In this first part of our Presidential Series, NCDA President Dr. Sharon Givens and workforce expert Dr. Yvonne Thayer discuss trends associated with the future of work and how these trends impact workers, employers, and career development professionals. This episode was captured from the NCDA webinar series. To view the full session, including Q&A with the live audience, visit NCDA.org.
In this first part of our Presidential Series, NCDA President Dr. Sharon Givens and workforce expert Dr. Yvonne Thayer discuss trends associated with the future of work and how these trends impact workers, employers, and career development professionals. This episode was captured from the NCDA webinar series. To view the full session, including Q&A with the live audience, visit NCDA.org.
Career Practitioner Conversations with NCDA
Season 1. Episode 1: The Future of Work
Transcript
Sharon Givens: I am Sharon Givens, President of NCDA and I want to say welcome to the presidential series and thank you so much for taking some time to invest in yourselves tonight and your professional development. I have a great guest here tonight. She's actually not new to NCDA. She is future of work expert, Dr. Yvonne Thayer, and we're excited to have her tonight. I want to give her an opportunity to actually tell you a little bit more about herself.
Yvonne Thayer: Thank you so much, Sharon, and I'm so pleased to be here with everyone. This is a great organization and I've really enjoyed working with all of the leadership and members over the last year in various events. My background is pretty varied. I've been in education in one form or the other my whole career. I started out in K12 and was in local district leadership, and my interest always was in pushing the envelope, trying to take a futurist viewpoint of what was going on. And I did a lot of work and career and technical education because I always felt like those kids that were in those programs often were forgotten or didn't get as many resources. And later I went on to the State Department in Virginia. I worked in policy, I worked in leadership. But then I went over to Adult Ed and I was director of adult education for the state. And I really found a new passion for what I was interested in, and that was workforce development. So, over the past few years, I've really focused my work there, and now I do consulting and research in that area with different groups like workforce development groups or colleges and universities or local school districts. So, I think this is the time too, that all of us who have some role in career development have an opportunity to make a real difference. I'm pleased to be here.
Sharon Givens: So, thank you very much. As all of you can see, she is an expert in the future of work and, you know, our thoughts behind this particular series are to think about what's happening right now in the world of work and what better time than now for us to talk about the future of work. So, I think if you could just start by telling us the story of what's happening with work and where you see work going.
Yvonne Thayer: Okay. And you know, I'm going to do that by starting to read a little story about a worker. Okay. One of the things that I didn't mention, I and two other authors, we published a book last year called Career Anxiety, and it was written for workers to help people understand what's going on. And we have several stories within it about workers. And I'm just going to read you one very short one to kind of set the stage for talking about what you'd like to hear.
This is about Gus, who is a 24 year old. He has a full beard, a pleasant smile, a B.A. from a well-known private college and $47,000 in debt to show for it. Although Gus earned good grades, he graduated with a 3.17 and completed an unpaid internship with a public affairs company specializing in political campaigns. He has not been able to land a job in his field. Gus has certainly tried to find a job. He has a weekly ritual. Every Monday, he reviews the online job boards and applies for jobs for which he is qualified. A few months ago, he stopped caring about whether the jobs were of interest to him because he felt that that would expand the pool of possible jobs. As of last Monday, Gus had applied for 237 jobs in the 114 weeks since he graduated. Those applications have yielded only five interviews, and all but one was conducted by phone or web conferencing. Gus has received a message that he lacks experience and laments that he can't get experience without a job and can't get a job without experience to pay the bills and begin paying off his student debt. Gus continues to work as a barista at the same coffee shop where he worked two years ago during his last year of college to earn even more money. He has a side hustle, a secondary part time job that would have been called moonlighting in an earlier time. He's driving for both Uber and Lyft. But as his father reminded Gus, this is not a sustainable, long-term strategy. So, Gus is exploring law school. He has visited the websites of several law schools and has even started some applications. But he worries about two things. First, getting a law degree means taking on more debt. Although his grades and test scores are good enough for Gus to get in law school they're not stellar enough for him to earn a scholarship. He's not sure he feels comfortable adding $100,000 or so to the $47,000 of debt he already has. And he's been reading that employment options in the legal profession aren't what they used to be. Fewer jobs offer lower pay than in the past.
