Ruth Harper on pandemic impact
From The Future of the Workforce and Other Wake-up Calls with Ruth Harper, in dialogue with Linda Bjork · · Linda Bjork
“The pandemic has shown us that you can do a three-day week in the office, four days one day remote, or work in a hybrid way. Leaders are now boasting about how fast they could go remote and leverage technology to get work done almost unaffected.”
On , Ruth Harper, Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing & Sustainability Officer at MANPOWERGROUP, spoke about pandemic impact during The Future of the Workforce and Other Wake-up Calls with Ruth Harper, in dialogue with Linda Bjork on Linda Bjork.
About Ruth Harper
Ruth Harper, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing & Sustainability Officer at ManpowerGroup, has spoken about workforce trends and the company's sustainability efforts. In a September 2024 interview, she stated that ManpowerGroup places more than two million people into work annually across 75 markets. She described workers as increasingly treating employment like consumers, choosing organizations and work arrangements that fit their lives, and noted that a talent shortage has been a persistent issue for over 17 years. Harper said the company was the first in its industry to be validated by the Science Based Targets initiative, with a plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2045 or sooner. In earlier appearances, Harper discussed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on labor markets. She stated in 2022 that progress on gender parity had been "halted," with data showing women had fallen out of the labor market globally and people of color were more disadvantaged. She also said that a "skills revolution" had been underway for several years, driven by digitization and technology investment across all sectors. Harper has described ManpowerGroup's purpose as finding "meaningful, sustainable employment" for individuals, which she said has the power to change the world.