Evidence suggests that companies who commit themselves to becoming true learning organizations are better able to adapt in a changing environment. And such companies position their people to acquire the skills and expertise they will need to remain employable in a changing economy. It is possible, then, that a new social contract might be created, one that is based on a new understanding of employability and new roles for employees and employers. This is the idea that drew a distinguished group of chief executive officers and government and nonprofit leaders to Aspen, Colorado, for the 1997 annual meeting of the Aspen Institute s Forum on Communications and Society, held in late July. A list of participants in the 1997 annual meeting appears in the Appendix.
Membership changes from year to year.
This annual forum provides an environment for thinking about the implications of the emerging information infrastructure and what kind of society we want to shape for future generations. Participants in the earlier meetings noted that continued economic growth, particularly in the increasingly important markets for communications and information goods and services, will hinge on workers who are adept at incorporating information and technology into all aspects of work and who can adopt new uses for information and technology. Businesses are already experiencing the troubling effects of a workforce with inadequate information and technical skills, and are having to invest significant resourcesin employee training and remediation. While there was not universal agreement about the existence or the desirability of a social contract between employees and employers, there was near unanimous concern about the economic and social implications of a workforce with inadequate skills for the future. Additionally, there was general acceptance of the notion that the employment relationship is changing and that a new relationship might be forged from the intersection of the needs of organizations, individual workers, and communities.