we need our IQ to do, a premium is being placed on human-centric leadership and EQ as a key differentiator for businesses. The old paradigm of work has been upended by the pandemic, AI and innovation, and the new era of work requires an updated leadership playbook. Hear from two prominent experts–a key voice on economic opportunity and a leader integrating people and digital technology–about the new leadership competencies that will determine success and failure in the workplace.

Disrupt Yourself or Be Disrupted: The New Leadership Playbook

Welcome. So I'm gonna also start with a show of hands. Um, how many of you use AI tools in your daily work in the workplace? Wow. Wow, yeah. Almost everyone. How many of you worry that you may be replaced at some point by an AI agent? Not too many. That's good to hear. I mean, I would say I probably, as a, as a journalist I'd raise my hand for that one. we're on the brink of what some have called the agentic era, which I know from the cocktail hour yesterday, a lot of people are thinking about in this room. Both our panelists have thought really long and hard about how we humans can live and work with AI agents. Tracy Franklin made news late last year when she was promoted from running human resources at Moderna to a new and groundbreaking role. Chief people and digital technology officer, which means that she's now managing the needs of a 5000 person organization as well as 3000 customized GPTs which are tailored versions of chat GPT designed to facilitate specific tasks at Moderna and Anish Rahman. is the chief economic opportunity officer at LinkedIn and by his own account has had a squiggly line career from being a CNN correspondent to writing speeches for President Barack Obama to his current role at LinkedIn where his focus is on shaping the global conversation around the historic changes reshaping work. Um, I'm gonna be opening this up to questions. I know from the conversations yesterday, you have plenty of questions on this topic, so put your hand up and a mic will come over to you. Um, I'd love to start with you, Tracy, um. Really a nuts and bolts question, uh, with these 3000 custom GPTs, how do you determine what tasks are appropriate for a human and what tasks for a GPT? I wonder if you could give us an example. Yeah, sure, um, it's a great question, so thank you and hi, excited to be here. Um, for a couple of years now we have been thinking about work, so not necessarily workforce planning with humans and not necessarily. Just technology planning it's what's the actual flow of work that happens in an organization and what's required to accomplish that to have the biggest impact and so we've mapped those flows of workout across the company so whether that's within a function or cross functionally and then we say how best should we get this done? Is it a normal system robotics, AI, human and then how do you integrate it all. And so the purpose of my role is really bringing together talent strategy and tech strategy to build that integrated way of doing work um and so it's case by case basis I think one of the exciting things that we are working on is our individualized cancer therapies and that's a whole new way of building um our organization and so it's we don't have time to get into it now but it's a pretty cool example of how we've combined all of that. Um, and Anish, you published in a New York Times op ed came out literally this morning, which is great timing, uh, about the challenge of facing the Wall Street Journal, right? She was. Uh, the challenges facing people at the bottom rung of the career ladders, um, you said that to fix entry level work we'll have to reimagine it entirely, which is something that I know Tracy, you're also thinking about. Um, could you elaborate a little bit on what you meant by that? How do we reimagine that and, and specifically how do the people in this, what role do the people in this room, people in in the HR departments have in, in that reimagining? The most important role. I mean, first, thank you for having us. Congratulations to fortune. This is an amazing collection of people. I often think of this line from one of the great movement builders that there's only one conversation that this group of people can have in this room at this moment. Let's find it and I'd encourage us all to really lean into that prospect because we are at the beginning of a moment of big history of big change when it comes to the world of work. I'm convinced it's going to be the biggest disruption. To work in human history and so the point of the op ed was really people are starting to get that, but I don't think people understand how fully in this moment of change, uh, we are where people were starting to get that urgency most was around entry level work. I think it's the. Intuitive for people that the tasks that we've traditionally assigned to entry level work are are the most disrupted, if not imminently disruptible by AI tools, but the most important part of the piece, and I'd encourage you all to read it, but I leave you with this as a group, is that for a while now as we thought about this moment of big disruption, we have been going to technologists to ask them what's coming and technologists should be asked what's coming with AI. But technologists are not trained or skilled at answering the question of what's happening to humans at work. That is not what they know best, and we haven't done a good enough job going to all of you, going to neuroscientists, going to organizational psychologists, going to economic anthropologists to say what has been true for humans at work because it hasn't been a great story to date. And then what's possible for humans at work if we change the story of work from not being about technology at work but humans at work. And so the piece really pushes us to not just say entry level work is either gone or persisting in old math ways, it's how do we make entry level work better, not just for entry level workers, but for the companies they join. Each generation brings its own unique skills and expertise to a culture of innovation entry level workers, young grads, they're natives on technology and these new tools, and they are all the research of revolution shows people are most absolutist, you know, in their twenties, they're gonna push back. They're gonna ask why are we doing it this way? Why don't we do it this other way and that's. Exactly the kind of culture that people need um and that all then ends with all of you. I mean the the unit of change for all this is gonna be work and the people that are most in control of that are all of you and so whatever we can all do to help all of you lead all of us um really as a species into this new world of work, that's what I'm signed up for. And you're already doing that yourself, both of you, um, I wanna, if it's all right, get a little bit personal here. You both talked about using AI agents in your own work lives as sometimes even as a personal coach or kind of a therapist to get you through your workdays or to multiply your capabilities, and I'd love to ask you both to share a little bit about how you on kind of the course of your days how AI has helped you personally. I don't know if you do you want I can so so I use it a lot um but the thing that's been most helpful for me as um someone who is really interested in getting the most out of human potential, um, is I do a lot with our executive team obviously I'm the CHRO in in addition to running technology for the company um and we have a lot of personality tests that we've used in the organization and so I've created profiles in a GPT um of our executive committee and I. Have scenarios of when two people are are maybe at conflict or when I have to go in with an opinion um or a recommendation and how might the the group react to my recommendation or if I'm having a really bad day and I need to understand myself and why I'm triggering I actually have a completely interactive coach, therapist, you know, and, and teammate, um, for me that I use all the time. It's been like my favorite thing so if anyone is interested in it, feel free to ping me up. Happy to talk about it. Can I just, I just wanna dig in a little bit further. Are you actually kind of like modeling conversations and there's like conflict happening 100% and you're kind of like, what are the how you can build the profiles of people we use Hogan. I've uploaded all their Hogans and I've said, you know, here's the situation, um, how are these two people gonna react or this is what happened? Why did these two people react this way and how best can I help coach the reconciliation and I will tell you like. I think I'm pretty good with people, uh, but it gives me an advantage that I didn't have before because I don't fully understand someone's, you know, innate human personality response like the, like the GPT allows me to do. That is fascinating. Yeah, there's, you know, there's so much that we lose in terms of the human to human because of cultural disconnects. It's most explicit in terms of language and literally being in different countries, but it exists across functional know-how. My wife just texted me this morning. She's an academic dermatologist at UCSF. She does research on um on. Disease that disproportionately affects women, people of color. She's going to talk to the chief technology officer to think about all this, but she doesn't know the ways of speaking and thinking of a chief technology officer, so she just said this tool that she's using really helped her get ready. Um, I will say for all of you, I've, I've lived experience on every bit of the story, um, that I am telling. When you asked earlier who's worried that, you know, AI is going to replace them early on as someone who writes a lot and at various moments has written for a living. I was like, oh, it's gonna replace me at this core skill set that people call on me for because a lot of, you know, 2 years ago, 3 years ago, my value add was like help us write this help us think about this. Hey, so it's coming for that. So instead of the like hunker down fears like, well, let me engage with it. Let me see how good it is. So a lot of the early days was like, can I keep pace with me? Can I keep pace with it? Where does it plateau, where do I push forward? So whatever your core skill set is that you feel like is most vulnerable to disruption, you use the tools and get a sense of it. But now as I look back, it has become integral to my writing. It helps me sharpen lines, sharpen thoughts, speed up execution of content. Um, I just, we talked about in the past month or so, step changed my work. I mean, I'm now doing weeks of work and hours and as I try to understand it, it was a kind of um existential experience as it happened. Uh, Mary Kate's in the room, she knows I was like, I don't know what's happening, but something's happening. I think a lot of it is um I've invested in the tools for a bit now so I give them a ton of context on who I am, how I think, what I what I'm curious about. They help educate me on the history of work, history of our species, like all these big concepts I'm trying to wrestle through, um, and I've gotten more project based. I mean, all work is gonna become project based. We are gonna look at a beyond caller beyond function work sooner than you think. sales and marketing won't exist as they are, but might not even exist as separate functions. And all of that is because there's a thing we need to do and there are different roles for AI to do and humans to do and AI helps humans do different things with other humans and human review becomes part of the workflow, um, but I've invested in these tools and so when you say you invested, you've invested time in training them and so one way to think about it is we all talk about the large language models, but what's coming with AI are the small language models and that shorthand for that is agents, but the small language model just means the tools I use. Have a really good data set on me and I've given them all thoughts, all questions, all of this stuff. So now the small language model that is me means these tools just started like like at a quick pace started getting even better at the projects I assigned it, right? I'd love to actually put this question out. How, how many people in this room are are using AI agents in this way in your kind of daily work lives? And I count projects within AI tools as a pseudo agent, so that might get people, right, yeah, for some, um, I mean this, I'd love to hear any questions you will have about this, uh, at any point, so please put your hand up, um, if you have questions. Is, is there a hand up? Yeah, there's one over there. Hi, thank you. Yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts from an ethical standpoint of, uh, Gen AI because at the end of the day, as you both have referenced, we are humans, we are the ones that are. Giving the input to these agents, so whether it's from a legal standpoint or just human societal standpoint, um, what are your thoughts? Well, first, let's all start with how broken work is and that we don't want to preserve the status quo and I can get into all that, but let's not try and protect old. I think there's a lot of brokenness that we want to unwind, including bias that is embedded in our labor market currently and it's failure to match talent and opportunity well. Um, I think this is a key question, but a lot of companies then stall out when legal gets involved to really contemplate these key questions around tools. Uh, Eyolic just did a post on this. You got to push through that and develop a framework. Some of the data. You've got to keep in house you're gonna have to build your tools other data you wanna get, um, where I think about the ethical implications first of all it's about who has access to these tools more than the tools themselves and are we thinking about the global South, um, entry level workers, people from marginalized communities who are often left behind and least thought of in terms of accessing these tools that could help them right now and then I think there are, you know, questions about who has the data. And I think at an individual organizational societal level, we have to think about it. I've wrestled through, I'm giving it a lot of data, how do I feel about that? We all will have different thoughts on that, um, but that's part of what we have to wrestle through. I think you've done it well, yeah, and I think we have another question. Uh, Byron from Opportunity at Work. Um, my question is about, well, I guess we had a 2 by 2 in the earlier session. Maybe it's a 2 by 2, but from an organizational standpoint and then from an individual standpoint on one dimension, but then on the dimension of how things are today and how you optimize them versus how people grow and develop. So for example, you might have a set of preferences today. And you might be very I might be very good at understanding that and optimizing for that. But you might also have a growth trajectory that you want to be on as a person and how do you, how do you manage the tools so that you're helping people become who they want to be and from an organizational standpoint that you're not just evaluating people on, oh, you're an entry level person. Well, sure you are, but what will you be in 2 years, 5 years, whatever. So how do you balance those things growth versus individual optimization. Yeah I think um for me in addition to what I was saying around really looking at what work needs to get done, um, it's a constant what the the cultural attribute that we really focus on is curiosity um and someone's ability to learn can they learn and can they solve problems and so I think that's the thing that we instill we always have before, um, this movement uh it's part of our culture and so for us. Uh, we don't look at roles of static at all. Um, it's a constant evolution and so we always say like your job's not your job description, um, and that is absolutely true moving forward no matter what company you work in, um, and so I think that that's, that's one way I think about that. Yeah, and first of all I just want to thank Byron for the work he's done over years now to really try and fix the most fundamental flaw of the labor market, which is it's non-transparent and overly reliant on pedigree signals. I think Byron, I think about it in two ways. one right now I'm trying to shore up the defense of the species by saying there are unique human capabilities that are universal to all humans curiosity, compassion, creativity, courage, communication that are going to be core to how companies innovate and how people build careers. The agentic era opens up a new level of that which is individualized work. So my answer to you on the 2x2 is they merge with this idea the world of work that's coming is about the idea that nobody beats you at being you. And that means no matter what your lived and learned experience is or isn't, you have a unique. This to you as a human that if we can help you figure out how to turn that into the curiosity that drives you, the expertise that drives you so that you are innovating more at work as an employee or as work as an entrepreneur around your unique core self, that's when I think we not only get every individual to shed the baggage of the knowledge economy and this outsourced. Sense of identity to the job title they got her in the degree they got her in the big name employer they worked out or not, to an internal definition of self around skills and curiosities that they can affirmatively put on the table around their work and my God, imagine what happens. It's not the robots that are coming into the humans. I mean if we unleash, nobody beats you at being you. For a woman in rural India for a kid in the slums in Brazil, as much as for anyone in rural America or across all the communities we work with here, just think of the human ingenuity and innovation that's gonna get unleashed on a broader set of challenges than I think our economy has tackled and businesses have tackled today. It's a great note to end them. Thank you so much JC thank you.

Who will be the go-to business advisors in 2025’s legal climate? Attorneys. In- house counsel and employment litigators are tackling new political, social and legal headwinds related to workplace DEI. Join foremost legal mind Kenji Yoshino as he explores the implications of the new administration’s executive orders around DEI. Yoshino will also offer practical guidance on how leaders can mitigate legal risks by shifting DEI programs to meet contemporary challenges.   

Legal Power Play: Why Attorneys Are Critical in Business in 2025

OK, well thank you all great start to the day so far. Um, my next point here is on President Trump's first day in office in January. He signed an executive order rescinding all diversity, equity and inclusion policies in the federal government. He also ordered government agencies to combat illegal private sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities. Now, the government does not have the legal authority to tell private companies to get rid of their legal DEI programs, but still, the order rattled the corporate world, of course. Uh, our next guest is here to help us distinguish between the signal and the noise when it comes to DEI. Kenji Yoshino is the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional law at New York University and the director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging. He joins my colleague Fortune Leadership deputy editor and Workplace Innovation summit co-chair Azure Gilman with some important insights to share. All right, Kenji, thank you so much for joining me. I'd like to actually start with a question to the audience. Who here has felt that they've been put under pressure to change their DEI programs in some way over the past few years? OK, more hands, more honest people than I thought. OK, excellent. All right, so reminders to the audience, if you have a question, please raise your hand and someone will come over. Um, all right, so Kenji, you have a few different tools for companies to kind of think about the risk factors involved in some part of their DEI programs. The first is called a 2x2 matrix. Can you explain to me what that is? Of course. So first of all, thank you so much for having me. It's such a joy to be here and Uh, I am Kenji Oshino. I run a center on DEI that operates out of a major law school. So you can imagine that the first part of this matrix looks at anti-DEI legal risk, and that's what our phones and emails are blowing up about when the administration first came into place, and those include things like, Am I going to get sued under Title VII or Section 1981 or is Attorney General Bondi going to come after my organization and put the might of the executive branch behind these lawsuits, etc. etc. But the more we had these conversations, the more we realized that if we thought about the risk only as a legal risk, that that would be inadequate because as all of you know, the January 21st executive order said 120 days from now we're going to publish a blacklist of companies, by the way, for those of you who are counting, that's Wednesday, so it could be as early as this Wednesday. And companies are saying it doesn't matter if I know that I'm going to win all my lawsuits in the Supreme Court 3 years from now if I'm on that list. That's a social harm that I'm not going to be able to overcome. So we brought in our aperture to think about not just anti-DEI legal risk but also anti-DEI social risk. But if you think about it, right, the other thing that we need to worry about is the pro-DEI legal risks. So one of the things that we're seeing already is that companies are shutting down their DEI policies and then they're getting sued from the other side by traditional plaintiffs. Like what people of color, women who say, look, you know, we don't trust you anymore when you said you wanted to create an inclusive and equitable workplace, not just because you've retreated from DEI but also because you've retreated so quickly and you've pivoted on a dime. And then finally for those of you who love a 2x2 matrix and our completion, you know, compulsionist like I am, there's that bottom left hand box of pro DEI social risks where even if you're free of legal liability from the so-called left, right, then you could also encounter social risks. So those would include things like boycotts or bycotts, right, so individuals punishing, you know, major retailers, for example, for retreating too quickly from the. GI policies that's not legal, but it's certainly a cost to the organization or global risk for your uh global organization. Oftentimes what people want to do is to lower everything to the lowest common denominator, but then they get pilloried by jurisdictions abroad, the Canadas, EEAS, Australia's of the world that say we actually are still for DEI as much as ever, and we're going to push back if you try and lower your DEI standards globally because that's not where we are. OK, yeah, so it's not just a risk of being on Trump's blacklist, it's a risk of a boycott, a boycott, stuff like that. All right, um, the next one, it's really mouthful, stick with me, everybody. It's called the Three Ps. When a program confers a preference on a protected group with respect to a palpable benefit, so what would be an example of that? Yeah, so just to set that up, you know, we often get asked what's legal and what's illegal because the executive orders all talk about legal and illegal DEI, and the answer is the executive orders don't tell us that because they don't have the authority to do that. That is going to be defined by congressional statute, Title VII, Section 1981 as. Interpreted by the United States Supreme Court. So our North Star here is the Students for Fair Admissions decision that was decided in June of 2023, and it may look like it happened far afield in academia, but the Supreme Court gave us such a clear window into how it was thinking about discrimination that we developed these three pieces as a kind of heuristic, right, a rule of thumb to help all of us think about what's legal and what's illegal. So the three P's are they have to be a preference, as you said, for a protected group with regard to a palpable benefit. The preference means that you have to be favoring one group over another. It seems really obvious, right? But a lot of DEI policies don't do that. So if I have a really aggressive unconscious bias. Program, let's say I force every single person in the organization to do unconscious bias training. That may not be very popular, but it's absolutely legal because what you're doing is you're taking bias out of the of the organization rather than putting bias into it. Then with regard to protected groups, the group actually has to be protected by a civil rights law. So in the Title VII context, that's race, national origin, religion, color, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity, and Section 1981, which regulates the contracting, uh, uh, uh, kind of, um, domain, so think about. Your supplier diversity programs that would involve just race. so you can actually do a lot more with supply diversity than you can with regard to employment, which is covered by Title VII. It's not covered by either of those statutes, you're totally fine. So veterans preference is totally fine, you know, first gen preference totally fine as long as it's not a pretext for engaging in a prohibited form of preference. And then finally with regard to palpable benefit like I can't sue an organization just because my feelings are hurt or because I have some ideological objection to the program. I have to show that it touched on my employment relationship in some way or I can't even get into court. In the Title VII context. This is called an adverse employment action. What the Supreme Court did last April in 2024 in the Muldrow case was to debate whether Or not it should zero that out and say you don't need to show any harm other than the distinction itself, but it ultimately settled on not significant or material harm, but some harm that a plaintiff needs to have encountered before they can advance a Title VII case in a lawsuit. So notice that all three of those elements have to be present. If one of those is missing, then there's no legal risk whatsoever, again suggesting that there's a lot we can do. Um, I think, you know, a lot of companies worked really hard on their DEI programs, years in the making, and they're trying to keep some part of it. They're just not sure which part to keep. So I'd like to play a game with you called Red Light Green Light. Are you ready? So red light means no, don't even think about it, it's off the table. Green light means yes for sure, yellow light means, you know, a little in between, tell us. Tell us what you think. All right, a women's ERG for women only, right, OK, because that's that keeps other people out. Yeah, it's, it hits a 3P. It's like it's a preference, right? Only women or a protected group woman with regard to a palpable benefit belonging to one of these ERGs is a benefit to your work environment. A women's group open to everyone. All right, an unconscious bias training that all employees must attend. A mentorship program for young people of color. Uh, red, it's only young people of color. It doesn't matter that they're young. The fact that they're people of color, white individuals are excluded is a problem. A mentorship program for young people. Totally fine. All right, recruiting at a job fair at an HBCU. Totally fine. Great. Sponsoring a ride festival. I would say green. OK, having a supplier diversity goal. Uh, depends on how rigid it is and for whom it is for. So if it's for women, totally fine because it's not a protected group if it's race. Also totally fine if it's aspirational, but if it's a hard edge goal that says we will have X%, you know, if that's red. Having a hiring quota based on race or gender, bright red, but it was bright red before SFFA, so no one has those quotas. So I don't know why we, I still, I mean, I know you know this. I don't know why the the press keeps talking about this because we haven't had those since 1978. Yeah, having the phrase diversity, equity inclusion written on your company website, fine. I mean that that might lead to social risk but legally completely fine. Um, doing an internal diversity survey. Totally fine, agree. All right, lovely. OK. That's a fun game. if anyone has a red light green light, please, this is your chance. All right, um, so you know this is a group of people from the most powerful companies in the United States. If you want them to leave this room knowing one thing for sure about DEI moving forward, what is that? It's a good question. I would say that I want you all to think about that risk matrix that I talked about and not to make any decisions. So I'm not advocating for a decision. I'm advocating for a process. I want you not to make any decision without going through the holistic process of talking through all four of those boxes. You would never engage in this kind of uh. Significant activity outside of DEI without engaging in a holistic risk analysis, right? So why should it be any different in the DEI context? So I want you to think about the pro-DEI and anti-DEI risks, and I want you to think about the legal risks and the social risks. It's only after you've thought about all of them that you act. If I had one message for you, that would be it. Um, you know, it's been quite a year, it's been quite a few months. Um, we've seen a lot of companies do a lot of things. Um, are there any responses to the new DEI landscape that are notable to you in one direction or another? Yeah, in both directions, the precipitous responses riffing off of what I just said have been dismaying. So some organizations have engaged in with the best of intentions, total stout denial, saying like this is nothing to do with us. We're not we're not changing anything, you know this is business as usual, right? And I worry about those companies being in the crosshairs of the administration or of anti-DEI activists, so I worry about that. Uh, in that direction, in the other direction, the organizations that have retreated often get really punished right by younger employees like Gen Y or Gen Z that we were just talking about, who seem to be unionized as a generation figuratively around a commitment to DEI or through these boycotts that have inflicted a huge amount of pain. The company that I want to praise that I'll call out here is uh McKinsey and Bob Sternfes there where he gave the best statement, you know, in the wake of these executive orders where he said, we believe in diversity and we believe in merit, and we believe those two things are inextricably intertwined. Because what that did was it reversed the spin of this narrative that says DI is about anti-meritocracy, right? And he said actually we believe that these two are intricated with each other and every time I use a diversity word diversity, I'm also going to use the word marriage. Yeah. Um, you know, Trump's executive orders have made a big splash. They're designed to make a big splash. Lists might be coming out this week of companies in his crosshairs. How freaked out should companies be about that? Do you have, you know, what would you say to the company that comes out on the list this week? Yeah, I think you should be, you know, appropriately concerned, right? I don't think. Need to tell you that I think that what I would say if you're on that list is take some instruction and solace in the fact that uh we've actually seen this happen before so go back and look at the law firms go back and look at the universities and think about what they have done because what we saw in both of those instances is that the first targets immediately caved and negotiated but as time. on more and more companies began to fight and then other companies took that kind of finesse, you know, position in the middle, right? So that's one thing to think about. Another piece that I really like is Sheila Hean's memo from the Harvard negotiation Project. It's the project that brought us the blockbusters getting to yes and getting past no, where she has this really insightful memo that says, I almost never tell people not to negotiate, but I'm telling you right now, don't negotiate with the administration, right, unless you have eyes wide open to the fact that this is not going to be the end, because what organizations often think is, oh, if it's just a, you know, $100 million or so, then there's a very low price to pay relatively for getting off of this, you know, blacklist or getting out from under the crosshairs, but it's never the end, right? That that that just exposes you as a soft target for more negotiation. So it may be, again, I'm not dictating a. You know, it may be that that's worth it to you, but the cost is not going to be $100 million. The cost is going to be the $100 million plus future demands made by the administration plus all the negative press and backlash that you're going to get from the other side. So thinking about the spread of reactions that we've seen from the law firms and the spread of reactions we've seen from universities and thinking about the reactions that people have had to all of them is very instructive, right, if you find yourself on that list later this week. Um, we have 20 seconds left. Are we headed to an inflection point? I think so. You know, let me end by saying, you know, I always think about DEI according to that old labor organization quote of first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then we win. So that's been my career. Right. Indeed, honestly, when I started this work two decades ago, people didn't know what it was. I'm sure many of you can relate to that, and they kind of laughed at me, right? They were like, You're in the most prestigious field of law. I teach constitutional law con law. Why would you go over and do this marginal thing that just seems very soft and fuzzy? And my response was I actually see much more continuity than rupture between the two enterprises because I've always cared about equality and dignity and inclusion. But nobody's laughing at me anymore, right? I mean, everyone understands that this is a fight and it's a fight for the identity and the soul of the nation, if not the world, right? So then the question becomes who wins that fight? In a world where talent looks like what it looks like, where more than 50% of college educated workers since 2019 are women, where by 2042 we'll be a majority minority nation with regard to race, where 23%, according to Gallup of Gen Z, self-identifies as LGBTQIA plus, not to mention trends about globalization and the like. Like, who do you think is going to win this fight? Is it going to be people who think about diversity, whatever we call it, and think about the importance of developing skills, about how to bond and how to connect and how to team with individuals who are different from ourselves no matter what that difference is, or people who are going to say, no, I don't really like this very complicated world. I want to go back to the way we never were in some kind of magical kind of imagined sort of 1950s era, thank you so much. I'm going to have to end there. Thank you so much for joining me.

As AI rapidly transforms the world of work, organizations are rethinking how jobs are structured, how people are hired, and how teams grow their skills. Hear from leaders at the forefront of AI adoption share about what the rise of AI means for workforce strategy and how employers can adapt. What happens when tasks are redefined, roles are restructured, and entirely new skill sets emerge overnight? From rethinking hiring pipelines to creating AI-augmented employee experiences, this session will explore how work itself is being redefined — and what it takes to ensure people stay at the center of that transformation. 

