Home-grown Talent: Local companies urged to connect to solve workforce shortage

It’s conventional business wisdom that keeping a customer is five times cheaper than acquiring a new one.

The same logic could apply to finding and keeping workers: It is undoubtedly more cost-effective to keep local workforce members than to draw outsiders to the region.

Nearly three-quarters of respondents to Springfield Business Journal’s Economic Growth Survey admit that they face struggles when it comes to attracting and retaining talent to their businesses. They meet the challenge with strategies that include increasing pay (62%), allowing flexible scheduling (47%) and offering enhanced benefits (33%), along with other tactics geared toward piquing the interest of workers.

Some education and business leaders suggest tackling the issue through outreach efforts to the next generation of workers – and they say the earlier, the better.

University talent
David Meinert, dean of the College of Business at Missouri State University, says local employers used to wait until after commencement to find talent, but that has become much more challenging, with many business students securing jobs long before they graduate.

Meinert says the college hosts a two-day career fair every September, and it has grown so large that it has to be held at the Springfield Expo Center. Some 200 employers attend and find interns or even future employees who may not graduate for another eight months.

Meinert says it’s difficult to tell employers who reach out around graduation that they’ve missed the boat.

“Companies that have established and sustained internship programs locally are successful year in and year out,” he says. “There’s no secret to this.”

Meinert encourages employers not only to attend the career fair but also to make other connections with students. For instance, they can reach out to student organizations that align with their industry – the College of Business has 34 of these – to participate in panel discussions for student members.

There is also an Employer of the Day program that allows companies to set up a table to introduce themselves to students.

“If you’re looking for multiple majors, it’s a good place to get some exposure,” Meinert says.

The key, Meinert says, is to have consistent contact.

“It’s a little more challenging if you want to jump in and jump out of recruiting,” he says.

Bob Weddle, a professor and former dean of the Hammons School of Architecture at Drury University, says the design profession has grown over the 30-plus years since the school was founded, and more graduates are finding work locally.

“Ultimately, you’re trying to understand what makes a place attractive, and there are lots of ingredients,” he says. “A lot of people that go to our school did grow up in smaller communities within 100 miles of Springfield, and they’re excited by an urban culture – but maybe not all of them are excited by a much bigger urban culture.”

Weddle says he sees some of the school’s most talented graduates choosing to stay in Springfield rather than seeking work in a larger city, and that’s not a decision some may have made in the past.

The Hammons School of Architecture also has an annual career fair, Weddle says, noting that some 30 firms attend, coming from Springfield but also from Dallas, Texas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and beyond.

Local firms are growing more interested in getting involved with the school, he adds, by speaking to students or by participating in design reviews. Students are required to do the equivalent of a full-time summer job in a firm.

“That’s one way firms identify potential long-term staff,” he says. “It gives students not only contact with professional life – they also get a better understanding of the context they want to work in.”

High school talent
While local college graduates are an obvious workforce source, some employers are open to high school talent.

Andy Dierks, chief operating officer of Pitt Technology Group LLC, says the company even has one employee – part  time during the school year but full time in the summer – who is still in high school.

“We look for some sort of talent that translates to a valuable skill to add to our team and helps us help our customers,” he says. “That doesn’t always have to be a degree. We have a lot of people that have degrees, even master’s degrees, but we have a lot of people that provide value outside of a degree.”

Attitude is everything, Dierks says.

“It’s bringing a positive attitude and looking to learn, looking to help out anywhere you can,” he says. “That doesn’t require a degree, and it can be done at any age.”

Pitt Technology Group finds its employees locally, rather than through broader advertising, Dierks said.

“Springfield’s done a better job the last few years of growing as a city and having more jobs available,” he says. “In general, a rising tide lifts all boats. If the business community is doing well, the technology community is doing well, and we have room for students who wouldn’t otherwise stay here.”

For Karen Kunkel, manager of workforce development for the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, the numbers back up the idea that Springfield is in a good position.

While Missouri ranked fifth in the country in 2023 in its outflow of college-educated residents, according to Census Bureau figures, Springfield has bucked the trend. The city had a 3.6% growth in its population among the age range of 25-34.

“We’re seeing growth when a lot of people are seeing a decrease, and that’s very positive for us,” Kunkel says.

The chamber offers a variety of programming aimed at talent attraction and retention, Kunkel says. One example is its teacher externship program, which this summer gave 32 teachers from 11 school districts within Springfield’s laborshed an opportunity to embed in a local business and learn about aspects as diverse as human resources, logistics or production.

“If they see a student has a particular strength, they can say, ‘Hey, have you ever thought about this particular career? This fits a lot of the things that you’re great at,’” Kunkel says. “It gives them a unique perspective they’ve never had before.”

The chamber also provides business support to the Greater Ozarks Centers for Advanced Professional Studies, or GO CAPS, which allows high school students to explore careers in the fields of engineering and manufacturing, medical and health care, and business and entrepreneurship. Additionally, about 2,000 younger students participate annually in the Seventh and Eighth Graders Go to Work program, for a variety of local employment experiences.

“Students as early as fifth graders can self-select out of careers,” Kunkel says. “We try to do some myth-busting by getting them exposed to careers early.”

The Network
The Network is another chamber program aimed at retention of young professionals.

Callie Carroll, vice chair of The Network and a member of Springfield City Council, says retention of young professionals is her passion.

She says while working with college students at MSU, she learned that many of them are not aware of all Springfield has to offer.

That’s how The Network’s College Student Outreach Committee was born. The committee publishes a Springfield guide to introduce college students to the city, and it also hosts mixers to allow college students and young professionals to get to know one another.

The Network also exposes students to parts of the city they may not otherwise encounter, from businesses to recreational opportunities. That’s a powerful way to get them to picture themselves as Springfieldians, according to Carroll.

“We need to show them that there’s life after college in Springfield,” she says. “That’s one thing that can keep people here – the relationships that they make, the friendships that they build.”