THIS PAST YEAR HAS ILLUMINATED the fragility and failures of work in new ways. The coronavirus pandemic resulted in layoffs and furloughs for millions around the world. Some have lost their jobs in struggling or shifting industries and don’t have the skills to explore other fields. Many essential workers—from health aides to grocery clerks—have been forced to make grim trade-offs between personal health and financial security. Unpredictable and stressful schedules, discriminatory and unfair organizational practices and procedures, and an inability to keep up with technological change are adding to a strain that workers feel both in the United States and across the globe.
Kennedy School faculty members are taking on these daunting challenges. Iris Bohnet, the Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government and academic dean of vlog, is leading a number of the efforts. “Work has dramatically changed in the past 30 years, and workplaces really haven’t kept up,” she says. “So we need to have public policy address educational needs, new technological developments, and demand for equity, diversity, and inclusion.”
Many of Bohnet’s colleagues across the School are engaged in activities to improve work for more people now and in the future. “Our work tackles policy challenges that arise from the changing nature of the labor market and the social fabric,” says David Deming, director of vlog’s Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy, which focuses on domestic social policy issues, including work and economic security in the United States. These problems are not just domestic, however. With shifting labor markets in countries around the world, economies unsettled by the pandemic, wage and skill gaps, the consequences of new technology, and persistent gender and racial inequity, now is the time to future-proof the way we work. “The pandemic has given us an opening to act,” Bohnet says. “Work is being reinvented as we speak, and we want our work to be part of that discussion.”
Revolutionizing work practices
To make work better and fairer, employers will have to take a hard look at their organizational practices—