Reprogramming the Workforce: AI's Impact on Jobs & Learning

All right, hey, everybody. All right, let's do a quick poll, because we're all friends here. How many people are anxious about artificial intelligence? Raise your hand. 00, all right. I would say about half the room. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. Um. Because we are all friends and we're having a good time here, I'm going to start off by quoting none other than the great lyricist Dochi. Anxiety, keep on trying me, feel it quietly trying to silence me. That's what it feels like with AI in the business world today. Yes, I just made that connection. Juliet, what are organizations doing wrong? This is supposed to be the most great, greatest, most transformational thing in the world. Why is everybody so freaked out about it? I think first of all just to say I also used to be someone that was super anxious about this and so I deeply relate to those to those fears. um I think that I think that one of the things that uh we need to do in this moment is is actually start to change the way we we talk about job replacement. I think that this is really about something even bigger than that. It's about a reimagination of jobs. It's about a redistribution of of how we work and you know as a as a people person and an optimist, I have a lot of, I think, faith and optimism about how humans throughout history have actually adapted and leveraged technology for progress and I, I really think that at the end of the day if there's one thing I do want to communicate, it's that the best antidote to fear and anxiety is actually knowledge and understanding and so I think that this is why it is so critical that companies put this technology in the hands of employees. Now the lovely thing about this room is that you're all people, people, so I, I do love that very much. um, Chris, what are you seeing? You see you have a lot of data that you see about how uh uh organizations are responding, reacting, pursuing artificial intelligence. What are you seeing from your perspective? Yeah, I mean, I'll just start first of all, we're super happy to be here and thank you for for having us, um. I raised my hand. Let me just address that. Please do. Someone, someone asked me a couple of years ago, are you excited or concerned about AI? And my answer is yes. And I think it's not only possible but actually necessary to hold both of those at the same time. Anything that has sufficient power to transform the world like this technology does should be treated with excitement and with with concern and care. Um, what we're seeing, so we have a group of labor economists that sit within Indeed that look at our data and they ask questions about what's happening in the world of work. Svea Goodell, our chief economist, is here today. You should talk to her. She knows more about what's happening in the world of work than pretty much anyone. Her team has done a bunch of research over the last couple years, super briefly. We took about 3000 distinct skills from millions and millions of job descriptions. And looked at generative AI's ability to perform each of those skills individually on the axes of general knowledge, pretty good, reasoning, getting a whole lot better, but then necessary for physical presence. So AI can do math very well. It can't draw on IV quite, quite yet. Um, and what we found is 22 headlines. Number one, the good news, there is not a single job anywhere that AI can perform all of the skills required for that job. It doesn't mean it won't replace workers, but, uh, it can't, it can't completely replace, uh, a job, but. The second headline, the one that that's most interesting to me, is that for about 2/3 of all jobs, 50% or more of those skills are things that today's generative AI can do reasonably well or very well, and that's only going to get better. And what that says is that pretty much every job is. If it's not changing already, is going to change, and it's going to happen rapidly. We're expecting, or I'm personally expecting, I've been doing this for a little over 30 years. If you look at the change that's happened because of the internet to pretty much every line of work, there's a handful of occupations that over the next 3 years are going to see 30 years of change. And so what we're seeing is that people are going to have to adapt very, very quickly to how they work, but also how they hire and how they find jobs. Now if I'm a worker at one of these organizations, I'm thinking, well, I like my job, you know, that's why I'm still in it. uh, if I'm thinking, you know, I like our culture, you know, that's why I'm still here. So Julia, coming back to you since you touched on this a little earlier, uh, what is one to do with the, you know, addition of artificial intelligence to this? Do we have to rethink an already successful culture? Do we have to rethink already effective jobs? I, I would say that especially on the culture front, yes, we do have to rethink what culture looks like so I, you know, obviously I'm working at an organization that has probably one of the most AI curious, uh, uh, workforces in the world. AI maybe you've heard of it, um, and, and I just, just to say this, even OpenAI has to work really hard to make sure that that our employees are using these tools to their full potential. And you know the way we're thinking about building culture at OpenAI and AI curious culture is in three ways. One, it's who we hire, um, are, you know, people are self-selecting and of course to, uh, to open AI, but we are starting to embed a kind a basic liter literacy for AI into our interview processes, uh, how you lead, uh, this is really, I think as as leaders this is table stakes, uh, if you're. Not already using our technology in your workplace right now. Come see me, but at, but, but, but, but at a baseline, you know, we have free tools like pick up chat GBT, use it, use it for yourself personally, um, that is it, it's really critical to being able to, to, uh, sell the merits and and the benefits of the technology and then, uh, building AI curious culture. Uh, this might be a little bit silly, but host a hackathon. On right, interrogate your manual processes, get people excited about what you can be doing and what the possibilities are when using these tools, or um host an interdepartmental competition to see who can come up with the most clever use cases, uh, for applying AI to their to their work. And then if you want to be like a little bit spicier and more like open AI um for every on boarding class class, ask them to host a debate. about the merits and drawbacks of AI. This actually really makes it more accessible, makes it more accessible, excuse me, and really kind of lowers the barrier just to have conversations about this technology. So at the end of the day culture is really of course about who you hire, how you lead, and the space that you create for this technology. A debate you have you held a debate about AI and opened. It it is critically important for us to be able to understand both the positive sides of this impact and where there could be drawbacks. You've called this In our previous conversations you've called this rebalancing the organization. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the most exciting things about this technology is that we're going to be able to offload some of the more mundane or some of the more repetitive tasks, and I think that what what I'm seeing as a user of this technology is, is the impact that you're able to have. The surface area upon which we're able to operate is expanding. Um, there, the, the, the amount of, I, I think people mistake chat chat GPT for, for only being a tool for automation, but when you really practice it and when you really get into it, it, we are, we are going from idea to execution at a pace we we never thought possible. And not only that, we're learning more as we go. Yeah, Chris. It has become it's, it's rather in vogue to be a CEO who sends a memo to the entire organization that says we are an AI first company and we all must use the AI, however defined, right? Generative, agenttic, whatever. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna digress here. Um, there are several prominent CEOs that have done just that. You can see where it comes from. There's board pressure. There's obviously CEO pressure, um, there's competitive pressure. You are a CEO. Is it top down? Is it bottom up? How must the AI revolution actually play out? Yeah, I mean one option is just Send Toby's memo to everyone. Yes, a lot of CEOs are doing that. Toby Luke from Shopify just sent one that was actually very well reasoned and thought out and essentially said that AI is now mandatory at Shopify and it's going to be used in performance reviews. It's going to be, uh, you can't hire anyone before saying that AI can't do this job, and I, I understand and I think it's it's actually useful to have that conversation. What we have found is that Um, in general, with almost everything we do, that top down is important to help point in a direction, but, um, I don't know how many of you feel like if you say something immediately everyone does it. It doesn't matter what your job title is, that's not how it works. It's like, I mean. I'm a parent. It never worked that way. I was gonna say, do you want to you want to poll them? We can poll them. But but so what I'll say, we had this conversation last week when we were talking about this, the most effective thing we've had. So in engineering we had a handful of people who started using AI coding tools. We made them available to everyone. We encouraged people to experiment and some people were skeptical, some people were uninterested, and some people dove right in. There's this guy Bob. We talked about Bob. Bob is a real person, and Bob just sort of fell in. Love with trying every single thing out and started doing really amazing work and and what we figured out actually the most effective thing was just Bob started making videos that he started sharing with the whole engineering team of the stuff that he was doing and how it was making his life better and we have found that the bottoms, I mean you have to have some top down, but the bottoms up is so much more effective because the deal is when something comes from top down, it seems like management wants you to do this because it's going to be good for the company. And what you really want is this is going to make your life so much better. You're gonna be able to do things more, you know, with so much more ease with when it comes to coding with less errors, it's gonna take you less time to get things into production. You can do so much more, so people get really excited and so you know I think that finding the champions, giving people a chance to figure out what works for them and then letting them be the uh the spokespeople has been so much more effective for us. So I started this conversation by asking, and we kind of, you know. Went around it and I'm so I'm gonna come back to it. um, what are organizations doing incorrectly here? So what I'm hearing from you is that you know the top down memo can be very effective. um, maybe we need more context that's a uh a misstep. What else are organizations doing wrong and what should we all in this room avoid in this great AI push, either one of you. I, I, I think that one of the things that that organizations might be doing wrong is they might be framing this as a cost cutting exercise, and I think that they might even be, isn't it, I, I think, I think that that is a second order effect once you focus on the first order effects, and I think that that that even. If I'm an employee, what I don't want to hear from from management and leadership is we're going to squeeze more productivity and efficiency out of you. That is not the type, I mean this is maybe my people bias speaking, but like that's not the type of motivating message that I want to hear. What I want to hear is what is the impact that you can have when you use these tools. And how are you able to grow and and learn as an employee? I'll I'll share a quick story. Uh, last week I was interviewing, uh, an HRBP and I said, What do you, what do you love about chat GPT? And she said, Julia, chat GBT is making me smarter because it's the safest place for me to ask what I think are dumb questions. And it like it really, I'm not gonna lie it like kind of moved me because as someone who certainly has been afraid to speak up in a room or maybe has had imposter syndrome in the past, being able to have that safe place to learn and ask questions is extremely powerful, and I think that it's something that is that is overlooked when we're thinking about rolling out this technology. And just to your question, I think that anything that can increase your effectiveness can be used to cut costs. Or to get more stuff done and there are companies that are going to do both. There's no question it's not a tool that is only going to be used one way, but if you take like an extreme example, let's say you're a 10 person startup and you find a set of AI tools that can make every single person 10 times as effective. Are you gonna say, you know what, I'm gonna fire the other 9 and just do 10 people work with one person, you're gonna say we're gonna do the work of 100 people and we're gonna be able to move faster than everyone else. If you're a 10,000 person organization. You can say, well, I'm going to have 1000 people do 10,000 work, but if your competitor is saying no, we're going to have 100,000 people worth of work done, and so this is the line that Svea in the room is the first person I heard to say that she does not take credit for it, but it's a good line. AI is not going to take your job, but someone who uses AI will take your job, and that's the same for companies. We, you know, I've been saying I said this to the to the company last week at our all hands. AI is not going to take our customers, but other competitors who are moving faster, who are using AI will if we don't do it. And so that I think is, I think it's small, it's small thinking to say we're just going to use this to cut costs. Yeah, yeah. I want to come to the audience for a question, but I, I have one brief one for each, each of you, which is just what is one thing that these folks can do tomorrow to improve their prospects, reduce their anxiety, as we started off with around this topic. I could say one thing that that we did the bottoms up thing is is a big deal, but I think you need both sides. One of the other things that we did, and if none of you can do this for the whole company, even within your group, we spent a lot of time saying we want everyone to be using AI. We want to figure out the ways that it can make us more effective. And we weren't getting the kind of traction that we were hoping for and then we just made the decision a year ago to put someone in charge. So Hannah, Hannah Calhoun, who is an R&D leader, we just said Hannah, your full-time job is you are AI for Indeed, and she's responsible for working with every single function looking for those. Cases working with the bobs of the world to help popularize the work that's going on and to drive those outcomes. And so if you don't have, if, if the, if your approach is that everyone is responsible for it, then no one is responsible. So think about finding someone in your neck of the woods who can be responsible within your group for driving it, yeah. this might be a very meta answer, um, but I would say that you should open up Chat GPT and ask Chat GBT what are the first steps that you can do to learn this technology or how to even help people feel less anxious about the technology this is one of the things that that Chat GBT. is best at it's helping you get started if the area in front of you seems too large to tackle. And so I invite you to ask that question. I had a feeling I might be the answer for one of you. OK, let's go to the audience for a question, please. Yes, right there, sorry, forgive me. Your name and organization, please. Thank you. Yeah, hi, Kyle Forrest with Deloitte. One of the things with this uh session topic around workforce in the future that I'm really interested in both your perspectives on is the data that has come out recently that says this is the largest graduating high school class ever. Right, so actually then you play it out, there will be fewer humans in the workforce eventually and different types of roles and so I'd love to get, you know, perspective from each of you on even are we doing enough right now relative to how we reimagine those roles for the humans who are in the workforce around what those new jobs and tasks and activities for the humans will look like when you just look at the math equation of fewer humans and in certain types of roles. I guess I, I disagree and I'm maybe in the minority, but I disagree with the concept that there will be fewer people in the workforce. I know that it's a very popular opinion and there's some very important people in this world saying that the only job left at the end of all this AI stuff is going to be venture capitalist, might have been a venture capitalist who said that. I think we're going to go through a period though for the next couple of years where people are looking for ways to cut costs and the economy being as volatile and unpredictable as it is right now. And so we're going to see jobs slowing down and the hiring slowing down, and I think we're going to find just like we have with every other technological technological advancement of the last 400 years that we're going to be able to do so much more. I think, you know, I'm a tech guy in the software world. I think that less than 1% of the software that the world needs has been written. This is going to allow us to Move so much faster and solve so many bigger problems. So I think that the problem actually is we do have a shrinking labor force globally, and the question right now is I feel like we're in a race between the shrinking labor force and AI being able to help us catch up to actually solve all the problems that we need to catch up. But yeah, I agree, Chris, and I am, I am very bullish on the future of jobs. I think that. That what we're going to see in going back to the point about rebalancing is what types of skills are we looking for? I think that we're going to see a premium on people skills. This might be great, great news for the people in this room. Good news for everyone here, and you know, I think in some ways this when when the workforce and when companies are demanding that type of skill set, I think we might start to. Look at education and how are we preparing students to enter a workforce that is more dependent on people skills or problem solving skills in the in the physical world. So I I'm I'm really excited about that future. I think that that's a really exciting and optimistic future. Bullish on humanity. I like the way we've ended this, Chris, Julia, thank you so much. Wonderful conversation. Thank you. Take care.

With 76% of employees self-reporting a symptom of burnout, the need for a holistic workplace health and wellness approach—integrating physical, mental, and social health—has never been more urgent. But with limited resources, where should organizations invest? What health-promoting behaviors drive individual well-being? What are the primary contributors to workplace burnout, and how can organizational leaders improve employee mental health at scale? An organizational psychologist and medical doctor break it down, offering evidence-based strategies to build workplaces that truly support well-being. 

