HBS Managing the Future of Work

Unpacking Amazon’s workforce development strategy

Amazon in the summer of 2019 announced a sweeping five-year plan to bolster the skills of a third of its US workforce—close to 100,000 worker-learners. The plan includes apprenticeships, partnerships with local community colleges, and internal programs. As Amazon’s Vice President of Workforce Development, Ardine Williams, notes, the initiative isn’t philanthropy. She argues that Amazon’s investment in training workers—even if some ultimately leave for higher-paying jobs—makes good business sense.

Artificial intelligence. Robotics. The Gig Economy. Globalization. The world is changing at a dizzying pace in ways that will have a profound effect on the economy, jobs and the flow of talent. How will firms cope with the changes ahead and what steps do they need to take today? Each episode features faculty from the world’s leading business school interviewing CEOs, technologists and experts on the bleeding edge discussing how to survive and thrive by managing the future of work.