At the 2025 Frontiers of Business Conference, experts shared what it will take to bridge the skills gap. Hear which soft skills are growing in importance, how AI is reshaping expectations and why continuous learning is becoming the new norm.
Common threads tied together the vast collection of information at the 2025 Frontiers of Business Conference. We offer takeaways for those looking to tackle the skills gap and build a more robust and resilient economy.
Join us on Tuesday, November 4, from 1:30 - 2:30 PM for this Dean's Speaker Series talk featuring Reggie Townsend of SAS, a leading voice on responsible innovation, as he shares insights and best practices for leading with integrity in the age of AI.
Officials at North Carolina State University’s Shelton Leadership Center offer thoughts on how close the leadership gap by better preparing young employees to lead themselves, others and their organizations.
The Frontiers of Business Conference brought together voices from business, education and government to explore the skills needed to move society forward. Relive the energy and insights from the day and enjoy the recap video.
Join us for a fireside chat with Michelle Peluso, CEO of Revlon, moderated by UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Dean Mary Margaret Frank, at 4:15 PM on Thursday, October 9, at The Carolina Inn.
Join us for the 2025 Frontiers of Business Conference: Bridging the Skills Gap on October 9 in Chapel Hill, NC. Be part of the conversation and discover innovative solutions to position workers and businesses to succeed.
Recent Kenan Institute research based on interviews across the state highlights the successes and remaining barriers that North Carolina community colleges face in recruiting and retaining students as the labor market continues to evolve.
North Carolina’s growing skills gap reflects a national challenge, but the state’s robust job market is creating high-paying opportunities for skilled workers. We talked to four experts about how to successfully scale the state’s apprenticeship and training efforts.
Kenan Institute Distinguished Fellow Annelies Goger asks how we’ll change educational institutions to prepare for the shift AI will bring in what people do and what they need to know. “It will require all hands on deck,” she says.
The literature on cross-sector collaboration and cross-sector partnership has grown within disciplinary silos, but new literature reflects a growing recognition that siloed efforts no longer match the scale of workforce challenges such as the skills gap.
As businesses increasingly rely on technology, cities with a strong tech workforce gain a competitive edge, experiencing greater economic growth. This shift can be seen in both urban centers and rural areas.
In an age of constant information overload, Professor Melissa Geil explores why deep listening is vanishing from the workplace and how that’s quietly undermining communication, trust and innovation.
Kenan Institute Distinguished Fellow David Deming of Harvard talks about his research focusing on the potential for effective teamwork involving humans and artificial intelligence.
The AI transformation has yet to happen, prompting uncertainty about potential impacts on the skills gap and the nature of work. Recognizing this will help us develop strategies for mitigating potential risks to workers, firms and the economy.
Our 2025 Grand Challenge examines the skills gap — the difference between the skills that employers seek and those that workers possess — which is being driven by technological breakthroughs, demographic changes and cultural shifts in the workplace.
Our American Growth Project examination of skills in the workforce begins with a discussion of why skills are difficult to measure, then moves to a broad look at two ways to estimate the skill level across our Extended Metropolitan Areas.
How do firms try to retain workers in a tight labor market? New research finds that employers use a variety of pay and nonpay mechanisms but that multiplant companies may find the nonpay options more cost-effective.
As part of our 2023 grand challenge, we survey factors such as demographics, health trends, immigration and childcare that are essential to understanding the dynamics now at play regarding the supply of workers in the labor force.
UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Professor Mark McNeilly discusses how ChatGPT and other AI tools will change the workplace - as well as how workers can best prepare themselves for these changes.
Issues constricting the supply of workers, the sector-by-sector employment effects of a potential recession, the emergence of new technologies – these are the primary labor demand themes we’ll focus on in our 2023 grand challenge.
COVID-19 and the subsequent rise in work-from-home policies by firms have changed the landscape of skilled labor in the United States. The Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes finds that 15% of employees are working from home full time, as of September 2022. This dramatic increase in remote work has led to an equally dramatic physical migration of workers across the U.S. Census data shows a sharp decline in populations of the largest U.S. cities and increases among midsize cities and smaller metro areas. For example, from 2020 to 2021, the counties of Manhattan (New York County) and San Francisco both saw a decline in their population of 25- to 54-year-olds by nearly 10%.
Remote work seems likely to continue in a post-pandemic world, if employees have their say. In this week's insight, our experts highlight how businesses can rethink workspaces and better engage and involve employees in the office and those working from home.
Much has been written about the disproportionate number of women who have suffered pandemic-related job losses during COVID-19, but a related consequence has not been as well explored: the serious disruption of women’s careers, particularly in fields in which “path dependence” matters for success. In this Kenan Insight, we examine this more subtle asymmetry in the pandemic’s impact as indicative of far broader issues for women’s advancement in the workplace.