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The first volume of Workforce Realigned came out a year into the COVID-19 pandemic. Along with its devasting health impact, we witnessed an unprecedented economic disruption. In the United States alone, more than 20 million people lost their jobs. The sense of urgency at that time was undeniable. The emergency demanded a swift economic recovery that would bring workers off the sidelines and ensure no one would be left behind.
The crisis has since passed, but the appetite for rethinking workforce development has not.
The labor shortage of 2021 gave us a sense of what a true imbalance in the labor market feels like. In the context of our aging workforce, this glimpse at a world where labor demand far outpaced labor supply underlined the importance of a robust, strategic workforce development pipeline. As a result, many actors in our communities — including governments, employers, and non-profits — are recommitting themselves to investing in skills training that will strengthen our economy and benefit employers and workers alike.
The remarkable labor recovery that followed the pandemic serves as a hopeful reminder that with the right conditions in place, we are capable of meaningfully bolstering our labor supply and connecting workers with jobs.
Understanding what works, and what does not, will help identify which investments will deliver the most impact. It is in this context that we share the second volume of Workforce Realigned, which builds on lessons from the first volume, detailing the next generation of shared accountability models for workforce development.
This second volume of Workforce Realigned showcases a varied collection of outcomes-driven initiatives that enhance opportunities for workers while addressing our economy’s talent demands. These initiatives stand out for tackling challenges that arise when workforce development efforts are pursued in isolation by each actor — training providers, governments, and employers, among others. By breaking down silos, these initiatives realign incentives and redistribute financial risk.
Aligning incentives with outcomes is not an unattainable goal for workforce development in the United States. The 21 case studies in this volume point the way to success: early leaders are laying a foundation, showing us what works and what needs work; ongoing innovations are pushing us forward, testing new ways to structure and fund initiatives; and new trends and opportunities inform and inspire us, helping chart the path to the future as we seek to create an economy that works for everyone amid emerging challenges.
There is widespread buy-in for investment in our future workforce. But to know where to invest, we need to know what works. And to know what works, we need to focus on outcomes.
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About the Authors
Tom Barkin
Tom Barkin is the President & CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. He has held this position since 2018. Tom serves on the Fed’s chief monetary policy body, the Federal Open Market Committee, and is also responsible for the Richmond Fed’s bank supervision and the Federal Reserve’s technology organization. He is “on the ground” continually in the Fed’s Fifth District, which covers South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, D.C., West Virginia and Maryland. His engagement in the region has brought real attention to areas facing economic challenges. Prior to joining the Richmond Fed, Barkin was a senior partner and CFO at McKinsey & Company, a worldwide management consulting firm, where he also oversaw McKinsey’s offices in the southern United States. Tom earned his bachelor’s, MBA and law degrees from Harvard University.
Raphael Bostic
Raphael Bostic is the President & CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
From 2012 to 2017, Bostic was the Judith and John Bedrosian Chair in Governance and the Public Enterprise at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California (USC). Bostic also served USC’s Lusk Center for Real Estate as the interim associate director from 2007 to 2009 and as the interim director from 2015 to 2016. From 2016 to 2017, he was the chair of the center’s Governance, Management, and Policy Process Department. From 2009 to 2012, Bostic was the assistant secretary for policy development and research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Bostic graduated from Harvard University in 1987 with a combined major in economics and psychology. He earned his doctorate in economics from Stanford University in 1995.
Austan Goolsbee
Austan Goolsbee is the President & CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Prior to becoming president of the Chicago Fed in January 2023, Goolsbee served as the Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business where he first joined the faculty in 1995. Goolsbee served as a member and then chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2009 through 2011 and was a member of the President’s cabinet. He has also served on the Board of Education for the City of Chicago, the Economic Advisory Panel to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Panel of Economic Advisers to the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. Census Advisory Committee, the Digital Economy Board of Advisors to the Commerce Department, and the External Advisory Group on Digital Technology for the International Monetary Fund. Goolsbee has a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BA and MA in economics from Yale University.
Patrick Harker
Patrick Harker served as President & CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2025.
Before taking office at the Philadelphia Fed, Harker was the 26th president of the University of Delaware. He was also a professor of business administration at the university’s Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics and a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the College of Engineering. Before joining the University of Delaware in 2007, Harker was dean and Reliance Professor of Management and Private Enterprise at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Before being appointed dean in 2000, Harker was the Wharton School’s interim dean and deputy dean as well as the chair of its Operations and Information Management Department. Harker has a Ph.D. in civil and urban engineering, an M.A. in economics, and an M.S.E. and B.S.E. in civil engineering, all from the University of Pennsylvania.
Tracy Palandjian
Tracy Palandjian is CEO & Co-Founder of Social Finance, a national nonprofit and registered investment advisor. Prior to Social Finance, Palandjian was a Managing Director for eleven years at The Parthenon Group, where she established and led the Nonprofit Practice to support foundations and NGOs to accomplish their missions in the US and globally. Palandjian also worked at Wellington Management Company and McKinsey & Company. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, Palandjian is a frequent speaker and writer on impact investing, social innovation, and results-oriented policymaking. Palandjian is a cofounder and Vice Chair of the US Impact Investing Alliance and a member of the boards of the International Foundation for Valuing Impacts, the Harvard Corporation, The Surdna Foundation, The Barr Foundation, and The Boston Foundation. She is also an Independent Director of Affiliated Managers Group. Palandjian graduated from Harvard College with a BA magna cum laude in Economics and holds an MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar.