What is the Future of Work and Learning?

Norah McRae, Associate Provost, Co-operative and Experiential Education says it comes down to adaptive resilience. “Yes, curriculum is important. But there are these other dimensions that we need to equip our students and graduates for so they can flourish in this very unpredictable world into which they’re graduating,” said Norah McRae.

On February 26, four leaders in the worlds of tech, human resources and education sat down to discuss what the future holds for work and learning. This panel was part of a breakfast series hosted by Communitech which aims to start a conversation on topics that will ultimately be addressed at this year’s True North “Tech for Good” conference.

McRae was joined by co-panelists Carol Leaman, CEO of Axonify and Greg Loker, Vice-President, Product Line Engineering at Manulife. The discussion was moderated by Christine Robinson, Head of Human Resources at Manulife Canada.

The conversation addressed the challenges of clearly defining what exactly the future of work may be. Regardless of this uncertainty, the panelists seemed to agree there is a need to create strategies to tackle the volatility and ambiguity of future work.

“What are the other capabilities or talents our graduates are going to need to be able to be adaptively resilient and be able to move in directions that we can’t even predict?” asked McRae.

McRae emphasized that nurturing adaptive resilience in current and future generations is key. She also argued that this is not just the responsibility of educators. Individuals, academia, organizations and government must come together to build this adaptable community and provide the next-gen workforce with the experience and skills they need to thrive in a landscape of uncertainty.

This event was sponsored by Manulife, Deloitte, the University of Waterloo, Axonify and the Province of Ontario.