Why Financial Inclusion Belongs on Your D&I Agenda

If 2020 has made anything clear, it’s how close to the financial edge many working Americans have actually been living. Amplified by national civil unrest and social injustice, the challenges facing people leaders are unprecedented. HR roles are evolving from specialists into holistic social scientists with broader strategic wellbeing and inclusion responsibilities. What does it mean to lean into this evolved role, and how should you go about it?

These tectonic social and economic shifts have forced a shift from thought leadership to action leadership. This collaborative session will share the actions taken by some companies to address head-on the emerging position that financial inclusion is a national emergency and can only be addressed at scale through the workplace. We will explore how an employer’s role in promoting financial wellbeing has become both more urgent and more complex in a time of mass unemployment and uncertainty.

Financial inclusion cannot be achieved by education and coaching alone. It will take courage and conscience to remove the lingering taboo of talking about money in the workplace and of offering money management, credit, and debt tools as voluntary employee benefits. Now is the time for action leadership. There is no social justice without economic justice, and those companies who recognize and embrace the challenges of financial inclusion will stabilize unrest, uplift vulnerable employees, and create sustainable inclusion.

The Future of Work is Now – Cultivate a Culture of Agility and Transparency to Transform your Employee Experience

The future of work is now. Corporate America has had to quickly evolve to meet the changing world of work. An emergence of new jobs, technologies and fields is producing a growing demand for well-trained business and IT professionals who approach today’s challenges with an agile, innovative, solutions-oriented mindset. This session will explore how innovation-driven leaders should focus internally to cultivate a culture of agility and transparency to transform their employee experience in order to retain and develop a talented workforce best equipped to meet the ever changing needs of today.

Key Takeaways:

• Recent Google + BCG research identifies 3 broad categories: pre-skilling (before starting work); upskilling (training on the job); and reskilling (retraining workers for new roles or skills).  Does this align with how you think about your workforce + skills?  What are they getting right or wrong?
• In a post-Covid world, the workforce is already much more digitally enabled (e.g. via Zoom) than ever before.  With such a shift, what is the bigger gap in your workforce: “hard” skills like tech knowledge, or “soft” skills like communications, teamwork, creativity?
• In your view, what are the major benefits of education / training for workers? Is it primarily productivity?  Retention?  Goodwill + reputation as a forward-thinking employer? 
• What’s worked best in your current education + training offerings + programs?  What would you like to do more or less of?
• When you’re thinking about short-form credentials (e.g. a project management certification) vs. longer-form (e.g. a bachelor’s degree), how do you read them personally?  Are their benefits to both? What does each imply to you?