The Doctor Is In... Your Office

Worker well-being, which began to decline during the pandemic, continues its downward trend 5 years later, as I'm sure you all know. In fact, according to data from our founding partner, indeed, just 29% of employees say they're thriving at work. Stress is a major factor, and that can lead to burnout. This isn't just bad for employees, it's bad for business too. Smart companies are investing in wellness initiatives to help employees thrive, which can lead to better performance and profits. So let's talk with. Leslie Hammer, PhD, director of the Oregon Healthy Workforce Center at Aregon Health and Science University, and Doctor Sohini Stone, Chief Medical Officer of Global Employee Health at Google. They joined Fortunes's next to lead editor Ruth Uma to share strategies on improving employee well-being and at the same time boosting organizational success. Please welcome All right, good morning everyone. Thank you so much for joining us and a huge thank you to our panelists. This is gonna be a great conversation. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. All right, let's make this introactive. Let's kick off with a quick show of hands. This is a safe space. Let's all be honest with one another. How many of you would say that either you personally or your work. Of course more broadly is currently experiencing some level of burnout raise your hand, be honest. I certainly am right now keep your hands up or raise your hands if you feel that your organization's leaders, especially middle managers, are truly equipped to recognize respond to and reduce that burnout. raise out if you feel your leaders are well equipped to do so. Oh, that's quite the disparity and that takes us right into our conversation again thank you both so much for joining us. Let's talk about the 76% number 76% of employees report symptoms of burnout. What does that signal to the both of you? Is it a reflection of individual overwhelm. Or is this something that's more systemic about how we work? Please, Doctor Stone kicking call. Absolutely. Hi everyone, great to be here today, um, and I think that's that's a perfect way to start this conversation and really we have to recognize that it's, it's obviously both, right? We have individuals who aren't equipped to know how to. Um, meet the moment that we're in a velocity that we all need to have in order to accomplish what we need to accomplish with innovation, the pace that technology is moving, and really being able to do that. But then we also have systems or a lack of systems in organizations that are, um, slowing people down or that are creating. creating barriers that ultimately lead to frustration that then become burn out. Yeah, here's to hear from you. Absolutely it's both and really I, I take a social determinant of health perspective which basically is the idea that there are many different factors in our environment as well as our own makeup that. Relates and causes our our experiences such as burnout. And so burnout has some individual characteristics and causes, but it also has organizational and system level causes that we can really address and talk about and the workplace is a great point of prevention when we talk about really mental well-being and health and Safety of people at work and middle managers we'll be talking about are a great point of intersection for addressing some of these issues. Yeah, let's get things a bit more broad before we get a bit more granular. How much of burnout is preventable through cultural intervention and what do you see company culture either compounding that stress or alleviating it? The the company culture is huge and the culture that impacts burnout has to do with expectations and demands and stress and the expectations really when when we think about expectations and demands, the amount of control people have at work and the amount of pressure that they feel are a direct. Direct contributor and there are risk factors to burnout at work and so there are a number of factors that we actually can control and that we can change in the workplace and that we have, we have um control over and we can actually impact health and well-being of workers and what does that then lead to? It leads to improvements in outcomes at work. We've seen in some of our own, and I, I am an academic and I am an academic who has done 100% of her research in applied settings, who has worked in different types of industries and time and time again we see that when we change aspects of the workplace and we redesign the workplace to better support workers that change. is the culture that improves the culture and that leads to not just improvements in mental well-being of the workers but it leads to improvements of bottom of the bottom line we see improvements in reductions in absenteeism, reductions in turnover, and overall improvements in productivity and all from changes that are really kind of originating in the culture of work. To build on that, I think when I think about uh burnout, it's really the reason it matters is because ultimately burnout is a symptom of something that is going to affect the person's entire wellbeing and their health. It will affect their physical health. It'll affect their mental health and it affects their social health. It affects how they're connecting. To other people at work and what those future relationships look like you know as well so from a cultural perspective building on what you said about those factors that we have control over, we should think about we, we like to think about it, Google both the organizational factors but also the environmental factors that can really help to either. Affects negatively or positively the experience that somebody is having with their relationship with the workplace and can help actually be protective against some of the things that are known pretty widely to be um triggers for burnout and so we think about not just how we are setting up things like prioritization. Goal setting expectation setting things like that which, which has to be really clear communication also has to be really um effective in order to help people um but we also think about the environment and how is the environment supporting meaningful connections in the workplace which we know there's a body of research to support is protective and on the flip side, a lack of meaningful connection in your life can um make you at higher risk for experiencing things like burnout. And other um conditions yeah we'll circle back to you about what that looks like in practice first, Doctor Hammer, as you already alluded to, you've done extensive research on occupational stress and how to promote workplace wellbeing. Talk to us about some of those signings absolutely, and I want to build directly on this point of connections because that is where all of my work is focused is on leadership and how do we improve leadership connections with their employees and what I have been able to do through. As I said, many, many, many, um, organizational interactions that have been actually funded through the federal government, so I've been able to do large scale randomized control trials in workplaces such as healthcare, such as technology, and such as military, for example, just to name a few. What we've been able to do is train develop training and develop kind of um actual behavioral. Nudges for leaders and then evaluate how that that those behavioral nudges impact their team members and evaluate through randomized control trials so this is evidence-based and we see that those behavioral nudges and those those teaching behaviors around around emotional support, these are kind of people behaviors, these are connections teaching. Managers, supervisors, leaders, how to improve those social connections has led to profound impacts in workplaces over and over and over again. And this is through these actual randomized control trials. That have been able to be implemented in various different organizations and when you say behavioral nudges, that's what you mean by that. What what thank you. What I, what I mean by that is we've actually identified behavior, specific behaviors such as such as. Like teaching managers the importance of practical knowing about practical resources in workplaces, knowing about how to where to direct um employees if they need support around mental mental health, for example. So for example in one of my um one of our large scale, uh, large scale studies in the military working with active duty military personnel. And specifically with platoon leaders we've taught platoon leaders how to increase resilience and readiness at work and this is a high risk industries so it can be generalized to other high risk industries and other many other industries, but we taught them how to basically interact with their soldiers to improve mental health through emotional support and that's recognizing that it's important to touch base and. Know your employees and be able to then check back with employees if they share something, a concern, and to be able to provide support and that's 11 type of behavior but there's also behaviors around as I said, increasing resources, role modeling, teaching leaders that the importance of their role modeling and that they have to show that they themselves are also supporting mental health and that they are. Basically attending to their own mental well-being and those are just some examples of those behaviors that we have been able to teach to leaders and see significant outcomes and in the military, for example, we saw improvements in um mental health basically through risk factors of anger and loneliness so we were able to reduce. Loneliness and reduce anger that was 6, 12, and 18 months down the road by training the leaders and evaluating that with their, their team members and their in this case their soldiers, but we've actually generalized that outside of the military to other workplaces. Yeah, I mean Google certainly is high pressure environment, so I do want to talk to you, Dr. Stone, before I do. So a quick note to the audience that I will be turning over to you. We have two mic runners, uh, who will be coming to you also raise your hand if you do have a question you'd like to offer to our panelists. So Doctor Stone, at a tech BMS like Google that is certainly fast moving, fast paced, how do you codify well-being into management strategy and really hold managers, hold people leaders accountable to that? It's it's a great point. Because it's it is important to train them and teach them how to do these behaviors and as you just said there's a body of evidence as to why we should do that and the effectiveness of it um but as we all know people do the things that we measure them on and so there's a component of accountability here as well so there's a few ways that we think about it um one is that we have a um. A robust set of tools available to managers in order to receive the education and skill set that they that they need to do these behaviors. For instance, we have, as you mentioned, um, what we call our supporting mental health in the workplace training that there's a manager specific pathway and then an individual specific pathway and those are both that we we're not trying to make everyone diagnosticians. They, we, you don't need to be able to diagnose that a person has depression or anxiety or whatever the case may be, but you have to be able to. when somebody on your team is struggling and know how to direct them in a way that's safe and effective so that's #1 um #2 is that we very intentionally spend time working with managers to think about how does it make sense for their specific team to incorporate these moments throughout the day throughout the week, throughout the year where they're not just focused on tasks but they're also focused on creating a few minutes to have that social. Connection at the beginning of a meeting it's incredibly important when you're working with a global team because as much as I love being able to be together in person, the reality is that most of us are working with people in different parts of the country in different parts of the world on a regular basis, especially post pandemic, especially since the pandemic and so to be able to have those moments so that when there's a crisis when you need to work quickly through something you already have that sort of. Bank of goodwill built up with each other to be able to then work together quickly and effectively. On the accountability side what's really important for us is that we are telling managers and showing managers that we're not just saying you're responsible for this but we actually get feedback from everybody about their manager's performance um on an annual basis to make sure that the managers um are getting that real time feedback about what they're doing well and um where they have opportunities to support their team better it's meant to be. A way to really give managers that insight that they that's part of annual performance review. Well, no, it's separate. It's, it's, it's a tool that we have available for managers to get that feedback to be able to understand, hey, what can you be doing better to support your team? It's, it's meant as a way to help people grow and develop and, and, and be and be stronger together. Um, the other thing is we have everything written down so there are res part of the resourcing I mentioned is that managers are able. To actually go to internal sites and see this is what's expected of me as a manager. There's amazing programs that our people operations team has built to help new managers um also be able to understand what's expected of them form communities with each other, and then, um, be able to figure out how they can also respond to the feedback that they're, uh, receiving. Absolutely. Let's quickly open up to the audience. Any questions do raise your hand, uh, and a mic runner will come over anyone. I think we have someone right here in the middle. Great Hi there, I'm Renee Myers. I love all that you're talking about and The middle manager I feel is the most pressured. So even if they're doing what they need to do with their team, they still have to manage up and so they may be the people who are most burnt out in any organization, given the fact that often they're given so much. To do so many KPIs and uh a lot of uncaring about how they get it done. In fact, also incentivized not to be thoughtful in some respects because people don't see the link between productivity and people doing well. So how do you manage that? Um, I'm assuming that middle managers tell you about how difficult it is, uh, in this space, and I just wanted to know how you help them. Manage the folks up who don't always see the truth of the matter. I'll go ahead and start and then I think, I think both of us should should respond. That's a great question, and I get that all the time because it is you are absolutely spot on that there is so much, so much going on with middle managers and the pressure on middle managers, and that's why we go back to this whole piece of culture. We've got to really focus on changing the culture and you wonder how do you do that? Well you don't do that with a flip of a switch. You do that over time and with really changes in the communications and the systems and the way that the top. Leadership is really organizing work and we know from decades and decades of organizational psychology research and social psychology research and systems research that when we actually focus on providing the support at the top level that trickles down, the emphasizing the social connections that trickles down and focusing on the preventative aspects in the workplace that Really impact burnout that trickles down. So reducing demands or dispersing demands differently and increasing resources and what that does is it has to start at the top and then it does trickle to the middle managers and then the middle managers have more resources to support their team members absolutely. This is a group of leaders, but in order to get to that point, you had to be a middle manager most likely at some point. So if you remember back to whether you are today or when you were. Um, and, and I, I do the same. I remember the thing that helped me the most was somebody asking the question because every organization is different, so I will share with you what what some of the things I do, um, and that we do, um, but the context of our organization may not be exactly the same as yours. So the first and foremost thing I'll say is senior leaders have to be taking the time to ask that question in the context of a one on one or during. Um, annual planning, whatever that right time is for you to say to your middle managers, what are, what are the things that we could do to help you continue to take care of your people and get the work done, um, in a way that's effective? A couple of very tactical things though that I'll add is going back to that idea of prioritization. It is so important that we're clear about what those priorities are and what that what's the most important thing to be working on, um, and be communicating that constantly it's not a once a year. Here are our goals for the year and then we just let everybody run but making sure that we're going back constantly to that with our middle managers and saying let's make sure we're still aligned. Context doesn't change annually. It can change weekly in some industries or monthly and so making sure that you are. Giving people the information they need to make those intelligent decisions about stop doing this and start start spending more time on that can make a really big difference in that in that stress and um resilience that the middle managers have. The other thing that I think is also really important is helping the middle managers form communities with each other, so keeping in mind that a lot of middle managers are working separately because they're so busy focused on the area that they're that they're in charge of the in the organization has to invest in creating time and space for those middle managers to interact with each other, um, learning. Communities support communities, whatever is the right context for your organization is incredibly protective for those middle managers. We'll run up on time, but this conversation one that's particularly pressureing at this balls high very uncertain moment, uh, in corporate America we're seeing a ton of tectonic shifts. So thank you to both of you. We'll be delving even deeper into mental health and we'll be in later in the afternoon. Thank you. Yeah, thanks.

It’s been said that people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. As companies seek new ways to increase productivity, morale and retention, is the solutions to invest more in this under-trained and burnt- out cohort of high- potential managers ... or remove this layer of bureaucracy altogether? Hear from one company who made the bold decision to remove its middle management and the lessons learned 18 months into this strategic decision, as well as a leading expert who believes in the power of keeping middle managers and empowering them with the tools to succeed in the new era of work.  

