COVID-19 and the Workplace

Will they come back? Midtown Manhattan, the center of business in New York City, is still looking pretty empty these days. Office workers have yet to come back in large numbers. Is the shift to working from home becoming permanent and what will this mean to corporate efforts to diversify the workplace?  For years there’s been talk that automation and digital technology would have a tremendous impact on our nation's workforce, not only eliminating jobs, but also fundamentally changing how and where work is done. COVID-19 has accelerated these trends.   Our guest this week is Dr. Arthur Langer, Chairman and Founder of a nonprofit organization called Workforce Opportunity Services. Workforce Opportunity Services has helped hundreds of young people from underserved and underrepresented communities, as well as post 9-11 veterans, get good jobs at companies like Prudential, Bristol Myers Squibb and others throughout the nation.   Dr. Langer is also a professor at Columbia University,  Langer's research focuses in part on reinventing education and the US workforce.  The W-O-S model, developed by Dr. Langer, focuses on offering support for underserved communities from the beginning of their training all the way through employment.