Should Gus continue down the law school path? Does he have other options? Or have coffee and cars become his career? That's a story that takes many forms with our millennials today. And we could have a story that would be similar for people in their forties who are looking to change jobs and are beginning to realize it's not as easy as they thought it would be when they have a couple of decades of experience because they're running into ageism beginning in the mid-forties and in the early fifties. And that is really true. That's not exaggerated. We find it all the time with both men and women that it's harder to make that change than they thought it would be.
So, Gus did the right things. He went to college, he got his degree, he's got some skills. And he pursued a job, did the job boards just like he's supposed to do. And he borrowed money because he had to. And now, two years later, he's at a crossroads. So, he's not getting a job in his field. He's not getting a job in any sustainable, well-paying field. Does he go back to school and earn another degree and begin another career path? Does he go into greater debt? Owe, more than he wants? What did he do wrong? Should he go see a career counselor? I mean, you know, what is what is going on here with this and that?
And again, this is happening all the time. And more and more younger people are going back to graduate school when they shouldn't because they feel like if they just get one more degree, that third master's degree, and they really won't even listen very well when some of their professors say, you know, that's not the problem here. You know, it's not that one more degree that matters. It's your skill level.
Sharon Givens: Right.
Yvonne Thayer: So that's kind of where we are. It's playing out in lots of different ways that we'll talk about this evening. But that's one of the big ones that some of you probably are confronted with, either in your family or with your friends or in your professional life. So, let's talk about three things. Three big changes that have occurred that are impacting people like us and our clients. The first is what some have called the fourth Industrial Revolution. I call it the digital transformation. It started about in the early nineties as the kind of the computer period ended and everybody was finally getting their computers in place and getting used to working that way. Along comes this digital transformation. We saw it in globalization beginning in the nineties and became very talked about in the early 2000. We saw a digital disruption in all of our jobs, every sector, every place we looked. There was some kind of disruption that either began when computers came in, but some kind of automation that really began leading to transformation, either in the products that were developed, the services organizations had, or the way work was done. And one of the byproducts of this, of course, was needing fewer workers in certain kinds of jobs, because you could automate those jobs. And that's still what's happening, you know, all the time as fewer jobs are needed in certain kinds of skills, this automation, artificial intelligence and augmented work, which is the big thing now, where people will be working beside a computerized, either a robot or some other kind of software, but work together on something. This is all part of what's occurring that is both exciting and troubling for people and for companies that have to have the money to do these things, but also have to do it to compete internationally and stay in business.
Of all the industrial revolutions that this country has seen, the thing that is truly different about this one is the velocity of change. The fact that everything has happened so quickly. Now, if we look back at the implementation of computers in the workplace, in the home it took about from the early 1980s up until about the mid 1990s before really, and you can still name some places that it took a little bit longer for people to accept, “I have to understand how to do this. I'm going to have to use it in my job. It has a function that's important in this work.” This doesn't work the same way with digital technology. It can happen immediately and very, very quickly and really almost as soon as somebody has an idea, if they have the right tools, they can make it happen. So that was one big, big part of the change it occurred. And then another one was the change in the life of the worker.
What happened to the worker over the last 20 years, in particular? The scaling up, the fact that you have to reskill all the time. I think everybody here knows that that's important. It's a message that you've got to give your clients, especially, I think people who are in the middle skill area need to hear this because they tend to think, well, you go to community college, you get that certification, you pass a test, you're good to go. And what everybody has to recognize is we're going to be skilling up and reskilling the rest of our work lives because all of these changes are going to continue to take place. And if you aren't willing to do it, you're not going to have the opportunity either to work, keep your job, or move to the kind of position you'd like to have. So that's one thing that happened to workers.
Another one thing that happened that really has made a huge impact in this country is that we now value the shareholder more than we value the worker. There was the social contract that started in this country really in the forties, but became very apparent after World War Two where companies hired workers and they kept those workers. So, when the jobs changed, they just reskilled people and moved them over to something else. But they didn't let people go. They didn't fire people. The whole idea was, we have this company, we want these people to work for us. And that's why people's grandparents or parents worked in these companies their whole careers. That day is gone. And not only does that change the feeling and attitude workers have toward their employers, because nobody feels any commitment to stay with an employer any longer, but the employer has no commitment to the worker now, even when they're going through hard times like they are now, to find people to work for them. The kinds of incentives are giving are very shortsighted. You know, I'm going to pay you $1,000 to come work here, you know, if you can start this week. But that's one time that's not really dealing with some of the issues around that. And I think those issues play into that. You know, how people have felt about why they wanted to change jobs during the pandemic. We'll talk about that in a few minutes.