The Middle Manager Conundrum

Well, good morning everyone. Um, I was looking forward to this session because I think middle managers can be maligned and ridiculed and. Uh, but there's no reason for that. But Bayer made headlines a year ago, um, very bold experiments, getting rid of a lot of middle managers and restructuring how work is done. So you guys are now aiming to have 5000 to 6000 self-directed teams working in projects for 90 days at a time, and you have largely junked 99% of the 1,362 pages in your former handbook, something like that. So why don't we just start by setting the scene. Can you tell us 15 months in some of the initial results and learnings from this experiment to get rid of a lot of middle management? Sure, Phil. I mean, just to set a little bit of context, as you said, 18 months ago, we embarked on a very radical transformation and leaned into a new operating model which we termed dynamic shared ownership. Uh, as part of that, uh, I eliminated here in the United States, for example, 40% of all middle managers, um, which was, uh, which was hard, um, but it was necessary to uh see our organization transform into a world that is significantly more agile and in fact empowers teams to take decisions as they see fit. Uh, we, uh, built our organization in the United States, uh, as an example, around 68 largely self-empowered customer teams, and the underlying intent was to unlock significant incremental growth. So this wasn't an effort to just, uh, slash and burn and take out cost, but this was an effort to accelerate momentum and growth across the organization. Uh, today, 18 months later, we're seeing evidence of amazing success. Uh, we just reported, uh, in our quarter one results last week, a growth of 23% in our business here in North America, uh, and, and, and while we don't break out individual countries, you can rest assured that the growth in the United States was even greater than that. Um, so we're, we're on a journey and a journey that gives us every reason to believe that that we're building a better. A faster and more successful organization that is really tuned into its core purpose of serving patients. So Edith, um, I can imagine a lot of people reading about this in the business press, other CEOs are like, oh, that's a good idea, maybe we should do it. Um, what are your reactions to this? What would you caution organizations looking to do this kind of move to think about before they take the plunge? Sure. Well, first of all, I'd like to say upfront that I'm not taking the literal don't do that. Uh, role in this conversation. I am saying that if you are looking to create more impact and productivity from your number one asset, your people, you need to do the work that Sebastian has described, which is to really look critically at how your organization works and what needs to happen to unlock the potential of all your people. How does one increase accountability, ownership, entrepreneurial, positive, uh, conflict that leads to new and edgy ideas? And if you do that work and determine that organizationally there are places in that flow that become bottlenecks, you should do the work as a first instance to understand how you eliminate those bottlenecks and what's. As just described, he identified middle managers uh as one of those points. I would suggest that when organizations do the work and conclude that managers are a place that need to be reconsidered, that's the beginning of the work because it is gonna require and should require a continued thoughtful evaluation of how people are. Going to work going forward you can hope that if you put everyone in the room that they will automatically adopt a new way of being an innovation and it's exciting to hear how Bayer has tied the increased profitability of the organization to its people. I mean an extraordinary concept actually that's fabulous, but you also have to recognize that you're going to have to give individuals. The tools to be managers themselves. Everyone's going to be a manager of themselves, of others in that scenario, and those that are now what I would call Uber managers, looking at larger portfolios, are skilled to do that effectively, right, because people still need a boss, people still need guidance, people still need coaching, and you need to make sure that those tools are available going forward. I mean my initial reactions when all this was uh I mean your CEO came to Fortu's offices a year ago and I was thinking really you're gonna get rid of, you know, I mean it just feels like there's a lot of knowledge and expertise that can be um thrown out, uh, that you could still um uh that a company could still use so how do you, how do you make sure that you're not losing a lot of that, um, brain power in your organization or how, how did you make sure that that didn't happen? You know, a couple of different things. I mean, first, we didn't necessarily terminate all middle managers. Uh, we have a number of examples of middle managers that in fact stepped back and became individual contributors uh and today. Uh, 18 months later when you speak to those colleagues that they love what they do because they came to realize that part of what they did previously wasn't actually adding as much value as they wanted to and, and I would, I would attempt to say not necessarily uh for their own fault. I mean, we created roles. As many, many large companies out there that were just fairly bureaucratic, um, we, we leaned into uh something that I would at times describe the corporate whispering, you know, you have individuals telling their manager, them telling their manager, telling their manager and ultimately someone hopefully deciding, uh, to the benefit of uh sort of the purpose of the organization and what we're wanting to achieve. Um, so, so that's uh that's one. Um, second, I think it's It, it's short-sighted to assume that eliminating middle managers is going to do the trick. To me, that is one, at least in our experience was one important component, but we didn't end there. We invested significantly uh to the earlier point in the upskilling of the managers that remain to be part of our organization. Uh, we eliminated uh traditional management targets and budgets, which was a very important unlock. We allowed teams to flow resources to where they saw the biggest impact and most importantly, we allowed teams to actually decide because we have thousands and thousands of colleagues around the world that have amazing insight and knowledge. Um, and rather than just waiting for others to decide on their behalf, uh, leaning into what they experience and see in the day to day and putting that on steroids, unlocks a ton of magic. You're nodding your head. Uh, yeah, there's so much that Sebastian shares that really resonates with me and our experience in Medley. Medley is a group coaching platform we work with companies who really want to invest in their people to develop those skills that Sebastian described, you know, how do you interact with your colleagues? How do you put forth ideas? How do you do things that are hard skills like listening, communicating, connecting, innovating, and you know, we, we have realized in the 6 years that we've. been doing this, this, this initiative, I don't say it's a business, but it's more than that, that these are things that have to actually, um, these are skills that have to be developed and the new environment that we're in where people are no doubt thinking about how work will evolve and change will actually increase the significance of these capabilities um because if you don't and you take away centers of gravity like managers. You have to have individuals who create that inertia on their own. How do they do that when they're coming from an environment where, quite frankly, that might not have been the norm. So it's really sounds quite exciting that Bear is doing the work to really create these environments where people can learn and develop these capabilities. I mean, when I think of organizations, um, bears an established company large, you know, with time it seems almost inevitable that organizations. Do develop layers of bureaucracy and also as people rise up in a rank they often get they're made bosses and managers and that involves a lot of bureaucracy so I, I feel a bit of empathy to middle managers because I'm sometimes I think well is it is it their fault or is it really the company's organization and rethinking. Uh, on how to give people, um, as they rise, not just overseeing and managing and, and, and paper, but you sort of alluded to that. That's part of what you did, uh, the Bayer did was to, to reduce a lot of the bureaucracy so that these people can actually be, um. Yeah, big time, because it also evolves, it also required us evolving what we expected of managers. I'm exaggerating, but in the old days, very often the rule in itself was focused on the approval of expense reports and and sort of the sort of managing the 1,398 pages of the corporate rule book that you alluded to earlier. Uh, I mean, just to give you an example, we processed in the United States alone 120,000 expense reports every year, and we required managers to look through those and meticulously sign off on all of those different things. When we evolved our model, uh, we transitioned, uh, significantly what we expected of managers. Today, uh, our managers focus on architecting. They focus on being a catalyst, they focused on being a coach, uh, much more than just administering the organization and that's a, that's a big unlock, but it also truthfully, um. Uh, it's, it's just joyful, uh, for those that are part of our organization today because they can contribute, um, a lot more than they did in the old world. If there's one thing that we've learned in the last few years but that's been heightened in the last months is that the narrative really matters, and I do believe that when you start an initiative with the goal of getting rid of rid of bureaucracy, if you are one of those middle managers. You know, I'm not sure that that's an exciting place to be viewed as part of the problem when in effect, I think what Sebastian has described and which I really am supportive of is that the role evolved and existed for a reason, and the reason I would suspect is that as the complexities of all businesses have grown. There has been a requirement for there to be individuals who appreciate the complexities and can be in a convening, um, feature. So if you're a 1000 person organization and you all can talk to each other every day or run into each other. That's one scenario when you're 250,000 people, you yearn for the days where everyone talked to everyone and you didn't need anyone who was an organizing individual, but the reality is, I think historically that there's been an underinvestment in the infrastructure that's been required to actually feed information into these individuals, so the role has had an increasing component of what is described as bureaucracy. You know, expense approvals, etc. Now if you said to any organization, let's get rid of expense controls, I think you probably not want to do that. But I'm sure you would want to say we can do it better than we're doing it now. We don't need to have human beings doing that, particularly in the environment that we're in. And so if you're part of the middle management ranks or you're thinking about taking steps to really understand and unraveling how you reduce those numbers. I would really encourage all of us to really do the work to create a narrative that is exciting for people going forward, not a, a, a tone that means that, you know, we don't need you anymore. I think a lot of individual contributors have grown into these management jobs when really they should be individual contributors and be applauded for those efforts. I'm gonna open it to questions, but I, Sebastian, I'm gonna ask you a bit of a provocative question, and you can tell me if I'm full of it, but, um, Bear US only or Bay bear is doing this Bayer Baa, um, so, uh. Uh, we started in the United States, uh, we've been front runners in the US, uh, but part of what I do today is to take those learnings around the world, and we're seeing significant impact across geographies and are seeing that the model that we're implementing this idea of building an organization around a network of empowered teams is one that carries not only in the United States but around the world. I mean, I, yeah, I asked you that because there's a stereotype that German companies. Sometimes in others in Europe there is um so much focus on consensus that there can be analysis paralysis that can be bureaucracy and I'm just wondering if Bayer decides to try this out in the US, almost like a shock to the system to sort of unleash, um, you know, effectiveness and innovation in the mothership as well or. I, I, I wouldn't position it as as a shock to the system. I think we, we unleashed the organization in the US first because we saw real opportunities to accelerate our momentum here in the United States, uh, and, uh, and we saw this transition as a means to do exactly that, um, um, and I think the results are proving us right. I'll give you one specific example, um, NEA. Uh, which is a prostate cancer medicine, uh, and, uh, in fact, was already the fastest growing medicines of its class, um, but, uh, we, we realized 18 months ago what the team so we all realized that an accelerated momentum in Lubecca was needed to be a cornerstone of our strategy here in the US. Um, what was impressive to me was how eliminating management targets, how willingness to move resources at rapid pace to make where they make the biggest difference and Uh, how leaning into the team's decision making allowed us to do exactly that because teams are willing and able to dream a lot bigger than their management, their managers often do and uh and we achieved blockbuster status with Nka much earlier than we would have ever uh if we had stayed in the old world. We have a question over there. Hi Dianna Dudley from El Camino Health. um, thank you for your comments, Sebastian. I have a question for you with regard to um your middle managers. You mentioned that some of them became individual contributors, and we know that if you usually are a great contributor, you do get promoted to management that level allows you to be compensated as well, more people under you. Uh, bigger bonus things like that. So did you guys adjust the compensation for these people and how did you manage that because part of this hierarchical ladder that we all climb that we have built is also tied to the compensation as well and, and, and that becomes a real critical piece when you make changes in level for people at least in America that's all I can speak to. Yeah, very important question and no we did not make changes to their compensation, uh, and did not sort of downgrade them in their compensation. In fact, we're transitioning in the way we look at careers and how we reward people away from what I describe as an eye where it's only a question of moving up sort of the the hierarchy from from individual contributor to manager to senior manager to senior senior manager to VP to Bigger VP to instead talk about careers as what we describe as a team, uh, and yes, there is still a hierarchy. I mean, we still have 3 management levels here in the United States, for example, uh, but we're also realizing and recognizing that a significantly bigger part of one's own personal development. is flexing different muscles and leaning into different experiences, uh, which is great for the results, but also needs to be rewarded appropriately. So there's a big rethink, uh, in, in, in how we model careers and reward individuals in our organization. Deanna, that's a great question, and Sebastian again is highlighting if you make a change that is significant with respect to roles and responsibility, that is the beginning of the work. If you have used management titles as many organizations have, as a mechanism for recognition and reward, and you're saying going forward we're not going to be doing that. There's the work that needs to be done in repositioning those that are no longer in those roles, but there's also work to be done with respect to creating other mechanisms, uh, that will indicate to people that they are learning and advancing and making a broader impact in their careers. It's always been important. It's very, very important now given what we know about the current generations of people coming into the workplace. More work needs to be done on that. So in our, our, uh, last moments together, um, will this idea spread? Will other large corporations, uh, try it in the same way you have? What's your prediction? I'm convinced it will, um, but it's hard work. Um, I think those that assume that it's only a question of eliminating boxes and middle managers, they will fall short. This is hard work, um, and it's hard work truthfully also on the part of senior management because knowing when to let go is a lot easier said than done. Acknowledging and bringing vulnerability into leadership, uh, acknowledging that senior leaders don't always have the answer and that in fact, it is often individual contributors and teams that have much better answers. All of that requires a significant rethink how we uh manage uh teams and organizations, how we reward uh individuals and what the future of management is. So you know who to ask if you want advice in your own organization. So thank you very much, Edith and Sebastian, for joining us. Thank you.

Gen Z is not just boldly entering the workforce—they're completely redefining it. What do they really want in a workplace and how can managers better understand and motivate younger employees? These Gen Z thought leaders, who are Gen Zers themselves, will move the conversation beyond the TikTok- fueled stereotypes and share data-driven insights to enhance engagement, productivity, and retention among this emerging workforce. Here’s how to crack the code so your business doesn’t risk losing the next generation of top talent. 

DECODING GEN Z: A TALENT WAR ROADMAP

As return-to-office pressure ramps up, Zillow is holding its ground—keeping all 6,900 employees fully remote. The company’s remote-first approach, known as “Cloud HQ,” has reshaped operations, boosted engagement, and quadrupled job applications. But is flexibility a competitive advantage—or a risky gamble? McKinsey’s latest research suggests what’s important is not where people work, but how companies intentionally design the experience to unlock innovation and impact. In this conversation, a McKinsey workplace expert and Zillow’s chief people officer explore the nuance—not the noise—of the RTO debate, offering data and on-the-ground insights from both research and real-world application. 

