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Cornell public health certificate closes 8 primary skill gaps for students

Recent global events have underscored a pressing truth: our ever-expanding interactions with the natural world can lead to unforeseen health challenges. At the juncture of urban development, climate change and health concerns, the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic raised the necessity to strengthen our public health infrastructure.

Through its new Public Health Essentials online certificate program, Cornell seeks to help leaders proactively address today’s global health challenges.

“COVID-19 came and showed us that our public health workforce was underprepared and that our public health systems were not equipped to detect and respond to an emerging pandemic,” said Gen Meredith, associate professor of public and ecosystem health and associate director of the Cornell Master of Public Health (MPH) Program.

Meredith, co-author of the university’s Public Health Essentials certificate program with Alexander Travis, professor and MPH program director, developed the coursework to address real-world applications for health professionals, community health advocates, volunteers and other emerging leaders in public health. The program begins with the basic foundations of public health, including the latest terminology, and moves into topics such as driving action with data and supporting behaviors that prevent disease. Courses include:

  • Public Health Foundations
  • Assessing and Implementing Public Health
  • Using Public Health Data for Action
  • Supporting Public Health Behaviors
  • Public Health Preparedness

Participants complete the facilitator-guided online program with a cohort of fellow professionals within four months. Research from Meredith, Travis and coauthors from the MPH program shows significant improvement among learners across eight critical skill areas: systems and strategic thinking; community engagement; cross-sectoral partnership; policy engagement; diversity, equity and inclusion; data-informed decision making, effective communication and programmatic expertise.

“The way that globalization is happening around the world and the way that humans are using the natural environment around us is creating real risk for the emergence of new diseases, and this comes at a time when humans are already vulnerable because of chronic diseases and other environmental conditions we are facing on a day-to-day basis,” said Meredith.

The Public Health Essentials program intends to drive actions that contribute to disease prevention and global community well-being. In earning the certificate, leaders can gain new knowledge and skills to navigate the complexities of worldwide health challenges, strengthen healthcare systems and enhance preparedness.

Enroll in Cornell’s Public Health Essentials certificate program to explore the global challenges alongside best practices from experts.

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New eCornell certificate highlights customer-centricity as the key to product launches

Launching a product is no walk in the park. From identifying the right customer base and pricing strategies to winning over investors, the path is fraught with challenges. To truly excel, professionals need guidance that is rooted in real-world experience.

Cornell’s Marketing Strategy online certificate program – authored by S.C. Johnson Professor of Marketing Stijn van Osselaer – offers a comprehensive approach to launching a product with a customer-centric view.

“What distinguishes this course from other marketing courses is that it’s really built around all the steps you need to go through to market a product, to bring a product to market,” says Osselaer.

At its core, the program emphasizes customer-centricity as an approach to marketing strategy and decision-making. This paradigm shift encourages learners to consistently prioritize and empathize with the customer’s viewpoint. Students in the program learn to calculate metrics such as customer lifetime value and the proper interpretations of such analysis. There are multiple projects at every step of the go-to-market plan, providing participants much-needed experience with authentic scenarios.

“In venture capital, investors place great importance on numerical evidence; getting the right metrics and understanding which ones to highlight in your pitch is critical to securing an investment. The course thoroughly covers the essential metrics venture capitalists will expect founders to know,” says Osselaer.

By integrating customer-centricity into the marketing strategy, professionals can better align their products and services with the market demand, ensuring that their go-to-market plans are successfully implemented and will reach the right target market.

Firms across various sectors seeking a critical competitive advantage can adopt the approach when collecting and analyzing data on customer behavior, preferences, feedback, and satisfaction levels. Companies that successfully implement this strategy can see improved customer retention, increased word-of-mouth advertising and higher returns on marketing investments.

“This program has a lot of useful things that you can take directly to practice. There are a lot of tools and explanatory notes. There are many spreadsheet templates you can take directly into the workplace.”

Ready to improve the odds of success for your next product launch? Enroll in eCornell’s Marketing Strategy certificate program.

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Is It Time to Return to the Office?

