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Future of Work: New Ways of Leading & Innovating

With Ellyn Shook & Drew Houston

By
June 10, 2022 at 11:00 a.m. EDT
Drew Houston & Ellyn Shook join Washington Post Live on Friday, June 10 (Video: The Washington Post)

There has been a dramatic reassessment of work from both employees and employers across all facets of the economy. Ellyn Shook, chief leadership and human resources officer at Accenture, and Drew Houston, founder and CEO of Dropbox, join Washington Post Live to discuss how companies are approaching leadership and innovation amidst the growing shift to a hybrid workplace, a greater focus on the well-being of employees and a rising social consciousness.

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Highlights

“What really changed during the beginning of the pandemic through to today is that compassion is the most significant emerging leadership characteristic of our time. And the way I describe that is simply empathy – which we’ve had – plus action, equals compassion. So it’s not only about listening, it’s about learning and acting on the needs of our people.” – Ellyn Shook (Video: Washington Post Live)
“While the talent market has been constrained, we have not been, and what I think employers need to focus on is this holistic view of what employees need. And we like to ask a very simple question of ourselves, and we help our clients ask that same question, ‘are employees net better off working for your company?’” – Ellyn Shook (Video: Washington Post Live)
“Our model is that you work primarily from home and then… we want you to spend around 10 percent of your time face to face. This is a little different from what companies are doing where they’re asking people to come into the office two-three days a week… We believe it’s easier to get the worst of both worlds when you do something like that because if everyone’s working two days a week in the office, if it’s the same two days a week then it’s inefficient, right, because you have the majority of the week the office is completely empty. But if it’s not and you come into a half empty office, then it sort of defeats the purpose of community.” – Drew Houston (Video: Washington Post Live)
“How do we make sure we get the right level of in-person connection? Is the right number 10 percent of the time face-to-face or 20 or 40 or 5? No one really knows… and then the challenges of sustainability, right. There’s this epidemic of knowledge worker burn out that we’ve seen alongside the rise of a lot of this technology, and I think technology brings a lot of benefits but I think there are also a lot of challenges.” – Drew Houston (Video: Washington Post Live)

Ellyn Shook

Chief Leadership & Human Resources Officer, Accenture


Drew Houston

Founder & CEO, Dropbox


Content from ADP

The following content is produced and paid for by a Washington Post Live event sponsor. The Washington Post newsroom is not involved in the production of this content.

Future of Human Resources

(Video: Washington Post Live)

In a segment presented by ADP, division vice president of human resources Tiffany Davis discusses key lessons learned from today’s dynamic environment and how HR leaders can help drive a people-first approach in the future of work.

Tiffany Davis

Division Vice President, Human Resources, ADP