SEE YOU AT THE WATERCOOLER?: A CLOSER LOOK AT THE RTO DEBATE

Thank you, Elizabeth, um, and now a message from our partner Gild on how it's helping people turn hard work into debt-free degrees and real career growth. I'm working towards the career that I want with no debt. I saved up for years to go to community college, and in two semesters it was all wiped out. Having something you worked so hard for vanished so quickly, it was heartbreaking. I found out Chipotle has this great benefit called guild where they pay for your education. So I got a job at Chipotle, signed up for guild, and now I'm getting a degree without paying tuition. Not only that, I've been promoted twice with Chipotle and guild. I'm just getting started. All right, um, so I edit a lot of stories about RTO, and you really need to take it from me that the reader interest is off the charts. We get love letters, we get hate mail, we hear about it one way or another. So show of hands who here has been part of delivering an RTO mandate to a workforce? OK, yep, lots of hands. OK. Who here has been personally traumatized by that experience? Still lots of hands. All right. Our next guests are here to help us understand how flexible work or lack thereof affects corporate culture and things like productivity, success, and happiness. Dan Spalding is the chief people officer at Zillow, which lets staffers work from where they want to, and Brooke Wettle is a workplace expert and senior partner at McKinsey and Company. So please join me in welcoming them to the summit. All right, Dan, I'm gonna kick it off with you. Um, Zillow has something called cloud HQ. What does that mean and what made you take the leap? Yeah, uh, first, thanks for having us here to share our cloud HQ story. We're, we're really excited and, and proud of it. Um, for us, cloud HQ is about enabling our employees to work where they work best, whether that's at home, in the office, or in the office sometimes. Now we call it cloud HQ because we wanted to take the politics of proximity out of the equation and start from a place that remote work isn't a perk, it's a business strategy. And so for us at Zillow, it's an intentional strategy of everything we do starts in the cloud. It's gonna be documented, it's gonna be written down, it's gonna be clear for our employees to follow. So whether they're working at home or in the office together. Uh, that they know the rules of the road and, and for us it's, it's, it's been really transformative on our, on our culture. Yeah, so you've had some notable results. I'm gonna go through them. 4 times the number of job applicants, 84% of employees say that they can be themselves at work, and there's been a 5% increase in women employees. What was your secret sauce to making this work? Well, we started from listening to what our employees wanted and what they clearly wanted coming out of the pandemic was a workplace that wasn't going to change the rules on them and a workplace that understood that we all learned different ways of collaborating, different ways of working. Uh, and, and so we started down, how do we figure out what the future of work is going to look like, and applying those learnings to building a really intentional strategy around how do you enable remote work that doesn't feel remote, uh, that that allows for in-person connection, allows for teams coming together, um, and. Those results that you just listed really speak for themselves. We're we're 5 years into this project. We've made a ton of mistakes, but we learned from them. And the best part, we're building this in partnership with our employees, so they're really motivated to come to the office when we ask them to come to the office versus feeling like we're forcing them there. All right, we're gonna get back to those details, but Brooke, I'd like to, uh, ask you, so McKinsey released a bombshell study earlier this year, and it found that across remote, hybrid, in person, the levels of burnout, intent to quit, effort and satisfaction were all pretty similar. So do work arrangements matter at all? Yeah, first of all, I've never heard of McKinsey report called a bombshell report, so thank you for that. Um, yes, it was, it was a surprising result though, to your point, we did find that, uh, irrespective of the model, we looked at hybrid, remote, in person, we found that burnout levels, exactly as you say, intend to quit were all similar and so it it it begs the question, right? Well, what's happening here? And if you look. Yeah and and this is what we did, we looked at 5 practices that we know are critical to workplace culture and health, and those are collaboration, uh, and connectivity, right? It's one kind of category innovation, and then you have, uh, mentorship and skill development and what we found is that employee perceptions of all five practices were extremely low. And most interestingly, leaders' perceptions of those practices were orders of magnitude higher, which got us thinking maybe the what question, what policy should we have is perhaps not the wrong question, but not a sufficient question. The more important question, the more nuanced question is how do you implement any kind of workplace policy? Right, and, and so we see study after study say that like workers really love remote options. They like really, really love it. So how do you square what we know to be true with the results from that study? Yeah, well, I think you know it's interesting and and and I've seen the same studies that talk about the preference that a lot of workers have for remote work or hybrid work. Those same studies though typically elucidate a number of other key factors that drive employees to stay or go, and those would be things like compensation. It matters, right? People like to get uh paid something that they think is a fair wage. Uh, meaning and work, especially that connection with the manager, right? Do I feel valued by by my team and my manager, uh, and development. So I would encourage us to take a more nuanced, a more, um, differentiated approach to thinking about this. And by the way, Dan and I were talking about this earlier, flexibility can manifest in many different ways. I work with a lot of manufacturing, uh, companies, a lot. Retail organizations that are building flexibility into in-person work right and we've seen the um the kind of the uberization of of different shift models um there's been some great innovation on that front it's in particular to support working parents right and we're gonna get back to that cohort in particular right Dan, we've heard about the big upsides to cloud HQ. What were some of the specific challenges you ran into, um, lessons learned along the way, stuff you wish you had known on day one. Yeah, absolutely, um, for us, the thing that we knew we had to figure out right from the start was the intentional time together for teams. And so from the beginning, one of the biggest challenges was how do you organize bringing thousands of people together across the year. And we had a lot of learning as we went through that process and what has resulted is we now have a really interesting team that sits at the intersections of a lot of bodies of work but really focuses on that schedule of bringing. Most of the company together on a fairly regular basis for that in-person collaboration. So whether that's scheduling, uh, planning the meetings, planning the food, planning the activities, things that that take a lot of time centralizing those activities, but then actually publishing we call it the cruise calendar of when every group across the company is coming together, where they're coming together, what the purposes are of those groups coming together, and then making that transparency. To the company really gives our employees the ability to understand kind of what's happening outside of the virtual world that they work in on a daily basis. So is this like a big party like 4 times a year? No, uh, it's not, but fun in person is a key goal for a lot of our retreats. Uh, employees want to feel connected like Brooke said, feeling connection to your manager, making sure that we're bringing people together for intentional training time, uh, has been a key part. Of the strategy, but no, sadly it's, it's not about parties. But what I will say is data, as you might imagine is quite important to us at Zillow. We've now used 5 years of data to really dial in for which types of jobs do people need to collaborate more in person. And so we set the expectation when we're hiring people, even though you may be remote and can work anywhere in the US, hey, you're gonna travel to one of our core offices 6 times a year. And, and we need you to be comfortable with that. And then there's other jobs that may get together only once a year and then frankly there are jobs where you may work your entire time at Zillow and only get together a handful of times. So we're trying to use a data oriented approach which really helps, uh, our, our employees understand when they're coming together and why they're coming together. OK, yeah, and I want to talk about optimizing different styles of work. So in person, hybrid, remote, should these look different, how should they look different? Yeah, I, I think they, they should look different, um, and one of the things that we've also been working with a lot of companies on is to acknowledge that a policy setting a policy is not a strategy policy is not equal strategy, right? So setting a policy that the next step is creating a framework, right, creating a set of guard rails right around how you want to implement that policy and that could be in person. It could be hybrid, it could be remote, and I think that's really important because we actually put a great deal of responsibility and, and I would say in some cases pressure on some of our middle managers to interpret a broad policy at scale that's very difficult to do and to the question you know if you're looking at collaboration uh you know, virtually versus in person, yeah, that's gonna look really different and and it's not all easy. In person either, right, it's not, you know, all parties and, um, you know, companies that are trying to prioritize in person work. In fact, many employees have come back to an office and I'm sure some of you have experienced that and been like this, this is terrible. Like I'm just walking the halls of people on on their different Zoom calls, right? Well, that is not fostering any kind of connectivity or collaboration so from everything from real estate to. How to structure work time and versus time for, you know, collaboration, which by the way is work too. All of these things need to be thought through and then there needs to be a process by which you upskill managers to really embrace and role model those practices, but that's not necessarily a skill set that managers had, you know, even 56 years ago, right? OK, we're going to do best case, worst case. So Dan, remote work, best case. Uh, best case, I think you're going to see a lot more companies adopting a cloud HQ model because employees are going to demand it over time. But what are the specifics of that best case look like? Schedule the Z retreats throughout the year, how many, any kind of special other tools? Oh, best case, I mean, you have to rethink everything around your employment policies. You have to think everything. You have to rethink everything around the employee life cycle, how you're onboarding your employees, how you're training managers to support remote employees that come together. And frequently, uh, and then how they're actually managing through the reality of, uh, a workforce that may be trained to do everything in person in the office and it may be traditionally inefficient ways into a culture where you got to write everything down to a culture where you have to be really clear and articulate in in your written thoughts as much as as as you are in your verbal thoughts and then planning of course when when groups are coming together and what you're going to accomplish when you're in person collaborating. Worst case remote. Worst case remote is, uh, people who are looking at it as a way to optimize solely for their personal situation. Uh, aren't committed to the organization, uh, and are, are not willing to adap adapt their style to the working norms of the team or the broader organization. OK, Brooke, in person, best case. Uh, well, I think I would start with a story, right? So how are you creating value for an in-person, um, kind of environment and how does that enable you to, uh, drive whatever performance outcomes you have that tactically means the CEO, the, the top leaders down into the organization know that change story and know why we are choosing that in this case the in-person. Working model versus not right so that's, that's the starting point. Uh, second, I think you need to get smart about how you're actually, uh, upskilling, right? Talked about the managers, but that goes all the way down to the front line if you will, uh, in a, in a in person working context so that's equipping them with things like, you know, meeting rituals, right? Uh, how do you, uh, start a meeting? how do you. End a meeting what are some of the common practices and norms by the way, a lot of these would be similar practices to, uh, virtual, but they would look and feel different in an in-person office obviously you're, you're gonna have a different kind of meeting versus virtual. Then I would think about things like data and analytics, right? You're looking at who's coming in are you leaving people out right that can't come in what's, you know, what's happening there you. Monitoring your high performers, right? uh, what's the impact? It doesn't mean that you should change your policy, but you might be curious about some of the impacts right as you fine tune and approach that. So those would be some of the things I'd look at and I mentioned real estate. I do think there are real ways and we, you know, heard a earlier presentation in which people are evolving their workspace to really live into some of the practices that we've been talking about collaboration, innovation, etc. OK. Um, you know, some groups really value flexible work more than others, caregivers, working parents, like it's really important to them for, you know, for companies thinking about what to do, do they have to sacrifice that group of people if they want to do in person? I, I look, I think, uh, it is hard to say that all caregivers are, you know, have one preference versus another. I think there are certain certainly groups of people that are prioritizing flexibility that is for sure, but as I said earlier, there are different ways to solve for flexibility and one thing I would say about this RTO debate, um, is that a lot of it really. Is about power right? and when can you do your work and how does that fit in with your broader life goals, right? We went through a period during the pandemic where I think we really were, you know, whether you were, um, at home in your office, I was at home in my office, my kids like pressed with their faces against the glass door like we all reexamined why we are doing work and what trade-offs we're making. And so I don't, I don't think you can unsee that and so as you think about crafting a policy, I think you need to acknowledge that, um, but also help people who need more flexibility also get in the flow on things like development right? One of the pieces of research we did a couple of years ago coming out of the pandemic that really stuck with me was around this notion of social capital and guess what, women. Have less social capital meaning fewer connections, fewer relationships, fewer diverse connections than men. Frontline workers have fewer or lower levels of social capital compared to senior leaders. We gotta give, we gotta work to level that playing field and so I think we need to acknowledge some of these needs, but also help people get to where they want to go um in in terms of their careers and development. I'm wondering, you know, for a company deciding what kind of work model they want to go with, what are some foundational questions they need to ask themselves at the beginning to make the right choice? Dan, let's start with you. I think one, how willing are you to listen to your employees and act on what your employees tell you? Uh, secondly, how willing you are to disrupt the ways that you work today, uh, if you're a culture that, you know, only values face to face interaction, uh, and believes that's the only way that that you can, uh, share and extract value from, from the relationship, then it, it's gonna be a challenge if your employees feel that that that they would be better served in driving innovation going in a different direction so you have to really be willing to take. Not the essence of what's important to you as a culture down to the studs, but the way that that culture shows up on a daily basis for your employees, listening to them, letting them architect it along with you, of course, with high expectations about performance and productivity that can't go to the wayside, but your employees will really help to to architect it if you give them the opportunity. Um, you know, we hear from a lot of CHROs, and you know they are the ones who give these mandates even if they disagree with them. Um, so I think a lot of people in those positions are like wondering how do I make the case, how do I show this to my CEO, what's the magic word, what advice do you have for them to, uh, make the best case they can to the powers that be? Well it's a great I I completely agree. I, I work with a lot of CHROs that are like if I get one more forwarded email about RTO from my CEO, right? I'm literally gonna just die. um, so I think it's a thing, um, I guess where I would start from is, you know, going back to what Dan said like let's actually put aside my own feelings and think about what does this business need to deliver value, right? Um, you know, I work at a large aerospace and defense company well they. Manufacture big things. They need to be in person and they wanted to make sure that there was parity right between the in person workers and those that were sitting in the corporate office. Great. So they, they have a clear thesis and they're gonna go implement that. I work with a large quick service restaurant, right? They also have a huge emphasis placed on in-person work, but they ultimately ended up with a hybrid model and wanted to cultivate development in that way, so. I think you really got to figure out, I like the down to the studs what are going to be the critical ways in which your people need to work to deliver that value and by the way, employee experience is part of that formula for value let's not forget that, right? And so that's where I would have the discussion with my, you know, fellow executives if I were making a case and then discern the policy and ultimately the strategy based on that discussion. All right, Dan Brooks, thank you so much for joining me. Bye. All right.

No degree? No problem. As the workforce evolves, employers are rewriting the rules and creating new pathways for talent access and advancement. IBM’s skills-first approach prioritizes in-demand capabilities over credentials, with more than half of its U.S. roles now open to candidates without a bachelor’s degree. Meanwhile, the New York Jobs CEO Council—launched by JPMorgan Chase’s own Jamie Dimon—creates novel partnerships between 30 companies and educational institutions and has helped over 40,000 low-income New Yorkers land “family-sustaining” jobs. Learn about these different strategies and how to overcome obstacles to create a win/win for businesses and talent.

SKILLS OVER DEGREES: BUILDING TALENT & BOOSTING BUSINESS

Changing FEC commissioners requires Senate approval. But on February 6th, President Trump unceremoniously fired Commissioner Ellen Weintraub via email. Several members of Congress called for her reinstatement. This was an early indicator of unilateral – and, as Weintraub argues, potentially illegal – moves to come. Has the government adopted Silicon Valley’s flippant firing playbook? Is this the new normal, or, as former Patagonia CHRO Dean Carter argues, just bad for business? We’ll unpack recent employee separation trends and ask a bigger question: What are leadership’s responsibilities during these turbulent times?  