Many Americans favor the flexibility that comes with working from home, a sentiment captured in recent surveys showing that more than two-thirds prefer remote work options, and nearly a third would willingly accept a lower salary to maintain this work style.

While introducing remote work or hybrid models can meet employee desires for greater autonomy, it raises concerns of potential disconnect, reduced team synergy and decreased retention rates. Employers are faced with the challenge of evolving a work environment that respects individual preferences and maintains the integrity and collaborative spirit of a cohesive workforce. Finding a balance is critical.

In a recent Keynote webcast, “Work from Wherever,” Nick Fabrizio, a distinguished senior lecturer at Cornell’s Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, shared his views on the return-to-office debate and key perspectives of both employees and employers.

What are the main causes for dissatisfaction among remote employees?

Fabrizio: “In a new Gallup survey, it’s stated that only 28% of workers feel connected with the organization and that is at an all-time low. Last year it was 32%. You would think that with a variety of different work arrangements, people would be really satisfied. But in terms of being connected with the organization, it’s not there. And that should be alarming to organizations.

People complain that they don’t really know what’s going on in the company. They know what’s going on with their projects and their responsibilities, but they often feel they are losing connection to the whole organization.”

Why do companies want employees back in the office?

Fabrizio: “There are a few things that are complicating this. One is the feeling of disconnectedness at work, one is retention and another one is losing bright young workers because there is no process for them to be evaluated, connected and advanced in the organization. Organizations feel like they can’t create those opportunities being disconnected.

A lot of these organizations now are paying a lot of money in real estate for empty offices. That can’t continue. Some industries are going to force people back because of that. While others are going to force workers back because they are working on recruitment and retention, and others will force people back because they have a hybrid arrangement strategy.”

How can remote leadership be practiced in virtual work environments?

Fabrizio: “As an organization, what you want to create is touchpoints. Managers must deliberately try to create connections so that remote workers can make connections with other people in the organization.

There are five or six different modes for us to communicate, and some workers are saying they feel overwhelmed by that. Organizations should pick one method and do that. It’s very hard even for the worker then to realize and look at a Teams meeting at 3 p.m., [a client Zoom meeting] at 2 p.m., something else happening at 4 p.m., so they start to feel disconnected because there’s so many different mediums to keep track of.”

How can employers encourage productivity among remote employees?

Fabrizio: “Certainly not more forced interactions, but I think it’s the employee’s responsibility to be deliberate about keeping track of what they’ve accomplished. Sort of your value to the organization. It’s like a personal self-inventory of what you have accomplished, what you feel like you mean to the organization, how the organization is a benefit to you.”

Which work arrangement will become the new standard in the future?

Fabrizio: “I’m very effective working at home. Now, [I’m] hybrid, so I have that client-facing part of my work, but when I come back to the home office, I’m very productive.”

I think we’re going to quickly go to a hybrid scenario where better-performing organizations will have to define what their work arrangements are for different business units within the organization. I think organizations will have to do a better job of defining within the same organization what roles [will] be five days a week in office, two or three days in office and what roles are going to be completely remote.”

​​Discover how Cornell’s remote leadership and hybrid work strategy online certificate programs can make you a better manager and equip you with the competitive advantage needed in today’s evolving world of work.

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. Experience the full Keynote “Work from Wherever” online.

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Supply chain management meets modern analytics in Cornell certificate program

While supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have mostly eased, predicting customer demand and other elements of supply chain management continue to present companies with complex existential challenges.

The crisis laid bare the vulnerabilities in traditional forecasting models – where a single miscalculation could lead to product shortages and severe revenue losses – and revealed the need for a more advanced data-driven approach.

The eight-week Supply Chain Analytics online certificate program from the Cornell SC Johnson Graduate School of Management equips specialists from various sectors with strategies to master key elements of supply chain management. Li Chen, professor of operations, technology and information management, leads the program.

