Lisa Taylor

Lisa Taylor

Lisa Taylor is the President of Challenge Factory and Centre for Career Innovation, and author of Retain and Gain: Career Management for Small Business. She is also a trailblazing expert in demystifying the outdated ways of thinking about the Future of Work.

Lisa is a sought-after expert in helping companies recognize and adapt to changing career timelines and demographic composition. Lisa’s expertise is widely recognized and regularly cited in many North American media sources, including The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, CBC, and Rogers. Her second, soon-to-be-published book is called The Talent Revolution. Lisa was recognized by the Urban Land Institute as one of Canada’s Top 100 Women in 2014 for her work in leadership, employment, and city building.

Lisa offers a dynamic perspective on how aging demographics and new market dynamics present organizations and individuals with opportunities to gain strategic advantage – if we’re willing to adapt.

Keynote Topics:

Stop Preparing for the Future of Work

Change is happening. The world is now more closely connected and population migration has created a diverse and blended workforce. We benefit from greater connectivity, and a deeper understanding of how our brains work; however we are challenged by emerging talent trends and business models. Daily news reports purport a thriving gig economy and the impending replacement of jobs by a robot workforce. But what’s myth and what is reality? How do AI, robotics and the platform economy impact how jobs are designed and what we need to do to adapt? Employees need to be prepared for the jobs that don’t exist yet but will be a core part of thriving in a new global economy. Or do they?

What if the single most important action we can take is to stop preparing for the future as if it is inevitable and, instead, start shaping the future of work that we want for ourselves, our children and future generations? This talk breaks down the drivers of change and identifies the technological and talent related implications. 

The Future is a Mystery, Not a Puzzle

Traditional approaches to problem solving require complete understanding of issues, boundaries and pieces in order to succeed. Even design thinking with its creative and user-centric approach seeks to solve for what customers value most. What if we approach today’s talent and workforce challenges are less like business-school puzzles and more like science-based experiments. This talk examines new techniques and skills from a variety of sectors to show how leadership teams have the tools they need to decode their own futures, they just need to focus on finding the first clue along the journey.

Your Organizations Have Broken Talent Escalators

Today’s talent structures no longer reflect the needs, skills and demographics of today’s workforces. Organizations are spending a fortune to modify, augment and improve outdated structures. This evidence-based talk argues that it is time to return to first principles rather than evolve outdated workforce programs. It argues that we need to first define what it means to have an active, vibrant, productive workforce that is engaged throughout its entire working life. From this foundation we can reimagine today’s intergenerational organizations, without throwing the baby (boomer) out with the bathwater. 

Employees are not your Organization’s Greatest Asset

It feels so good to declare that your employees are your greatest asset. Yet, much of today’s struggles with engagement, loyalty, recruitment and retention may well be traced to practices inside organizations where people are treated just like assets – acquired at a price, depreciated over time and written off for nothing. Learn how new relationships inside and outside of your organization challenge traditional thinking. Lisa introduces new ways to think about the relationship between workforces and workplaces. She shares examples of how organizations have changed people management from asset-based accounting approaches to equity-based value creation and transformed their organizations into workplaces of the future.

Social Rituals, Longevity and Legacy

At work, the rituals we celebrate feel empty over time. Think of the office birthday cake: fun for employees in their 20s, but awkward for employees in their 60s. Rituals exist to acknowledge accomplishment and connect people. Yet, while we have rituals to mark life’s beginnings, what about life’s middles or transition points? The middles are where real life and real legacies are created. This talk reveals the untapped opportunity to ritualize lifelong accomplishment and legacy building.

Talk: