Web Watch: Young professionals establish their clout

The country is quickly approaching what’s expected to be one of the largest worker shortages in history. As baby boomers reach retirement age, the younger generation stepping up to replace them is considerably smaller, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts we’ll be short by more than 10 million workers by 2010.

The result is greater competition in attracting and retaining quality employees – many of whom have different expectations than their predecessors.

The time to act is now, and the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce is on the ball.

The chamber is participating in the 2008 Young Professionals Global Impact Survey, developed by Next Generation Consulting of Madison, Wis. Workers between ages 21 and 40 in the Springfield area are encouraged to take the 40-question online survey (password: networkMO) to help the community gauge what’s important to them, both professionally and personally. Topics range from income and employer incentives to community involvement and quality of life.

Kristen Westerman, the chamber manager of work force and business development, is heading up the chamber’s young professional efforts – including the one-year-old organization The Network – and is anxiously awaiting the survey results that should arrive in July.

“It’ll give us a better picture of our community,” she said. “We can see where we stack up against other communities – if others are doing better, that will give us a great place to start to find out what they’re doing different to be successful. And I think it will help employers determine what they need to be doing differently to retain and attract employees. It’s a little different mentality, and some businesses don’t really know how to make that transition.”

Westerman and the chamber are disseminating the survey to local businesses, and participants are not limited to chamber members.

The results will be a major point of discussion at the chamber’s annual Economic Outlook Conference on Sept. 16 at University Plaza Convention Center. Next Generation Consulting founder Rebecca Ryan is the keynote speaker.

Ultimately, the survey should teach local businesses how to meet the needs of incoming workers.

“A lot of research suggests that young professionals are interested in what the community has to offer,” Westerman said. Through the survey, “we’ll have a better idea of what the community can do as a whole, because if the community is doing well, then the businesses will do well.”

Digital migration

The newspaper industry is facing its own shortage as younger generations emerge: a print-reader shortage.

The same Generation Xers, Yers and Millenials who have different expectations of their employers have different expectations of their news providers, too. A good number of them don’t pick up a newspaper on a regular basis. Instead, they turn to the Internet.

I can relate. At 25 years old, my news of choice is digital. I like the freedom to scan an entire page of headlines for the news that interests me without flipping through pages, and I like that I can ingest news in small doses throughout my day, instead of setting aside a block of time to read cover to cover.

And I like hearing news when it happens, not in tomorrow’s edition. Getting news online fits comfortably into my lifestyle, which – like many people my age – is already entrenched in the Internet.

As SBJ prepares to launch a redesign of sbj.net later this year, we’re keeping younger readers in mind. They are, after all, our future business leaders.

Springfield Business Journal Online Editor Dee Dee Jacobs can be reached at djacobs@sbj.net.

Calling All Young Professionals

The Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce is participating through June 27 in a nationwide survey of workers between the ages of 21 and 40. To take the 40-question Global Impact Survey, click here. The password is "networkMO."