POLITICS, POWER & PINK SLIPS: LEADING THROUGH UNCERTAIN TIMES

we've talked a lot about where we work, how we work, collaboration, culture, hiring, and reskilling, and now it's time to talk about firing. Abrupt informal terminations are becoming increasingly common across private business and now in government too, and they're sometimes delivered with little notice or explanation. The trend raises important questions about leadership, organizational values, and the responsibility that employers have during times of uncertainty. Joining us now are two leaders with expertise and direct experience in this area. Dean Carter is the chief experience officer at Modern Exec Solutions and believes in a people first culture. Ellen Weintraub, the former chair of the US Federal Election Commission who was dismissed from her post earlier this year. Please welcome them to the stage with Fortune senior features editor and summit co-chair Indrani Sen. Hi. Welcome. Uh, we're very lucky to have with us here today two guests who have a lot to say about courage and leadership amid these tumultuous times. Ellen Weintraub, who as commissioner and chair of the Federal Election Commission, has stood up for fair elections and regulation of money in politics for many years. She was dismissed by email in February from her vital role. And Dean Carter has been a powerful voice for moral values in business over his 20 years in people and culture, including 4 CHR roles in a decade at Patagonia, where really he set the standard. We'll be opening this up to questions. I'm sure you have so many questions for Dean and Ellen, so think about that. Put your hand up at any point and, and Mike will come over to you. Um, I'd love to start with you, Ellen. Your dismissal from the FEC was abrupt in public, and it came amid a career of striking success. I sort of want to anchor us in that experience. I know you were not terribly surprised by what happened, given your history of standing up for what you believe is right. But can you talk a little bit about the personal impact of your firing and which is an experience that so many people have gone through in the federal government and beyond? Thank you, and it's really such a pleasure to be here talking to you all. I was kind of expecting it, but I didn't expect it when it happened or how it happened. The normal thing would have been to replace me with another nominee, and instead I was just summarily fired. I was cut off from my email. I was cut off from all my databases. My ID card was decommissioned, so I couldn't get into the building or into my offices anymore without an escort. Uh, my staff had to scramble to find other jobs. One of them is still looking. If you know anybody, she's really great. Um, uh, it was, um, even though I was expecting it, it was still sort of disconcerting, and I find that still a lot of people can't figure out how to find me because they cut off my email without even giving me a chance to put in one of those. If you want to reach this person, email her at this address. So I'm on LinkedIn if anybody's looking for me. Dean, how do you see this, the erosion of legal and ethical norms in government affecting the private sector and leadership in corporate culture? I know you have a real air in on that and, and how can HR leaders like the people in this room make sure that compassion and fairness is still at the heart of their company's operations. Um, what I hope is that corporate America doesn't reflect what's happening currently in the, in the more public environment. I am, and I hope we have a stand up, um, and have a lot more courageous leadership. I think this is a really challenging time. I, uh, listened to and talked to a lot of CEOs in this moment and it's really difficult to navigate the, the, the question around is this the time to stand? Is it time to bend, is it time to hide? And I, and I think this is on their minds like is this a time to duck. Um, or stand up and what I hope is that we get to a place and realize this isn't the way that we would run our companies and certainly not the the model in terms of how you let someone go. Um, people have long memories and uh I just I think in this moment, um, it is. It's easy to be courageous in time when times are easy. It's hard to be courageous when times are hard and and I the thing to remember in this moment, it's not just you going through this, your employees are going through an incredible amount of uncertainty. What does this mean? What does the company stand for? What does my leader stand for? Where are you in this moment? And they really are looking for a lot of things. I'll talk about that in just a minute, like what are some actions you can take in this moment? To make them feel safe. And I guarantee you, when I go into a room and ask people, how many of you feel like this is the most chaotic moment in your life. I may ask you this, how many of you feel like this is a really incredible chaotic moment in time? How many of you feel like your teams are spending a lot of time trying to work through the chaos? There you go. So and you and you multiply that times 10 because you, you have power and your employees don't and have agency and they're just really struggling in this moment. So we'll talk about some real actions you can take on this. What, what gets in the way? I'd love, I'd love for you both to weigh on this, but what, what, what are the things that prevent leaders from being courageous in the moment? What are the factors? I think that there is a systematic effort underway to silence opposition voices and to intimidate people. I was fired in a way that was designed to intimidate other people at my agency and other people at other agencies, and I think the only response to that is to stand together. We all need to stand together. Your organizations have power. And no administration can go up against the entire Fortune 500. If your leaders speak out together, if they combine together, maybe it is counterintuitive for people who normally feel like they're in competition with each other, but this is a moment for combined action, and that is where we will find our strength and our power because it is so important for people to stand up and speak out. Winston Churchill said. You can't appease a crocodile. It just means you're going to be eaten last. So you don't want to be eaten first, last, or ever, and the way to fight that is to band together and find our voices. I think this time it's really important just to go back to what do we what do we stand for, what are our values and what are our principles. So this isn't about politics or red or blue or purple or whatever, but it is really about, you know, what the principles that you stand for and your employees are looking for like in this moment. You know what do you stand for and I think there's definitely a level of fear. Um, I got a call right after the whole DEI thing went down and some of the executive orders started to come in from um Lazelbach, and he said, Dean, I know you and a few other folks have some level of insolence and level of safety because. Longer in the head of HR role. By the way, Patagonia didn't didn't care about safety at all. We sued the president 16 times during the time, the last time, and you probably saw a lot of stuff. We were very, very public. There was an image on the cover of Time magazine of Yvonnehonard, the founder, and Trump, staring at each other, so we were Um, talk about courageous leadership. I mean, that's a great example, but he said, you know, I'm gonna try to see if we can get a bunch of heads of HR to sign this. This is Laszlobo, and so Dean, would you sign this? I was like, of course. And he called me back two days later and he said I could only get 4 former heads of HR to sign this. Do you think that's gonna change in time? I hope that it changes. I know that this is the time to stand together. And not, not to duck and uh and stand for principles. These are all, these aren't just like let's let's move beyond like moral and the right thing. These are business issues. This is just good freaking business. DEI, we've always said diversity, equity, inclusion are good for business. Treating people right on the day that they join the day they exit is good business. These concepts are just good business and if you're running a good business. These are the things you do and things you know and this is what you do as a leader that doesn't change. Not to mention supporting rule of law. I mean, there's a reason why these great companies were formed in this country and have profited in this country. It's because we do have rule of law, because we do have freedom of speech. It's because we do have protections for people that allow you to recruit from all over the world and recruit the best talent and that they will want to come. Here and not worry that if they say the wrong thing their visa is going to get pulled or or they're going to be ousted for some reason because they just expressed their own point of view. If you want to recruit great talent, if you want this to be the United States of America and not hungry, then you have to stand up for those principles, which is how business grows. Yeah, I think. Absolutely, um, the thinking about the challenges ahead, not, you know, again, putting aside politics but just some of the business challenges ahead, the tendency of leaders is to want to express optimism and to be upbeat. How, how do you advise, uh, HR leaders who are often kind of like I think courage whisperers, right? They're often the people who can. Who can help their CEOs um find that courage in themselves. How do you how do HR leaders help the CEOs find their courage and avoid that kind of delusional optimism that can sometimes be a bit of a, a kind of instinct for leaders? The, the only job more lonely than the head of HR is the CEO and uh the only person they don't have a lot of people they can talk to. And so it's typically the head of HR is the person that you can do some whispering in terms of help them be courageous and what what employees want, I believe. is to acknowledge their fear, acknowledge their concern, acknowledge where the moment is, and then move on to like here's some things that we still stand for and this is what we're going to do. I think that's really an important thing is just to to do that is to anchor in principles, acknowledge the fear and concern, and talk about the pragmatic things that we're doing around this company and what we still stand for. That's really what they're looking for and uh and they want. More than ever, transparent, authentic, courageous leadership. That's great. Any questions? Just put it out there? Um What do you see, uh, as the, um, well, actually, sorry, I'm gonna go to a different question. Dean, you've defined courageous leadership as speaking up for your values even when it's hard. I wonder if you could give some examples of what that might look like in action, like this week, next week, this month. Um, and what I mean by that is there was a moment when I was at Patagonia, I did an op ed and I presented to the CEO Rose Mercurio, and she said, Is it provocative enough? And I'm like, what do you mean by that? She goes, did you hit hard? Were you true to what you believe? I was like, and it was about, you know, supporting women at work. I'm like, no, let me rewrite it. So it came back in 20% of the people like that was it, you know, Dean, I got slammed on it and 80% had some reasonably positive. I came back and said, yeah, 20% really didn't like what I said. She goes, you crushed it, perfect. And so we're a courageous leader in standing for something, know that, and when you whisper to the CEO, you're not going to please everyone. When you stand for something, you're you're gonna upset this group and you're gonna upset and be really honest about that. And so that's an action you can help your CEO be courageous in this moment, go here's what's on their hearts and minds. Here's what they need for you at the moment. Here's what you can do. I'll stand beside you. I've got your back on this, and that's, I think what they're looking for is just a little bit of nudge. They're humans too, you know, they're dealing with this and dealing with their families and likely if someone else is impacting their families things. So anyhow, this is your moment, you know, to give them a little nudge and like I got your back. Let's go through this together. Everyone could use that, I think we have a question over here. Yeah, um, Ellen indeed, thanks for both for sharing uh Kyle with Deloitte. I, I think, uh, my, my question a little bit is there's a lot of different stakeholders, uh, public private companies will say, uh, I don't want the bottom line impacted or I don't want our stock price going down or CEO stands up and then the stock price gets hit and the board says that CEO's out, new CEO in or you know whatever it may be. And I know that's gonna be oversimplifying it, but, but how do you think about there's this shift from um companies taking really big stances five years ago to now, hey, here's topics we're actually not going to very publicly take a stance on in the external world uh because we're concerned about retaliation, whether, uh, so, so there there there's a lot of nuance and certainly I I'd love a little bit of your perspective of where maybe you've seen that evolution. And some companies absolutely they they can do it and they can and they will and and you know etc. but others are maybe like do I do it a little bit quieter or do you know so just acknowledging some of the new ones. Well, as I said, I think that working together gives you more power, but I also think that there are a lot of people out there who are looking for leadership, looking for leadership in corporate America, looking for leadership in government, obviously, but looking for leadership in academia. A lot of people are feel like they are under attack and I think. People will look back on this moment. Your, your clients, your customers are looking for brave stances. Courage is contagious, and I think we're seeing that in the university setting that, you know, the first university that felt under attack started to cave, and then other universities started to band together, and they have strength in numbers and um. But there are so many people out there who are looking for demonstrations of courage, and I think that will be rewarded. I think we have to look past the initial moment to um where where we're going, where we're gonna be in 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, and how all of this is gonna look then. Love that. Great note to end on. Courage is contagious. Don't be the last person eaten by the crocodile. Thank you so much for your insights, Ellen and Jean. I

Forget gadgets and gimmicks—the most impactful workplaces are intentionally designed to reflect how employees actually like to work. They balance focus with connection, autonomy with community. They don’t just house culture —they create it. In this insider look from the co-CEO of one of the world’s leading architecture and design firms, discover how top companies are reimagining the workplace as hybrid, flexible, and fully in-office models evolve.  

THE FUTURE OF WORK IS HUMAN: DESIGNING OFFICE SPACE FOR CULTURE 

So continuing on with the theme of workplace culture, our next guest believes that culture doesn't just materialize out of nowhere. It's something that is actively forms in the day to day experience that you have in your office and in your physical environment. A well-designed space doesn't just serve as a backdrop. It can help foster and develop positive culture. Elizabeth Brink, CEO of the global architecture and design firm Gensler, is with us. She joins us to talk about creating workplaces with a purpose in the ever changing world of work. So please welcome her to the stage. Thank you, Phil, and good morning everybody. It's really great to be here with you today. Um, as many of you know, there has been a lot of discussion about the future of work and the future of the workplace, and much of it honestly paints a pretty dystopian future. In fact, if you look at the images coming out of Hollywood, the future of workplace is pretty bleak. You'll start to see. The corridors, the disorienting maze of corridors in severance, you'll start to see the dramatic imbalance of power in succession, and you'll start to see the sterile and seemingly endless workstations in the Imperial Bureau of Standards from Star Wars. The common threads in all of these isolation, control, surveillance, and a general disregard for people's autonomy and well-being. But the real future of work, it's not dystopian at all. In fact, it's really genuinely human. It's not about designing better mandates or clever perks to convince people to come into the office. The challenge in front of us is to really create and design spaces that empower creativity and build belonging that support people and teams to do their best work, whatever that work looks like. At Gensler we've spent decades designing workplaces for many different sizes of organizations across locations across industries, and what we've seen is this organizational culture, deep organizational culture does not live in a mission statement. It lives in the people and in the behaviors and the places where they gather. So, instead of asking, how do we convince people to get into the office, maybe let's flip the question and start asking, how do we create places that people want to come into? Spaces and places that drive connection and spark innovation and reflect our shared values. Places that encourage colleagues to build relationships across the organization and connect with our purpose. Because the workplace is not just the mirror of your company culture, it is really a tool that can be the driver of that company culture. So knowing all of this, how do we actually create those physical spaces that create the feelings of connectedness and belonging that we're looking to drive? Well, I'll give you a hint. It is not with sterile white kitchenettes or controlled snacks, and it is not with mandated choreographed fun and merriment. What every great workplace needs at its core is a heart. Physically, that heart is the central place where people naturally gravitate to come together. The coffee bar that sparks impromptu brainstorms or the lounge where colleagues gather to chat, the canteen that flexes from a sort of buzzy lunch spot during the day to an event space at night. It's the place where people from different teams naturally run into each other and relationships across departments are built. Culturally, it's a space where your values become visible, where new hires get the feeling of your brand without being told what it is. It's where impromptu mentoring and coaching happens. And it's where people truly experience what it means to be a part of your organization. If your workplace doesn't invite collision, creativity, and connection, it's not a culture space, it's just a call center. You can't force culture and you can't force the heart of an office, but you can design the the conditions for it. You can create the places that attract people and draw them together from different teams that break down silos and give rise to serendipitous interactions. The heart of the office is a place that people choose to be in because it feels good to be there. It's about their choice. So knowing all of this, if we know these are the spaces we need to build, why have people been reluctant to come into the office? What we're learning is it's not just because they like their pets and wearing pajamas. The reality is that they're opting out of a place that feels imbalanced, a place that doesn't suit their real needs. So if the workplace makes it harder, not easier, to do their focused work, to collaborate, to feel inspired or connected, why would they come in? The best workplaces today are meaningful balanced ecosystems that offer performance and balance across the spaces. Deep focus spaces and collaborative zones, private nooks and vibrant commons, balancing out, seamless digital integration and thoughtful in-person touch points. Amenities that demonstrate their employee recognizes their humanity. And this could be everything from access to outdoor spaces to fitness facilities, to bike storage, to mother's rooms and prayer rooms and hydration stations, again, that recognize people's humanity. Something that our 2025 workplace survey has shown is that privacy for deep focus work is a top priority across generations, across locations, across industries. People want to be able to focus on their work, and they often have a hard time doing it at home because there are so many distractions. It's not that people want isolation, they just want choice. They want agency in how they engage with the work, with their work, and with others. And design can deliver that, providing that variety of balanced spaces, private spaces, small huddle rooms, common areas that are dedicated to quiet focus work, or lively communal spaces. So if your office still thinks balance means a number metric between conference rooms and cubicles, it's really time to evolve. We're also hearing a lot about the smart office. And what is a smart office really? It's much more than functional AV equipment, sensors and screens. Today's most innovative workplaces are using data not to surveil employees but to serve them. To deliver customized real-time insights, just like we're starting to expect from healthcare facilities. Not to track people, but to respond to them. With the right systems, you can truly understand how spaces are being used in real time, where people gravitate, what tools they prefer, what makes collaboration successful or frustrating. So just imagine being able to tie your employee survey data about engagement, about satisfaction to actual behavior in space, understanding how that tracks with where people are sitting, how they move, where they linger or spaces that they avoid. It's not theoretical. It's actually happening now. And the real opportunity is to use that data to create spaces that listen, that learn, and that adapt. There could be adapting with personalized lighting, with air quality adjustment, with acoustics that are tuned to stress levels and personal preferences, or even energy use goals. And even more so identifying predictive insights that could help leaders make portfolio decisions about their spaces at scale. So when workplace design is integrated with business planning, organizational strategy, and human experience, it becomes a true lever for smart transformation. So, what if the office was not a place that people felt an obligation to visit, but rather a place that they were compelled to engage with. What if anticipated needs sparked creativity and deepened connection in ways we haven't even imagined yet? What if your office became a living ecosystem, one that responded to your people, that evolved with your strategy, and amplified your culture every single day. The future of work is not about control or compliance. It's about creating meaning, and we have the opportunity and the responsibility right now to design for that very human future. Thank you.