“We know that the future is unpredictable, right? But we still want to make predictions. The idea is to look at historical sales and demand data, and based on that, utilize formulas to make good demand forecasts,” Chen said. “I teach this data-driven approach with a focus on measuring forecast performance as well. Every time you forecast, you should compare it to the actuals to gauge the accuracy of your predictions, so you can refine your methods over time.”

Diving into topics like demand variability and inventory management, the program provides a robust set of tools for actionable insights. It digs into inevitable trade-offs between reducing inventory and increasing transportation costs, offering a nuanced perspective to students interested in supply chain consulting and analyst roles or anyone who seeks to better understand the strategic aspect of operations management and logistics.

The instruction provided on industry standard operations and inventory management systems also highlights underutilized functionalities of software designed to improve the efficiency of supply chain configurations.

“This content will truly help people, especially those using systems like SAP or Oracle, to appreciate what’s underneath the hood,” Chen said. “My hope is that through this content, we can bring more attention and awareness to the potential end users.”

The program is directed toward entry-level supply chain analysts and those in management roles who run backend operations.

With a finely-tuned curriculum that balances theoretical underpinnings with practical insights, the Supply Chain Analytics online certificate program prepares professionals for disruption and how the unpredictable can become the expected. Learn more and enroll today.

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Cornell certificate equips leaders with natural language processing skills

In today’s digitized world, every action we perform generates data. A significant chunk of this information is in the form of text. Companies across industries grapple with colossal amounts of unstructured text data from diverse sources. Natural language processing (NLP) techniques make it possible to interpret, categorize and gain value from this otherwise overwhelming information, giving companies a competitive edge in an increasingly data-driven landscape.

“Natural Language Processing with Python,” a new online certificate program from Cornell, was designed by Oleg Melnikov, visiting lecturer at the Cornell Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, to teach professionals the fundamentals needed to apply NLP in the workplace. Melnikov met with the eCornell team to discuss the importance of NLP knowledge and the ins and outs of the certificate program.

How does Natural Language Processing differ from machine learning?

“[NLP] is a topic that overlaps with machine learning. The difference is that machine learning doesn’t focus on text. It can have some examples related to text, but it’s primarily related to developing concepts of modeling, whereas in NLP, our domain is textual and we are focusing on solving language problems: text classification, translation, maybe building different representations of text in the mathematical domain. Machine learning steps in when we have converted text to numbers. Then we can apply machine learning algorithms.”

How are businesses currently leveraging NLP for their operations?

“This domain is expanding dramatically, and there are lots of projects in pretty much every domain. Different sectors, different companies, anything from McDonald’s to aviation, have some sort of textual interaction. All that requires some sort of summarization, some sort of categorization . . . where an individual doesn’t have to work with individual text but can step up at an aggregated level and process these massive text banks at scale.”

Who can gain the most value from your NLP program?

“NLP recently has been divided into two subdomains. One is what we’re introducing the students to: the classical techniques. Students who have not worked with NLP before would be good candidates for the certificate program. The courses are focused on preparing and developing students for the practical uses of natural language processing. There is another domain, which is a more modern, ChatGPT-like, neural-network-based NLP . . . that is for students who are more advanced with NLP skills.”

With textual analysis proving to be an integral tool across many industries, a working knowledge of NLP can help you and your workplace become more efficient. Expand your theoretical and technical expertise with NLP by enrolling in the Natural Language Processing with Python certificate program.

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Professionals navigate rising economies in Emerging Markets certificate program

Emerging economies, fueled by digital adoption, a growing middle class and urbanization, are full of unrealized growth potential. With potential risks and rewards fluctuating daily – and even hourly – investors and financial professionals must grasp the complexities to navigate volatile markets.

“It is truly a universal global challenge, as well as an opportunity,” said Andrew Karolyi, the Charles Field Knight Dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business and author of the university’s Emerging Markets online certificate program. “Emerging markets have unrealized growth potential because they have inadequate capital to fuel growth.”

These markets, often referred to as the E20 – or with a more narrow scope, the BRICS countries – are barred from joining the “elite” group of developed countries in terms of GDP per capita, financial infrastructure and life expectancy rates because of a lack of foreign investments that would fund further development.

