The InSight Minute: Labor Day Reflections
As we continue to navigate the effects of the COVID pandemic, businesses have confronted the challenges and opportunities left in the pandemic’s wake. For example, the Great Resignation has created an opportunity for employees and employers to re-think, re-train, and refine what an evolving workplace looks like and what each stakeholder can get out of it. We have also used this time to wrestle with our responsibility and step into our opportunity.
At SkillSmart, we first got into the technology business because we believed that technology could help communities thrive by focusing on the workers and businesses in those communities. We believe that by creating a more connected ecosystem where better data is collected and provided in a faster, more efficient way to stakeholders – that better decisions can be made and outcomes for all stakeholders are improved. Of course, we realize that technology itself can’t produce those better outcomes. Only when people are committed to those better outcomes and leverage our better technology can those improved outcomes be achieved.
We have turned our focus in the last few years to the construction industry which has typically been predominately white and male. However, there are assumptions with each construction project that it will necessarily benefit a community – that it will create jobs or provide contracting opportunities to local businesses – but, too often, those components are only afterthoughts and its increasingly difficult to even articulate the benefit to the broader community. Our goal is to work with owners to specifically track, manage, and demonstrate how their efforts do benefit the community. Our tools also increase the transparency to increase opportunities for local businesses and residents to help that new project grow. By increasing the visibility into these efforts, it helps to build trust in our communities because it provides the data that demonstrates our commitment to each other and the interdependence that makes us stronger.
This Labor Day, as we all continue to regain our footing and move forward, we reflect on our workers and how technology can enable them to be more successful to the betterment of our employers and communities, if leadership is committed to those outcomes. Over the coming weeks and months, we will identify and discuss topics that demonstrate how working together, technology can be used to make people, communities, and businesses stronger. We hope to enlighten, provoke a little, and provide an opportunity for discourse.
We look forward to engaging with you further.
Wishing you all a restful Labor Day holiday!
Jason and Mike