And then the third thing that has changed so much, I think, is the shrinking workforce. And a lot of people don't really recognize that yet because they don't understand what's going on. And they're thinking, well, people just have quit jobs. You know, they want to quit their jobs and they want to do something else, and that's that. But it's bigger than that. We have the smallest workforce coming about now that we really have since many, many, many decades ago. And we had the smallest growth ever. That is because of several things, one of which is our birth rate has been lower. So, we actually didn't have the babies and didn't have the people. So, there's no way short of immigrants, you know, others coming into this country that we can create more people in the workforce. So, it's not like you can just make up people, you know, and that's a big part of this. But there's some other things going on. We haven't had real growth in the number of men in the workforce since the baby boomers started talking. That's a long time ago. So, we need to recognize that. And that does present more opportunities for women. But that problem continues to be that women aren't paid what men are paid. And again, we saw the women leaving the workforce during the pandemic. And now that's, you know, part of that. We also have a health and opioid crisis in this country that's taking people out of the workforce. And those numbers are high. And we need to recognize that we have people incarcerated and people that have, you know, problems in their history that they can't get employed. Those are real. And the only real solution right now that people are looking at is that people will work longer, people will work into and through their seventies. They'll be able to do that because many will be healthier. And also there will be many people who will want to do that because they will need the money to support themselves. They may have to support children. They may have really elderly parents in their nineties that they need to support. There are all kinds of things that are going to be going on that will create this different looking kind of workforce.
So, all of those things, those are some of the things that make up these changes that mean that you can't tell the same story that you told 20 years ago or even really ten years ago. People, you can't, we can't tell you in terms of you, but all of us in this field, we have to look differently. What is a resume? I mean, when we have the technology now that employers can find out everything about us. So, what do we need to know? Well, we need to know how to work with job boards in a very smart way, because employers that have access to the algorithms that run those job boards can manipulate those if at all. You know, they're choosing to get who they want without you ever knowing why you weren't chosen or what that automated person that interviewed you, the automated bot. What happened with that interview? Those are some of the things I think that really feed into all of this sharing about what's different now. There are many, many things, but those are some of the things I just wanted to bring up.
Sharon Givens: Excellent. You know, I have a couple of questions that I would like to kind of explore from the information that you shared, like what you talked about in terms of upskilling, because of course, now we know there are certain jobs that require more skills. And I'm wondering, how do people balance that without making these huge investments or going into debt, as she talked about, you know, and your initial story? So, I need these skills to get this job. And of course, the only way to be a lawyer is to want to go to law school. So, the only way to be a doctor is to go to med school. And so how do we balance, and even other jobs that are not maybe that extensive in terms of investing time or money, but how do we balance that and get that?
Yvonne Thayer: Yeah, that is a tough one. It's a really good question because I always tell people it's important to talk about this with workforce clients so they understand that when they are budgeting things through their life, they're going to have to set aside some money to do this. But I think the encouraging thing is what I've seen in the last couple of years in particular is more employers are willing to pay for these kinds of skilling up. It's not quite the same as when an employer just pays for you to go get two credits of something you want to go get, you know that or two units, you know what I mean? But when they see that it's a skill that can serve them and their company or organization and is something that might even if you don't need it now, you might benefit in a couple of years from it. I think the employers are much more willing to do that and also people are negotiating for that.
Now we can talk about the talent, the search for talent, and not that race that's being run right now for the people who are the most skilled on the highest end of the continuum, they can get almost anything they want, and the kinds of things they're negotiating for are just mind blowing to me because they're kind of negotiating away some of the kinds of benefits that we thought everybody wanted to have. And they're asking for other things like more vacation time, more flexibility to do community service. And one of the things they're asking for, you know, is to have, they want to learn. We have generations now in the millennials and Gen Z in particular that want to learn. We've done a good job, I suppose, in K-12, you know, really pushing that and working more in groups. So, but they want somebody to pay for it for them. I think that we can ask for it. That's one thing. But I think the other thing would be to have a good career plan, if not on paper, at least, you know, in your head. What is that? Where do I really want to head now? It's not the same model that we used to have where you just go up the ladder in a company and you know, you start out here and eventually you'll get up here. No, it's moving all these different directions and among more than one employer. But I think if you have an idea what you want to do and you think about it that way, then the opportunities might you know, you can be on the lookout for that. But it's a challenge. I'll tell you, this student debt thing is a huge problem in this country and we are doing nothing right now to really, you know, seriously address it. And that is a problem that I think counselors need to really think about talking with people about.