The phenomena forms well-paying investment opportunities in those markets counterbalanced by significant financial risks. Course content crafted by Karolyi and his co-authors, Lourdes Casanova, director of Cornell’s Emerging Markets Institute (EMI); Anne Miroux, EMI faculty fellow; and Wesley Sine, John and Dyan Smith Professor of Management and Family Business, covers six categories of those risks.

“Emerging markets are now mainstream; however, there is a lot of noise around them and limited knowledge,” Casanova said.

The four courses they created equip professionals with key concepts and tools to understand current economic events. From discussions of the effects of government intervention on the frequency and success of greenfield and M&A investments to examination of state-owned corporations in China and the impact of currency volatility, students will learn the correlation between the political landscape and market risks in the E20, including BRICS economies.

Tailored for financial services professionals and individuals interested in investment in emerging markets, the program is best suited for those with a foundational grasp of data statistics and business terminology.

Enrollment is now open for the Cornell’s Emerging Markets certificate program. Learn more about the program online.

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Cornell AI Strategy certificate prepares leaders to leverage new tech

In the era of artificial intelligence (AI), professionals across sectors are racing to strategize ethical and sustainable applications of the technology. Many organizations are actively pursuing AI knowledge not only to harness its potential but also to ensure responsible implementation.

Cornell’s new AI Strategy certificate program – authored by Soumitra Dutta, professor of operations, technology and information management in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business – offers a nuanced curriculum for leaders who are ready to leverage the power of AI in various business contexts.

“Today virtually every single employee in an organization needs to understand something about AI. It doesn’t matter if it’s the senior executive in the boardroom, office worker or factory floor worker,” Dutta said.

The program, which is available through eCornell, includes six courses. Students begin with an introduction to AI then explore knowledge-based technologies, machine learning and data-based approaches to the technology. Later courses cover AI implementations across sectors, societal effects and the tech’s future prospects. Each module is designed to be applicable to the real-world concerns of any professional aiming to comprehend how AI integrates with business and society.

Upon completion of the program, students will understand how to:

  • Assess applications of AI in their organizations
  • Apply knowledge-based AI technologies to their organizations’ standard tasks
  • Address challenges by applying machine learning
  • Design strategies to implement AI systems across an organization
  • Examine the societal implications of AI in areas such as labor, privacy and ethics
  • Envision the development of strategies to preserve human dignity and agency while embracing the benefits of the technology

In light of the rapid evolution of AI, the program maintains a dynamic curriculum, emphasizing core principles and skills for comprehending the fast-changing discourse surrounding AI.

“It’s like an AI boot camp, ” said Dutta. “The program is sufficiently light on the technology side to give you enough background but sufficiently deep on the context and the strategy side. It gives you the technical background while hitting on all kinds of things happening in our world right now,” Dutta said.

AI is more than a tool; it’s a strategic necessity. Cornell’s AI Strategy certificate program prepares professionals to navigate the exciting yet complex future of the technology. Learn more and enroll today.

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The Age of the Mompreneur: Empowering Working Mothers

Modern societal shifts and emerging trends in the startup ecosystem present new challenges and opportunities for women, particularly for mompreneurs – those juggling the responsibilities of motherhood and entrepreneurship. The success of early-stage enterprises founded and led by women depends greatly on dismantling systemic barriers, including the uneven distribution of venture capital.

In the recent Keynote webcast “The Boss of Me: Entrepreneurship and Motherhood,” Andrea Ippolito – CEO of SimpliFed, director of Women Entrepreneurs Cornell, and lecturer in the university’s engineering management program – shared her experiences as a mother and businesswoman, delivering compelling insights into what it takes for women to thrive as working mothers in today’s competitive, fast-paced labor market. 

How has the landscape of entrepreneurship changed for mompreneurs, particularly during and after the COVID-19 pandemic?

“What happened is that by forcing us to be at home, we showed folks that we can be effective and efficient, despite what some CEOs are saying. We actually saw an increase of women starting companies. When you look at 2019 compared to 2021, in 2019, there were a whole lot less women starting companies, 28%. Whereas during the pandemic, 49% of new companies were started by women. It was a much more flexible work environment.

