Peter Cappelli

In an era where perplexing management decisions – like mass layoffs followed by large-scale rehiring, or paying exorbitant costs to hire externally instead of retraining – are the norm, organizations are left questioning the rationale behind these penny-wise, pound-foolish choices. Helping organizations improve their judgement is Peter Cappelli, the George W. Taylor Professor of Management at The Wharton School and renowned expert on human resources strategy. Cappelli’s latest book, “Our Least Important Asset: Why the Relentless Focus on Finance and Accounting is Bad for Business and Employees,” reveals how the fixation on financial accounting exacerbates these issues with detrimental effects to both employees and the long-term triumph of the business. Through thought-provoking discourse, Cappelli imparts groundbreaking strategies to turn ineffective practices on their heads, prioritizing employee wellbeing over pure headcount, and elevating profits sustainably. Leaders and teams come away with insights and tools rooted in extensive research that enable them to reconstruct their business practices and mindsets. Drawing from his book, Cappelli energetically encourages organizations to redefine management, where sustainable success is achieved by prioritizing people, the business’s most invaluable assets, rather than focusing solely on the balance sheet.

Leaders increasingly have access to technology that can insert itself into virtually every task of management. The array of options is staggering – we now have software that gives career advice, predicts the flight risk of employees, and that draws insights from how employees stand and move. The opportunity to use this to make better decisions is great. But so is the risk of disengagement by transferring decisions and control from people to machines and, in particular, by undercutting supervisors when algorithms take away their power. Monitoring is necessary to gather the data needed for these models, but that can quickly invade privacy. The use of AI and data-gathering has historically led to a decline in trust between employees and managers. Whatever benefits may be derived from AI, employee dissatisfaction is a negative that harms productivity, cooperation and retention rates. In this presentation, Professor Peter Cappelli elaborates on his research findings while also recommending ways managers can improve their use of technology without undermining trust. Ultimately, says Cappelli, managers cannot allow technology to alienate themselves from their direct reports. The human touch and personal relationships remain key, especially in the age of AI.

With almost no warning, the pandemic pushed office workers into work-from-home mode. The sense was it would only be temporary, but as the months of lockdown continued, companies found out the unexpected: employees were just as productive, if not more. Now leaders must decide on how best to move forward. In this talk, based on his latest book, “The Future of the Office: Work From Home, Remote Work, and the Hard Choices We All Face” (September 2021), Wharton Professor Peter Cappelli, a global authority on talent management and the future of work, discusses the compromises both companies and employees will have to make to arrive at a workplace model that serves all stakeholders. He explains why work-from-home after the pandemic won’t look anything like it did during the pandemic and reveals lessons learned from telecommuting practices a generation ago, and why it didn’t go well for those who chose to work remotely permanently. He also shares the results of surveys he conducted with top organizations about the issue, and outlines success stories from his years of experience helping HR leaders find solutions. Participants come away from this talk well-equipped to design an optimal workplace model that makes the best use of people, office space and resources.

While managers and HR professionals focus on the supposed challenges of recruiting and retaining millennial and Generation Z workers, they’re ignoring an arguably more important demographic: older workers. As the workforce ages and lives longer than past generations, employees in their 60s and older will become more important and necessary. But companies generally don’t tailor their appeal or policies to these workers. Drawing on the research conducted for his book, “Managing the Older Worker,” Professor Peter Cappelli presents the economic and business case for focusing on longevity and re-orienting HR strategies toward more senior employees. Cappelli’s proposals include emphasizing the purpose-driven nature of organizations and doing more to foster social connections at work. An economist who studies broad trends in employment, Cappelli knows that the future growth area for finding workers will be among the 65 and older demographic; it’s up to companies to fully harness the opportunities.

AI is automating jobs out of existence. Soon everyone will be working in the “gig” economy rather than for big companies. Millennials and Generation Z are difficult to retain as employees and are more disloyal than previous generations. These are some of the “facts” about the future of work that are widely believed by HR professionals and managers. But according to Professor Peter Cappelli, an esteemed economist whose career as an academic researcher has been based on studying trends in employment, these are all popular myths not validated by evidence. AI has automated routine tasks, but human workers are still needed; there hasn’t been a massive shift from full-time employment to gig or contract work; younger workers are not significantly less loyal to employers than previous generations were at the same age. In this presentation, which can be tailored to address particular myths, Cappelli provides an overview of what trends are and aren’t reshaping the future of work. He also offers recommendations to managers on how they can successfully optimize workers’ productivity, loyalty and satisfaction.

As the allure of AI seeps into the white-collar world – promising increased efficiency and accuracy – organizations that blindly embrace the technology may be running some serious risks. According to award-winning author and Wharton Professor Peter Cappelli, there are potentially dangerous implications of allowing AI to take over some crucial aspects of work, especially where human nuance is involved. Drawing from his rich experience in analyzing workplace dynamics, Cappelli explores how AI applications like ChatGPT might lead to errors of judgement due to their lack of natural intuition and inability to incorporate proprietary information. Leaders and teams will walk away with a better understanding of the limits of AI, particularly in making evaluative decisions for their own organizations. Passionate about the influence of personal characteristics when using AI, Cappelli argues for a balanced approach to implementation, ensuring human involvement and decision-making remain at the core of workplace operations, business decisions continue to be valid and human dignity is protected in the workplace.