Following a successful pilot in 2016, the WikiWorkLab returns next week.
Organised by Jericho and CIPD, the 2016 WikiWorkLab pioneered a new ‘work experience’ programme that turned the concept on its head. The WikiWorkLab draws upon the experience of students and young people to inform the work of CEOs, authors and experts.
Coming from schools, colleges and universities across London and the UK, the 2016 WikiWorkLab cohort visited organisations as diverse as the House of Commons, CIPD, Network Rail, Tesco, KPMG, Bounceback (a social enterprise working out of Brixton Prison) and School 21 (an innovative free school in Stratford E15), examining how today’s workplace is changing. Visiting speakers – MPs, world-renowned academics, senior policy-makers, business leaders and representatives of the HR community, trade unions and the third sector – worked with WikiWorkLab participants to develop thinking on subjects such as the changing nature of leadership, politics, activism and citizenship. See an overview of the August 2016 programme here.
Throughout the intervening year, continued collaboration with 2016 WikiWorkLab participants has been invaluable in ensuring diversity and balance of opinion on a number of issues focused on by Jericho and CIPD communities. Gen Z’s contribution provokes beyond-the-bubble thinking, and has also meant voice and representation for a group of people who are often notably absent from high-level conversations concerning the world they are about to inherit.
A year later and CIPD and Jericho are excited to be rolling out another collaboration programme to further explore and enrich the Future of Work is Human debate, with the 2017 WikiWorkLab starting on Monday 14th August.
We will be joined be 20 people, aged 16-21, representing a range of geographies and backgrounds, to brainstorm the question:
What role (if any) should business play in society?
Ideas sessions and research trips lead up to filmed presentations at the Charterhouse on Friday 18th August. This year’s cohort will visit Euston Station (with Network Rail), Battersea development area (courtesy of RICS), as well as CIPD, John Lewis and KPMG head offices. They will also have a tour of BITC and its work with CEO Amanda MacKenzie OBE.
The programme includes an impressive array of discussions, providing a broad, critical overview of business, politics and society – and the evolving interrelationship between the three. Discussion topics include: trust; a better society; the meaning of ‘responsibility’; freedom of speech, the architecture of complex systems; ‘purpose’; leadership; personal presentation and the potential utopia/ dystopia of the digital future.
WikiWorkLab participants will collaborate with Peter Cheese, CEO CIPD; Claire Fox, Director, Institute of Ideas; Matthew Gwyther, former editor of Management Today; Jill Meager, creative thinking and leadership coach, and Charles Wookey, CEO, A Blueprint for Better Business.
Collaborators from Jericho include Christine Armstrong, Robert Phillips, Filip Matous, Neal Lawson and Indy Johar.
Follow the debate on the Jericho site, on Twitter and on the Future of Work is Human site. Read biographies of WikiWorkLab 2017 participants here.
CIPD and Jericho would especially like to thank organisations and partners – part of the Future of Work is Human coalition – who have come together to enable the 2017 WikiWorkLab.