Before the pandemic, it was all about meeting in person or working through stakeholder meetings in person. My journey looked a lot different than someone that was in their 20s, pre-kids, that could hustle 24/7. And don’t get me wrong, I hustle 24/7. My effectiveness and efficiency of working has always been pretty “right on” with having kids. But the time horizon has taken me a little longer.”

What are some of the largest hurdles working mothers encounter when trying to found a startup, and how does societal infrastructure play a part in this?

“The infrastructure is not in place to help support [founders], especially parents, whether that’s paid parental leave, universal child care support. There are so many things that we need to do as a society to better support entrepreneurs getting their organizations off the ground.

Startups founded by women are more profitable, and they exit faster. If you are an investor, it’s in your best performance interest for your fund to invest in women. If we want to have a more profitable economy, and we know that startups are the engine for that, then we need more folks participating. And the biggest pool of people we’re not taking advantage of right now is women. We need to rethink the structures to help support them.”

What are your secrets to striking a healthy work-life balance that comes with being a businesswoman and a mother?

“One of the things we see often is, especially for women that are parents, is they feel like they have to hide different parts of their life. For me, I have a five-year-old. I have a two-year-old and a T-minus five-week-old. And I don’t try to hide it. There are times where, yes, I don’t want them around because I want to focus 100%. But I also don’t try to hide it.

There’s this big misconception that people are taking off in the middle of the workday, and they’re not focused. The reality is that by giving folks a more flexible schedule, you actually get more out of them. They value their work. They’re aligned with your mission. But you’re also respecting them as a human being as well.”

Can you share your insights on the bias in investment toward women-led startups? How does this coincide with major life events like motherhood?

“We know that women [are] seen as less investable. There are tremendous biases out there, no doubt. And the research has shown that. One of the things that I feel very strongly about is that by the time a woman gets enough experience, expertise, and confidence, it’s around the same time that she’s having kids. One of the challenges is how do you start a company when you have this crazy unpredictable life of being a parent.

Venture capitalists have to raise money from somewhere. They have to raise money from what are called limited partners, or LPs. And those limited partners are pension funds, college endowments, sovereign wealth. And so we need folks like limited partners, like college endowments, to actually invest more in women-led funds.”

How can businesses better support working mothers, particularly with regards to incorporating child care into their business models?

“I think more and more, we need to have universal child care as a federally-funded entity. The companies that find ways to support child care or maybe fund it as a benefit will do better. And so I think there’s a responsibility of larger organizations to have this as a benefit. And then for, say, small businesses where they don’t have, frankly, those types of funds or resources, I do think [we need] a government federal response. It’s good for our economy. It pays for itself. It creates an engine in our economy.”

In a rapidly evolving entrepreneurial world, businesswomen are breaking down barriers, mastering the juggling act of work-life integration, and shaping business models to include family needs. Learn how to navigate a tech career as a woman leader in Cornell’s Women in Product certificate program, designed by Andrea Ippolito or gain a better understanding of funding models in Cornell’s Startup Funding and Finance certificate.

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What is Your Style of Decision-Making? Strategize for Influence.

Imagine unlocking the secret to success in both business and day-to-day life. It’s all rooted in one critical talent: strategic decision-making – the essence of exceptional leadership, the engine driving meaningful change, and the spark igniting innovation.

Cheryl Strauss Einhorn, adjunct professor in Cornell’s SC Johnson College of Business, is a pioneer in shaping our understanding of this crucial skill. She is an accomplished author, educator, the creator of the AREA Method – a game-changing problem-solving approach – and the author of the Complex Decision-Making Cornell certificate program.

Her insights have reshaped how leaders steer their decision-making strategies and offer valuable lessons for navigating the complexity of the corporate world and your career.