Sharon Givens: Right. And so, it sounds like a couple of things I want to mention that a lot of this work has to begin in K-through-12, and that's from looking at where do you want to go, how do you prepare yourself even financially at some point and working with the parents to navigate the process as well? Something else that you said that really resonated about the whole shrinking workforce and the social contract. I'm wondering what role does the gig economy play? Because there are people, they're working for say, they're working for themselves on multiple contracts, but they're not working for one employer. So, what are your thoughts on that?
Yvonne Thayer: One of the biggest changes that I found when we did the research for this book, we looked very closely at contract workers, gig workers, all the people with sidelines. And what we saw was that probably in another two or three years we'll have, if not sooner, at least 60% of the workforce that will be working more than one job and they'll probably get higher. And, you know, if you have a full-time job and you take on a sideline, that's one thing. But if you do nothing but contract work and these gig jobs, that's a whole different world because of all the responsibility you have for taxes and that kind of thing. But also, because you really aren't in a career path of any kind. You're just you know, now sometimes people who are retired are working contracts. Again, that's a different situation.
But I have also found with younger people, they leave full time jobs to take contract jobs because they look at how much money am I earning right now, not how much are these benefits worth. Or you know, maybe I don't like working here so much, but I'll wait it out until I do get a full-time job again. But there's a different mindset, and I think it's because, again, no one really talks with them about that, what the options are and what the liabilities are. And it goes not just with things like, you know, driving for Lyft, but people who like to be kind of nomad workers, you know, work somewhere else in the country, take my laptop, sit at the beach, sit in the mountains, whatever, and just, you know, work that way. It gives you a lifestyle perhaps you want, but you do have to think about long term. Is this going to pay off for me when I decide I need to go back in and get something else? So, I think what we need to do is be sure that we explain to our clients what it means to be a contract worker, whether it means that you're a high-level consultant or you're doing your little sideline activity just to do it. It's very advantageous to do it to begin something if you're not already in your early fifties, because if you have some skills that you want to develop that can turn into a consultancy when you retire or you have a hobby or some other interest, then you want to develop something around that. That's a really good time to do it. That's not to say you can't do it before then, but I do think people just don't always ask all the questions.
Sharon Givens: Right. Yeah, because I think a lot of people look at flexibility as compensation to them that they have. That's right.
Yvonne Thayer: Yes, you're exactly right. That's exactly how they look at it. And of course, that's what's going on, too, with remote work.
Sharon Givens: Absolutely. Yeah. So, what do we need to do as creative outlet professionals? Because this is very important for us to be prepared. It doesn't matter what sector or constituency group that you are in, but what do we need to do as career development professionals to prepare for the future work?
Yvonne Thayer: Well, you know, we were on one of the other presentations, a question similar to that came out because people, I think, don't know what resources are available or, you know, how to even begin this. And, you know, I could say, well, you could do what we did for a book and you just read everything out there you can say, but of course, that's not realistic. So, I think there are a couple of things. One, just be open to it and understand things are changing and you need to know as much as you can. But don't go out on a limb too much until you understand what's happening. And you can do that by talking with employers in the area where you live or that you're involved with and organizations just kind of check out things. You know, I heard this is going on. Is that happening with you? You know, I've heard that there are a lot of women not returning to work that quit during the pandemic. Is that the same thing that you're seeing? You can do that. I've got a few resources to suggest because I think that might be helpful to them. And I don't want to give you a long list of things, but I picked a couple of things I thought could be helpful to think about because I expected that question to come back up.
There are several organizations that are research organizations and consulting groups that do a wonderful job, either conducting research on the workforce in the workplace or they report it. And the two I would recommend to you to read are either McKinsey and Company or PWC, which used to be Price Waterhouse. Both of them have wonderful reports that I think meet the standard generally of having enough people in a study that you really can feel like you're learning something from it and they're not biased and, and they really cover so many different topics. You could just go see their website and just look at the reports they've done over the last couple years and see all kinds of things that you might be interested in. Some of the big picture on where things are going, you'll find on blogs and sometimes even organizations that just want to write a little something about it, they're basically using those research articles and commenting on it. So, you'll get the good stuff that way.