Does DEI promote or prevent meritocracy? After a growing number of companies announced they’d be rolling back their DEI programs, some employees were left wondering if the pre-2025 DEI movement in business was wholehearted or largely performative. How will the private sector navigate external pressures while fostering inclusive and equitable environments for employees and customers? Netflix’s inaugural Vice President of Inclusion Vernā Myers joins Anson Frericks, the author of the recent New York Times opinion essay “Working at Anheuser-Bush, I Saw What Went Wrong With the D.E.I. Movement,” for a thought-provoking and multifaceted conversation about how America got here--and where DEI is headed.  

DEI IN 2025: RETREAT OR REINVENTION?

And welcome. Thank you for being with us today. We're excited to start our 2nd day of conversations and connections. We have lots to dive into today, like multi-generational workforces and how to manage them under one roof and the debate over return to office policies. We'll look at the trend of skills over degrees. We'll talk about integrating AI as your new employee. We'll hear lessons on career building from a Hollywood power player and we'll step into the world of the hit show Severance to see how corporate dystopia is brought to life. It's gonna be so much fun and we're going to get right to it all, but first, a quick reminder about what can be shared and what's off the record. What's said on stage or in our breakout sessions is on the record, including the open Q&A. Feel free to post on social media. And tag us using hashtag fortune workplace summits. What's said over the table during a meal or on breaks is private and off the record unless that's agreed upon by those involved. In just a moment, Fortune's next to lead editor, Ruth Umo, we'll kick off our conversations, but first, our partner McKinsey and Company wants to share some thoughts on getting the most out of tech. Tech has limitless potential, but how do we turn that into value? Unlock the power of AI at scale, reinvent tech delivery, build innovative products, and entirely new businesses. We rewire organizations to get the most out of tech, from strategy and talent to operating model, data and governance, capabilities, and culture. Great tech is essential, but with McKinsey, it's never just tech. Hey, good morning, everyone. Let's start with a big question. Is DEI DOA dead on arrival? Diversity, equity and inclusion in America is at a crossroads. Critics argue DEI initiatives have gone too far, creating new divisions and unfairness. Supporters say DEI strategies are necessary to address workplace inequities and can drive business success. We're gonna dive into both sides of the debate, and we have two great guests to do just that. Anton Ferris is co-founder of Strive Asset Management and a business leader who believes talent and results should take priority over diversity metrics, and Bernie Myers is founder and president of the Vernie Meyers Company, which helps organizations build effective DEI strategies. Please welcome them to the stage. Welcome, welcome, thank you both for joining us. Let's cut straight to the chase. Anson, you have argued that one of the fundamental failures of corporate DEI movement is that no one has ever clearly defined what it was trying to do. Let's do just that to level set. How do you each define DEI? What do you think it is actually trying to accomplish? something you want to take it first here, Renee, ladies first here. Thank you, thank you. So I am now start not saying DEI anymore. I'm saying diversity, equity and inclusion. When I say diversity, I mean talking about a difference and a mix, quite frankly, of culture and identity and experience when I'm talking about inclusion. It's about how do you make all of those differences work on your behalf, right, creating an environment where people of all backgrounds feel included. I often say expected, respected, and also reflected that's that's the idea of inclusion and with equity it's what you need to do the processes and. And the, the kinds of, uh, I would say tools that are necessary in order for that inclusion to actually flourish and for you to get the best out of human talent. Same question for you. Yeah, and I think, I think one of the biggest problems with diversity, equity, inclusion, it's never been well defined. If you ask everybody in this room, they're going to give you a different answer. I think that. Bernay's answer was a very plausible answer for DEI, and I think if you go back in time 5, 10 years ago, I think probably everyone in DEI wanted just to go out and find the best and the brightest. DEI was about finding a diverse group of candidates, trying to make sure they had an equitable opportunity or an equal opportunity to be able to succeed, and then we want to be inclusive of all people and walks and different backgrounds. I think there was a lot of positive in the initial DEI movement. why it's become controversial and I'll define why I think it's become controversial is DEI instead of just providing equal opportunities for people of diverse backgrounds. I think it's about now perceived in a lot of circles as forcing equitable outcomes for people as opposed to equal opportunity. So based off of your race, sex, gender, etc. the diversity piece has been about a lot of quota systems in certain. Companies we're going to hire people based on their race, sex, gender. That's become very controversial. The equitable piece is not about sort of equal opportunities, but making sure that everybody gets promoted in an equal way or an equitable way based on race, sex, gender, and then even the inclusive pieces, I think, become very challenging because the inclusive piece is very difficult to define and I actually think stifled a lot of open debate and free speech and dialogue. So I want to thank you for Having this conversation because I think it's incredibly important, but that's how I think about DEI and think about the two different definitions of what it was and I think what it's become. Well, Renee, let me turn to you then. What is your response to critics who argue that DEI, to his points, often rewards identity over performance and risks sidelining the most qualified candidate, um, in the name of representation? I'm gonna say poppycock. Right, because the whole point of DEI is to allow for merits, right? And it is much older than 5 years ago or 10 years ago. We've been doing the work of DEI since the civil rights movement. In fact, that's the birth of diversity, equity inclusion, and the idea is that it is hard to get to merit when there are obstacles, unfair. Obstacles in the way and so there is no MEI without DEI. In fact, it is impossible and and and what is so upsetting for me and I feel like it's, I would say morally unjust and bankrupt to suggest that we could just move forward as if we had somehow managed to level the playing field. You cannot get. To equality without recognizing inequality, it is impossible to do that and in no other business setting would we have an objective, not measure it, not looking at outcomes and how well the actual operation is either delivering on equality or not. And so we've got plenty of data that would suggest that it's not equal. I mean, if I look at women right now in the C-suite. We've got, uh, I, I actually brought the numbers because I am always not, I'm not always on numbers, but I know that there's 28% now women in uh the C-suite and that's up. It was 17% in 2017. So the work we did to get women to be recognized for their merit is working. In fact, I think this backlash against the EI is because we're winning, is because we are leveling the playing field and not because by identity. But by allowing people to actually share and exhibit what they're capable of, I will also say that if we look at women of color in the suite, C-suite, it's much, much lower. So let me jump in here because I do want to hear from you, Anton. Yeah, thank you. Uh, and, and I love that this is a spirited debate because Anne Sandy, you wrote, uh, a New York Times op ed, um, and you pointed to Anheuser-Busch, where you worked for some time as a cautionary tale of DI gone wrong, but was the real failure DI itself, or was it the clumsy way that DI was executed? Why is it a failing of DI overall and not just how they leveraged that business strategy potentially in a in a way that was erroneous. I think that DI there was a failure in terms of definitely how it's been implemented in companies, and I think what I think about sort of a company and why does a company exist, you have a clear mission statement that most companies have, you know, if you're a beer company, you were supposed to, our mission as a company was to create a future with more cheers. That was the mission of the company as a as a beer company, perfectly good mission. There's lots of other missions as well. Coinbase is doing crypto. Indeed is, I don't know, empowering people and finding jobs, whatever it is. Those missions are great. Then I have a view that we should find people and attract people that's going to help the company fulfill that mission. And if you're, you know, in the business of fighting fires, you want to have firefighters that are brave and resilient and all these things. If you were a beer company and the way that InBev worked and Anheuser-Busch and 3G, it was a very hard-nosed finance kind of driven company. And if you're a healthcare company, you probably have different people for that, and you should have different sort of characteristics and adjectives that you can describe to recruit people, and I think that each company needs to define those own adjectives to create. the sort of workplace they went in, but every company, I think before defining what those values were of who they wanted to recruit, they first looked at it through a DI lens, and I think that was problematic in saying that before we find people that are brave or empathetic or compassionate or hardworking or whatever adjective you want to describe for that company, first you have to look through this lens of, well, what's people's race or sex or gender or others, and I think you know there's a why is it you used the word before. Why can it all happen at the same time? This is just my experience working at Anheuser-Busch and then also running Strive Asset Management where we're investors in hundreds of different companies across the S&P 500. It just didn't. It probably can, but I think most people, they look through sort of the lens. Wells Fargo is a good example of a company that said in 2020 that we're going to have to interview 50% of all candidates have to be minority candidates for any job that's over $100,000 and then they were actually accused of literally encouraging minority candidates to apply for jobs after they'd already been filled just so they could check a box. And I think that's sort of the problem of like a lot of people just implemented DEI policies poorly and wrongly. And they became, I think, frustrating for, I think, a lot of minority candidates. They were supposed to help. And then also conversely became very frustrating, I think for non-minority candidates or even say candidates of background that were Asian or Indian or others that might have been passed over for a job because they weren't called the check the box right minority. Let's dig into it really quickly, and I think you might actually be about to touch. On this because you mentioned DI quotas, hiring quotas, and we saw a number of companies, uh, that instated the certainly post George Floyd and so if, if, if the argument is that DI initiatives result in these diversity quotas, Verne, how is that not trade in one form of exclusion for another? Let's, let's, let's get the language right. There's no such thing as quotas. Quotas are illegal. They've been illegal for a very long time. Kenji Yoshino last night yesterday explained to us it's not about quotas. That's another example of a disinformation campaign. It was about goals. And every company, if you want to achieve a change or cultural transformation, you have to have goals. How else are you knowing whether you are making a difference with what you're implementing, right? So people said unless we pay attention to this problem, the problem being the underrepresentation of groups of people over a long period of time due to exclusion, both intentional and Unintentional. This work does not get done unless you pay attention. It's attention and intention. People often think, well, just let it go. It'll just happen. It never just happens. I mean, you know, people will quote that like the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice. Thank you, MLK, my love. It doesn't bend by itself. You have to bend it. I'm a, I, I came into the legal profession. I was the first black person in my law firm, the only black lawyer, I should say, in my law firm. When I went back to my Harvard Law School, um, women in Harvard Law School, I learned that in 19. 53 when they finally let in women, they had no toilets for no bathrooms for the women. So you can say they had gender diversity maybe, but you cannot say they had gender inclusion and if you arrive in an environment and it's not set up for you, it's not conducive for you. It's insisting that you emulate the person or the group that has been there. And who have dominated for a period of time and if you don't, you can't advance because somehow we have this idea of fit and that's about our own comfort and it's a lot about our prejudice and also our biases and that is what DEI is hoping to do to create an environment where everyone can succeed versus being. Held back because of an identity, it's just the opposite of what is being perpetuated these days about the disadvantaging effects of DEI. Who has been disadvantaged? We have no data that would suggest that white men are being disadvantaged by the work of DEI. Well, let me ask you that, do you think that white men have been disadvantaged by the work of DEI? No, but I think definitely like Asians have 100%. If you take a look at Harvard versus Fair admissions, it was all the Asian students that had to essentially have twice the SAT scores, twice the whatever the scoring rubric was that that that black students have to have to get into Harvard. So I think yes, there's definitely been, and if you look at med school admissions, you look at other admissions, definitely certain races have been excluded, and I think We have to get back to the MLK's dream is that we have to get back to finding a place where we don't discriminate based off of race, sex, gender. Like any type of even reverse discrimination is discrimination. And so if we're discriminating against Asian people for advantaging black people, that's discrimination. I think we have to have an open and honest dialogue and conversation about that, and the data shows that the people are being discriminated. No, I don't think which data? Well, if you look at any admissions data for Harvard University, that's why affirmative action was overturned. And even if you go back like, you know, you're right, the Civil Rights Act that started in 1964. Hubert Humphries, who was the floor leader at the time, said this ever leads the quota systems, I'll eat my hat. Affirmative action, you're lower by background. California versus Bakke essentially said that you cannot have quota systems. When the California system literally set aside a quota of 16 positions for minority students in med school, they said that's illegal, but you can do affirmative action to take into race considerations. That was upheld in Michigan in the Supreme Court case in 2003. But even Sandra Day O'Connor at that time said at some point the affirmative action has to go away. At some point we can't just keep giving. Certain people an advantage based off race, sex, color, gender, and Sandra Day O'Connor said within 25 years. And so maybe it was 5 years earlier than she originally anticipated when Harvard versus Fair Students for admission overturned affirmative action, but it went away and at some point we have to get to the point where we're not looking at people based on race, sex, gender, sexual orientation. We're looking at them as individuals and say when do you want to do that? When do you want to do it? Do you want to do it now when we still have deep Equality and disparities not just in outcomes but just how people are being treated and in fact I feel like what we're doing what we're hearing is a way of trying to divide and distract and keep people from being connected and being unified across their differences and their commonalities and so I'm saying to you, when do we just stop doing it and. When do we start to acknowledge that there is still an enormous amount of work to do? We've been at this DEI work for a long time. It's not time to stop it. It's time to continue to evolve it. So let's talk about that evolution because we are running up on time. If we strip away all of the buzzwords, is there a version of diversity, equity and inclusion that both skeptics and supporters could agree on? What does that look like? And let's try and make it quick. OK, I think that what it looks like is, uh, I'm going with the, I'm going with the R's. I think we have to actually reassess. We need to redefine, we need to reimagine, and we need to re-engage. We need to redefine what we mean because obviously folks have a different opinion about what DEI means and what it means to have equality, right? And I do think we need to really try to do an assessment. What are we doing that is working and what are we doing that might be holding people back or making certain people feel excluded and then how do we reimagine a new idea, a new possibility, and then how do we re-engage, which is a lot of listening and a lot of caring? Yeah, 20 seconds for you. Yeah, I think it's the most exciting time if I was in the HR world because we don't have to do DEI specifically anymore and every company essentially adopted DEI. Yes, they had a different little flavor of it, but it was very similar to DI. Every company should have their own program to hire people and as long as we have a baseline, we don't, we don't discriminate based on race, sex, gender, then come here with your own program. It could be MEI, it could be whatever program you want to come out with. But talk about what's unique about your company, the people you want to attract, the values that they have, and talk about that and extol that being unique to your company. I think that will create an amazing workforce. We'll create amazing HR, uh, business partners in this room where you guys can really define what is unique about your company and who's gonna thrive there. Well, we'll end here. Thank you both for an illuminating conversation. Although you have cons shots and viewpoints, clearly, uh, your insights underscore the importance of continued dialogue. So thank you, thank you. So that's That's this way. OK, thank you so much.

Workplace Innovation 2025

SKILLS, WILL & WELLBEING: AN INTEGRATED FRAMEWORK

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