Einhorn shared some key decision-making guidelines in a recent Keynotes webcast hosted by eCornell:

Understanding Strategic Choices

Einhorn believes that our problem-solving styles are behaviors with which we feel most adept and comfortable. She asserts, “we all have a comfort, a dominant problem solver profile. And we can all become more dynamic problem solvers.” This perspective champions the inherent adaptability within each of us to navigate different problem-solving styles.

The Adaptability of Problem-Solving Styles

Contrary to popular belief, problem-solving styles aren’t prescriptive. Instead, they offer space for adaptability and growth. Acknowledging our problem-solving styles provides a valuable opportunity for self-awareness and interpersonal development.

Einhorn defines five distinct styles of decision making that offer unique perspectives into the world of strategic problem solving:

The Adventurer: Einhorn describes the adventurer as “a very decisive decision maker. She knows what she wants. The future is endlessly more interesting than the present.”

The Detective: With a strong need for concrete evidence, the detective is “a slower decision maker because she wants to find data.”

The Listener: This style of decision maker is “relational, collaborative, trusting,” Eihorn said. “She emphasizes the importance of gathering input, and she likes to gather the wisdom and opinions of others.”

The Thinker: Someone who “values understanding the why and thinking about the different options.” This style represents a “thoughtful, careful decision maker.”

The Visionary: “A big, creative, out-of-the-box thinker.” Einhorn warns, however, that “this kind of decision maker could have a planning fallacy.” Visionaries can dream big and are often the source of innovative ideas, but they must stay grounded to avoid unrealistic expectations.

Decision-making styles are dynamic, changeable over time, and influenced by various factors such as age, experiences, and environments. For example, your style at work might differ from your style at home. Einhorn explains that you have the freedom to choose your problem-solving style based on the situation: “You could decide that you want to plan a meal as a visionary. You want to take a vacation as an adventurer. You want to buy insurance as a detective. And each of these opportunities are available to you once you understand the five different profiles.”

No “Perfect” Combination

Harnessing the power of strategic decision makers isn’t about achieving a “perfect” combination of problem-solving styles. The real value lies in understanding and leveraging diverse profiles to become more effective leaders.

Awareness of these profiles can offer insights into the kind of information each leader needs and highlight any cognitive biases that might obstruct effective problem solving. “You can learn what this means that you’re good at and the places where each of us might have mental mistakes that are most relevant to getting in our way. And then how we can make better choices together,” Einhorn said.

With this knowledge, we can fill gaps in perspective, ensure a more comprehensive understanding of situations, and contribute more effectively to collective problem-solving processes to foster strategic leadership and decision making.

In mastering the craft of strategic leadership, we pave our own route toward personal and professional achievement. Adopt an introspective approach and learn to leverage your unique problem-solving styles in Cornell’s Complex Decision-Making certificate program. You’ll gain a dynamic skill set to boost your confidence, empower your choices, and drive significant change in all aspects of your life.

Watch Einhorn’s Making Difficult Decisions Keynote webcast on the eCornell website.

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Navigating the Future of Hospitality Management

Labor market shifts and workforce issues continue to challenge the hospitality industry due to the lingering effects of global travel restrictions and safety protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic. With decreased interest in hospitality jobs, many people exited the industry, creating a need for new talent and a push to bring back those who left. The profitability of travel and tourism businesses relies on how well hospitality leaders can address these issues.

In the Keynote webcast, “The Next 100 Years: Hospitality Workforce of Tomorrow,” industry experts J.D. Barnes, vice president of global workforce innovation and optimization at Hilton, and Katherine Grass, CEO of Optii, joined Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration faculty J. Bruce Tracey, professor of management; Vincent Slaugh, assistant professor of operations management and Tashlin Lakhani, assistant professor of management and organizations, to share valuable insights on adapting and thriving in the evolving landscape of human resources in the hospitality industry.

How have pandemic-induced labor market shifts transformed the landscape of HR in hospitality? 

Barnes: “The emerging trends around greater flexibility, the reset from the pandemic, the rise of the gig economy – all of these considerations are things that are now impacting the labor market. At Hilton, we’re keen on embedding greater flexibility, choice and control, bringing in the best talent and modernizing some of the roles and assignments within our hotels to make them more appealing to different generations.”