Then I would suggest that you have some kind of a daily update, and I would recommend Google's Future of Work Group. Because every day you just get some real quickies that you can either go in and read a whole article if you want to, or you just, again, kind of refresh where you're going with it. And they did, like today, I was looking and they had one that dealt with high school students. You might not see that again for a week, but, you know, they did different things, something on women, something on something very specific, like what's going on with autonomous vehicles. So that kind of opportunity that you can spend 10 or 15 minutes on day. It will help you because you'll start realizing, you know, I'm seeing these same topics come through, you know, different takes on it. But this must be a real thing that I need to know about. So, I would suggest that.
And then for people that are particularly interested in job seeking and hiring, there are a couple of HR places I would recommend. One is the HR Executive Newsletter. And the other one is called HR Dove. And that's, again, one of these places where they go in and look for all the things that are out there and give you a quick picture. I think that's the way to do it, because everybody has a lot to do in the job they have and they can't sit around for a couple hours a day reading this stuff. But that will give you a pretty good picture.
Sharon Givens: I think it's really good because I think sometimes as career development professionals, we have training and education, but it seems like we need to get educated specifically on the future of work and appreciate those resources. So, there are three themes right now, I feel like, that are positive and of course, remote. Was the pandemic the great resignation? How are all of those going to play our part, our role in the future of work?
Yvonne Thayer: Let's start with the pandemic. I remember we were finishing up our book right as the pandemic got started and there were things that we saw coming and like remote work, we knew that was coming and we knew it would have a huge impact on companies, but we didn't know it was coming now. We didn't know right then the impact would have because it would be everybody instead of some here some there, everybody. So, the telework or remote work that's here to stay. The people who are applying for jobs are demanding it. Even companies that had managers that wanted people to come back in, they're getting satisfied to say, well, I will come in once a week or twice a week or your team to meet, you know, when you need me inside. But quite frankly, they found out that people did good work at home. And even though I didn't like the fact that that a lot of companies put trackers on people and monitored them, I found people found their workarounds for that, too. So, I think the telework is the norm now. It's the norm, and it has a huge impact on other things, like, you know, where you can look for a job, all that.
The fact that several million women quit their jobs and have not returned to work is probably there's going to be a long-term impact there. Now, it looks like what a lot of the women were saying was that they just felt like they had to be home because of their families. They were under stress. They couldn't handle it and was just better to quit and do that at home. But they haven't rushed back. And it may be the types of jobs some of these women were in because they were a lot of them were in lower skilled jobs or lower paying jobs. So, they may be holding out for something else, something better. I think the rate of inflation and what happens with housing does, we're in for, I think, a huge hit on housing. We don't have affordable housing in this country. It's going to make a difference about people going back to work. But for right now, those women are kind of holding back.
One of the things that also happened during the pandemic was e-commerce were tremendously we all just sat home and just ordered everything and it really is sticking. It helped break the supply chain cause problems there because the supply chain wasn't ready for that. And then the impact of other countries having COVID, we had big problems with that and that's going to continue. It'll take a while to get that back, but I think in a year or so that'll be okay. But those kinds of things with the pandemic about who's working. I read a piece in an article this last week about a woman who she probably was kind of a middle-skilled job, office job, I think, and she quit her job without having another job, thinking she would have no problem because she heard how many jobs were open. And now it's several weeks later and she has no job. That's something we need to think about when we're talking to our clients about when do you make a job change and how do you be, you know, you're smart about that and that just because there are a lot of jobs open, there may not be the jobs you either are qualified for or that you want. We all know that there are lots of home health care, those kinds of jobs available, but pay may not be what you want anyway.
The pandemic, we've got those things going. And then the great resignation, it's kind of the talent -meet-stress kind of thing. And with over, we still have over 4 million people resigning each month, I think that's very interesting given that the pandemic has cooled, but it shows that the workforce issues have not. In February, 4.4 million left their jobs, and yet there were 11.3 million openings. It's a buyer's market for the person who's skilled. And it's also a buyer's market if you want to work at a fast food restaurant. But if you're in the middle somewhere, it's a little different. So, we've got that. And then the remote work workers like it. Like I said, it's here to stay. It saves time. It saves gas, which matters right now. It allows you to work in different locations. And what we're seeing is the large numbers of people are still moving and preparing to move and they're going away from the urban areas into smaller cities.
Sharon Givens: Right.
