How The Untapped Workforce Can Help You Survive The Great Resignation

For the past few years, I’ve posted up three lectures over the Christmas period that I think provide an interesting commentary on key issues of our time. The tradition is inspired by the Royal Society Christmas lectures that began with Michael Faraday in 1825.

One of the more interesting trends of 2021 has been the so-called “Great Resignation”, with organizations around the world struggling to find, recruit, and retain the talent they need to thrive. These struggles have encouraged a lot of self-reflection across organizations on how best to attract top talent, but as a recent Harvard study illustrates, employers are often overlooking a huge pool of up to 27 million workers, including those with criminal records and veterans.

So, this Christmas I’d like to include a series of lectures highlighting the value of working with some of these under-utilized groups. The first of these are people with a criminal record, and the lecture is delivered by Sandra Smith, from the University of California, Berkeley.

With the dire situation in Afghanistan so fresh in the global consciousness, the second lecture explores the value that comes when we welcome refugees into our communities. It’s a topic I’ve touched on numerous times on this blog, so I hope you enjoy.

Class diversity is something that rarely gets mentioned when we discuss diversity and inclusion at work, yet up to 40% of workers from lower classes say that they experience harassment and discrimination in the workplace.

It’s a topic that the University of California, Hastings College of the Law’s Joan Williams covers extensively in her recent book Bias Interrupted, with her work on class diversity building extensively on her previous book White Working Class, which is the topic of her TEDx talk below.