Grass: “It’s all about how to keep these new entrants into hospitality happy. How do you train them? How do you make things very easy for them? How do you engage in ways that maybe, as J.D. was saying, they were used to in other industries and offering that flexibility. And sometimes the challenge of hospitality is offering flexibility in new ways because you don’t always have that work-from-home option.”

What are some ways hospitality HR professionals can attract and retain talent?

Barnes: “We have an ability to bring in students who might not have traditionally looked at our employment because they can’t give up an eight-hour shift when they’re working in between classes or managing a workload. For them what’s important is a four, five, six-hour shift, which is why they may have looked at gig endeavors. And then similarly, (we have) encore retirees and people who have left the workforce but want some level of flexibility in between their retirement to pick up a different level of work.”

Lakhani: “We really need to focus I think on the retention and the growth opportunities, telling the stories but also creating the stories, showing them that there are opportunities for growth and that they can see their colleague being promoted to positions, and that there is really a space for them to grow and have a lifelong career.”

Grass: “There’s all these different (talent) pools coming in who maybe are not familiar with hospitality, so how can you embrace them, how can you help them, how can you train them and bring them into the culture as quickly as possible?”

Which positions are first in line when it comes to redesigning work?

Barnes: “I do think that housekeeping, in particular, is one of the biggest areas in our hotels from a staffing perspective. If you look at the contribution that those team members make in terms of the guest experience and the amount of time they take in preparing a room, that experience is important.”

Lakhani: “Some of the most severe labor shortages are in housekeeping or in the back of the house – where we can’t create hybrid work.”

Barnes: “The more information we can gather ahead of the arrival of the customer, the more we can infuse that into the actions that our team members take in delivering that service and experience. Technology is playing a big part in making sure that it’s seamless, that it’s fast, and that the preferences are known.”

What are the influences of AI and other technologies on hospitality management?

Barnes: “We’ve incorporated AI from a training perspective in our ability to use virtual reality in helping team members understand what their duties are, how to personalize services, the sequence of steps and things like that. It’s really interesting for us to think about how we’ve morphed training across some of our hotels.”

Slaugh: “I think we completely miss frontline service work as a domain for analytics. There’s a lot of opportunity for growth. In recent years, I’ve worked on a hotel’s housekeeping scheduling problem. And that’s just a new model for our field.”

Barnes: “Things like text messaging recruiting. A lot of this AI technology is coming in here. Being able to schedule a candidate and say, hey, come in three days. We’ll be able to interview you in person. We’ve got to modernize a lot of that approach to recruiting.”

Grass: “Just even the diversity on the language front when you are managing departments: There can be a dozen languages spoken, so how does your software in real time translate conversations for them? We ensure that we do inline and real-time translations so that if a team leader is communicating something in Spanish, everyone is receiving that in their (preferred) language. All those communications are happening in real time. It’s giving that sense of community and ensuring that everyone has a voice and can make that voice be completely understood.”

How can leaders in hospitality increase the industry’s appeal?

Lakhani: “We’ve seen innovation. We’ve seen compensation go up. But I think there’s still work to be done in terms of changing the perception of what it means to work in hospitality.”

Grass: “When you have this personal connection and personal interaction, (you ask) how can the technologies help me eliminate or simplify the rinse-and-repeat that gets a bit monotonous, especially for people who are new to an industry and step in and say, ‘Oh, this is really kind of same-old, same-old every day.’ How can you smarten up and remove that monotonous bit to allow people to have more quality time to interact with the guest in better ways?”

Barnes: “The greater desire is for us to continue to emphasize that life doesn’t have to fit into work, that work should fit into your life. And so enabling that functionality, enabling that choice and control for our team members across all our hotels. It’s also the flexibility of allowing that choice and control for the team member and for them to inform us about what works for them.”

Explore Cornell’s hospitality certificate programs to gain an edge in today’s transforming industry and prepare for the workforce of tomorrow.

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. Experience the full webcast “The Next 100 Years: Hospitality Workforce of Tomorrow” here.