Yvonne Thayer: And because they can get those jobs that they're still within 50 miles and they only would have to go in once or twice a week. It's having an impact there. So, the job search is broadening and that might be something, again, for our folks to think about that when we're talking with our clients. How do you make a decision? Yeah, in our book, we talked a lot about you can't just go off and move someplace because if your job depends on your being there and you lose that job and there you are and it's more expensive city, you know, all those things. But if people now have the flexibility to live where it's a little more affordable, that's going to make a big difference in how you view where you live and what your job is.
Sharon Givens: So it almost sounds like the employee is going to have a lot more power maybe in the future of work. And at some level.
Yvonne Thayer: They are having it already. And it was a surprise to me because I was, so what I was seeing was because we had broken the social contract I saw workers needing unions like they'd never needed them before. You know, things like that were happening. But now it looks different, at least for the short term. And again, because we don't have as many workers, it's not as competitive. If you've got the skills, you can do very, very well.
Sharon Givens: So if you had to leave us with maybe two or three tips or additional resources. Perhaps things that we can start tuning into right away that can help us navigate this whole scope of the future of work. What would that be?
Yvonne Thayer: I think that first, looking at your professional organization, that you should use the time you have as professionals when you are together, virtually or otherwise. For conferences and things like that, to have groups that meet together and talk about these issues and develop resources to help each other. Because right now, I don't think there are many, many things out there. And I see the HR people beginning to do a lot of this and I think it would be helpful, you know, for your organization to look at what do people need to help them and put some of that together and have opportunities to talk about it and say, “well, this is what I'm seeing in my area. Well, I’m not seeling this in my area.”
The second thing I mentioned before, about checking in with your employers, you need to be involved in some of these organizations that these employers that are either technology groups that meet or other kinds of sometimes you'll have like in my area, there's a group of all the construction companies and they're formed into a group. I think it would be very helpful to talk with these people and just listen to them, because I know when I was doing research early on, I had the opportunity to sit with some folks and we talked about what had happened after the Great Recession in terms of when they finally came back and started hiring and they weren't hiring full time, you know, doing contract, and they really confirmed some of this information. So, I think that would be a good thing to do to really connect up with those folks.
And if you're doing job fairs and, you know, those kinds of activities for students or workers, depending on your venue, talk about these real issues. Don't just, you know, fill out a resume or worry about wearing a blue suit. You know, talk about these things. Have these employers talk about why it's important to show that you really care about your job, not only that you're there on time, but that you get your work done. And regardless of we don't have to watch you punch a clock anymore, you're working from home, but it's getting done. I just think the employers have the message for us and right now is a good time to involve them in that.
Parents do not know what to say or do when I talk with them. They're kind of shocked that their experience doesn't work for helping their kids. And, you know, they need the support from us more than I guess we've ever done it before. If you're working with older folks, the middle-aged person is shocked by the fact they can't just go out and change jobs easily. And older people need to understand, you know, really starting your fifties that you probably aren't going to retire as early as you thought and get prepared for what that looks like. That can make sense. Get you the money you need, but also make you feel good about working later in your life.
Sharon Givens: Right. Because I think as the National Career Development Association, it is important for us to have this conversation. I'd rather you're working with, you know, elementary students so, you know, students and college. And I have to say, that's one of the things that I made up my mind, that I was going to be very intentional about, that we would I would at least try to open the door for this conversation for our constituents, because I think it's very, very relevant. I think that we will no longer be operating and delivering services and the same way that we were before. Things are changing and they're changing daily. And it's important for us if we are leading the way as career development professionals, for us to know as much as possible about this topic.
Yvonne Thayer: You know, don't be afraid of it. You know, you may say, “well, artificial intelligence, augmented work. I don't really care about that.” Well, you don't have to be an expert in it to understand enough about it to know the impact on it, on work. And that's really what it's all about, is what's the impact on a worker going to be when we have all of this going on in the workplace? So just play around with it.
Sharon Givens: And you just said, don't be afraid. But I think you're right. I think the workers are afraid. And I imagine even some of the career development professionals are afraid because we will have to navigate maybe in areas and deliver services again in a way that we haven't done before. So, I think there is going to be a level of fear maybe for both. So that's a very, very good point there. But I think the more we become educated, like you said, I think that can reduce hopefully some of that fear.
Thank you so much for attending and we hope to see you. Our list and on our upcoming podcasts on various career development topics. So please keep your eyes and ears open for information on our upcoming podcasts, presidential series, and the future.
Yvonne Thayer: Thank you so much.