As pandemic restrictions have eased, many of us are still working from home. Whether in a hybrid arrangement or working remotely full-time, a lot of people prefer skipping their commute to enjoy a more relaxed working environment. Statistics Canada reports that 80 per cent of those who began working remotely during the pandemic would prefer to continue working at least half of their hours at home. The way that people perceive and experience work has changed drastically over the last two years.

The widespread shift to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about many questions on the future of work. A recent survey by Microsoft of 31,000 workers in 31 countries suggests that 52% of employees are somewhat or extremely likely to prefer hybrid or remote work in the year ahead, and 53% of employees are more likely to prioritize their wellbeing over work than before the pandemic. The way that people perceive and experience work has changed drastically over the last two years. But how have marginalized workers specifically been affected by the shift to working from home? And what types of work design will best facilitate equity, well-being, and opportunity for workers moving forward?

It would be difficult to find a field today where AI is not involved in some respect. It has become so ubiquitous that some researchers have suggested it is a new type of infrastructure. Rather than being physical and visible like roads, AI is often invisible, but it is nevertheless a moderator of social relations and organizational practices and actions — including the distribution of power. Social relations and values have long been reflected and reproduced in technology, and AI is no exception. But this also means that the enduring bias, discrimination and inequality that are deeply rooted in society may also be deeply rooted in this technology.

Global authorities such as WHO and the International Labour Organization have proposed interventions to improve the telecommuting experience, such as establishing work–life boundary strategies, designing ergonomic remote workplaces, and maintaining regular social interactions. However, the potential negative gendered consequences remain under-acknowledged. When women work from home, they report a disproportionate increase in domestic labour, childcare-related disruptions, and declines in productivity and mental health. If not addressed, teleworking might exacerbate existing gender inequities in career advancement, health, and rights, among others, especially as global telecommuting rates continue to climb throughout 2022 and beyond.

Everybody wants to generate breakthrough ideas. Few people know how to do it. Conventional practice is to pick a vague challenge (“We need innovative ideas!”) and then randomly brainstorm in the hopes of stumbling onto the next Spotify or Slack.

Public investment in care infrastructure is often framed in terms of helping women join the paid labour force, with the resulting increased returns to the economy. Indeed, a recent estimate of the unmonetized value of unpaid household activities is about $860 billion. That would be more than 37 per cent of GDP if it were counted. Yet, while the evidence is clear that policies creating more affordable and accessible care will help the economy, making care accessible doesn’t just help people join the paid labour force. It is crucial to help dependents live healthy lives, to help children learn and grow, and to ensure older adults age with dignity.

The care economy—the economic sectors that involve paid and unpaid care, including childcare, elder care, and health care—is one of the fastest expanding economic sectors globally. But the complex work involved in this crucial sector tends to be poorly understood, undervalued, and unprioritized. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought an increased focus on care, highlighting how the lack of support for care sectors and the increasing trend of financializing access to care have placed equality and health on fragile grounds during this crisis. This report highlights key policy and research insights on addressing the challenges in the care economy.

The pandemic has exposed how care work is essential labour on which the economy depends. It has also shown that care work is devalued, disproportionately falling upon women, people of colour, and immigrants, and that risks are absorbed by vulnerable and precarious care workers. It has accentuated the existing global labour shortage in care. Care policies as well as care infrastructure have proved inadequate to address the needs of both caregivers and care receivers. Addressing the importance of care work as our society recovers from the pandemic is an opportunity to capitalize on changes needed to create a more equitable and sustainable economy. 

In the face of climate change, rising economic inequality, systemic racism and the COVID-19 pandemic, it is once again time for a new set of guidelines. While the 1994 guidelines — which concern best practices around board independence and oversight — continue to be relevant, they served the governance needs of the 1990s. Two-and-a-half decades later, we ask, Where is the leadership in a world in crisis? The guidelines we have developed in response to this question are based on the principle that companies must account for the interests of all stakeholders — what we call 360º governance. Canada must upgrade its corporate standards or risk being left behind.

Today, AI is used by organizations across many sectors for a variety of purposes, from hiring employees, to assessing risk, to making investment recommendations, to recommending criminal sentencing. However, it is well-known that social relations and contexts are reflected and reproduced in technology, and AI is no exception: it has the potential to reinforce underlying biases, discrimination, and inequities. Although AI can be used to benefit marginalized groups, a concerted focus on equity in AI by businesses and governments is necessary to mitigate possible harms. Here we provide a resource for scholars and practitioners for viewing AI through the lens of equity, with the objectives of synthesizing existing research and knowledge about the connection between AI and (in)equity and suggesting considerations for public and private sector leaders to be aware of when implementing AI. The key Insight: AI is a double-edged sword, with potential to both mitigate and reinforce bias.

Gender Analytics is a methodology that can be useful both in creating innovation insights that improve impact and in avoiding downside risks, and it should be embedded into everything an organization does. It’s not just an evaluation tool to analyze retrospectively what impact your policy, product, service or process has had. It’s not just a nice-to-have feature you might discuss from time to time. This is something that can shape how you strategize, plan, innovate and serve customers.

When policymakers worry about how investments in child care might correlate with voter intentions, it leads to three kinds of policy errors. First, it underestimates women and their solidarity with one another, among families and between generations, especially grandparents. Second, it asks people to rank a policy option that most didn’t have the benefit of experiencing and can’t fully imagine—regulated child care is only available for 27 per cent of Canadian kids, and its quality and cost vary widely. Third, as Canadians, we tend to undervalue, under-resource and under-recognize care. Unpaid care work is not counted in the GDP, and paid care work is poorly compensated.