It’s not just your old roommate, saddled with loans, who thinks colleges are failing to prepare students for their careers.

Top CEOs, including JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, think so too, particularly when it comes to low-income workers. In fact, they’re among the 27 CEOs who formed the New York Jobs CEO Council which, since 2020, has sought to help underprivileged New Yorkers land out-of-reach corporate jobs.

The nonprofit, led by executive director Kiersten Barnet, works with secondary and higher ed schools and member companies on a host of initiatives aimed at placing workers into “family-sustaining” jobs, or those paying around $69,000 annually. Its goal is to get 100,000 low-income New Yorkers hired by 2030; it reached 40,000 by June 2024.

Barnet previously spent 14 years at Bloomberg, serving as deputy chief of staff and helping implement company initiatives for its 19,000 global employees, before leading social ESG initiatives.

For more on this innovative initiative to address workplace inequality, keep reading here.—PM

HR execs and leaders joined AI experts and technologists last week to talk about all things AI in San Francisco at SHRM’s second AI+HI project convening.

The AI + HI project launched in 2024 after ChatGPT helped the concept of generative AI earn household name recognition, and businesses began to grapple with the intersection of artificial intelligence and humans in the workplace.

SHRM leaders were eager to design the next edition of the program for both those without much AI knowledge and strategy experience and those who are pros, with an opportunity to rub shoulders and talk about best practices and how to level up AI inside the people function.

For more on how HR can make the most of this new technology and implement it effectively, keep reading here.—AD

Mayday, mayday! The return-to-office debate shows no sign of slowing any time soon, as some companies stick to remote work and others mandate an in-person five-day workweek.

But, the companies with hybrid work arrangements might be poised for a smoother landing. Software development company MongoDB’s 5,600-person workforce has followed a hybrid work setup across its 30 global offices in the US, Europe, and Asia since 2021, its chief people officer Harsha Jalihal told HR Brew.

“We had made peace with the fact that the five-day [in-person] workweek was over, and we wanted to find a happy medium, and that’s how our hybrid working model came to be,” Jalihal said, adding what makes MongoDB’s approach work is giving teams the choice to pick between multiple hybrid options.

For more on why hybrid arrangements are working well for one company, keep reading here.—MC

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