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GRDadof3

By GRDadof3
in Grand Rapids Coffee House

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Yankee Fan Hamlet

Yankee Fan

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Some of my clients are doing the following to address the "brain drain" out of the area:

1. Build Farm teams of new or recent college grads. They will invest the money and time to train them in technical skills, such as SAP, so that, instead of paying high dollars for contract labor, they can retain the business intelligence and also build their team of the future. This has been increasingly successful in retaining top technical talent in the area.

2. Many of my clients are now asking us to do PR work on their part. If they are not related to anything automotive, they will go to great lengths to paint the economic picture as it relates to their business. Our job is to present the facts, good and bad, about where a company stands and what its plans are in the future.

3. The pay rate used to be a big reason that people left GR. That is not a true factor now for 95% of the new hires. Instead, the focus is on career development and how a company will invest the time to teach them the things they need to be successful.

It comes down to this: You cannot sell someone on a job or a skill; that does not work anymore as things change too fast for that to be a stable argument to take a position with a company. However, focusing on the environment, the company mission, the West Michigan area, and all of the intangibles: that is where companies are attracting and retaining talent. And Grand Rapids companies are really starting to succeed at this.

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GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

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Gentex was approved for a tax abatement on $36.5 Million in new facilities and equipment on Monday. They will be adding about 120 new jobs to their current workforce of 2238 over the next two years.

In the Press but can't find a link.

edit: Here's one from the 14th before the approval went through:

http://www.mlive.com/business/grpress/inde....xml&coll=6

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GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

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Has anyone caught any of the WOODTV doom n gloom series about Michigan's and Grand Rapid's economies? This one featured an interview with a couple from Minnesota who opened a chain of restaurants in the area, that haven't done well (1 closed already and the other two are not doing well). Anyone have any idea what restaurant chain they are talking about?

http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6...mp;nav=0RceQfk1

WOOD's more recent one of the series is more uplifting about Health Hill:

http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6...53&nav=0Rce

And then in the Press, they are reporting bad news about the jobs front (mainly that the unemployment rate was up in June 07):

http://www.mlive.com/business/grpress/inde....xml&coll=6

Buried way at the bottom :rolleyes: , they do mention that 2000 jobs have been added since June 06, and the highest rate since June 2002:

http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutp...l=%2522EaG%2522

I'm not suggesting everything is hunky-dorey, but it's certainly doesn't warrant gloom-n-doom.

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highwayguy Whistle-Stop

highwayguy

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Here are all 5 video clips from WOOD-TV's "The Perfect Storm" series (a.k.a "Doom and Gloom Week"):

Jobs: http://video.woodtv.com/?video_id=7502

Foreclosures: http://video.woodtv.com/?video_id=7517

Politics: http://video.woodtv.com/?video_id=7532

Gas Prices: http://video.woodtv.com/?video_id=7547

Health Hill ("The Silver Lining"): http://video.woodtv.com/?video_id=7568

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joeDowntown Metropolis

joeDowntown

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I think the "economy sucks" topic is something the media picks up on when there is a slow news day (kind of how they are rabid about the weather). Honestly, and maybe I am in the minority here, but I don't know many people who are having a hard time finding work in Grand Rapids. And when I do hear about somebody, it is usually tied to the housing market which is having issues all over the country, its not just a West Michigan phenomenon.

In fact, I have been working to double the size of my department for the last two months (from 10 to 20), and what I find is a lack of *good* candidates, not that everyone is unemployed or have moved away (as you here from these newscasts). I think a lot of people are staying where they are now, instead of jumping job-to-job as they have in the past, but we have had to resort to recruiters to find quality candidates, most of which have just moved to the area (so they were not unemployed per se).

It's seems like manufacturing has diversified, the furniture companies are lean and mean, and the healthcare industry is roaring. So what is so bad about our economy? I don't get it. :dontknow:

Joe

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Yankee Fan Hamlet

Yankee Fan

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We have spent some time laughing at this "news" topic. First, if the barometer of our economic health is a food chain out of Minnesota, then we are all screwed. Second, I agree with joeDowntown: We have seen significant headcount growth at most of our clients this year. The problem has not been finding jobs; it has been finding qualified candidates.

Just a couple of things to ponder:

Steelcase= record profits last quarter

Wolverine= 12th straight (I think) record profits

Herman Miller= record growth

I can keep going. Things are going much better than they were even 2 years ago. They should try to spend some time on the good news. There is a lot of it to make a series out of.

Just my 2 cents.

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Rizzo City

Rizzo

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Not to mention that nice article Dad posted in the photo thread. I believe the article summarizes a study by UofM that adds the evidence that Michiganders are their worst enemy.

I was at a Battle Creek Meijer's on Saturday and noticed a lot of people had newborns or ones in the oven. Now, I know this is anecdotal, but by my assumptions people aren't going to start producing kids when they can't afford to. I understand that this can hardly be a true barometer of an economy as a whole, but I would like to think it is.

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GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

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Not to mention that nice article Dad posted in the photo thread. I believe the article summarizes a study by UofM that adds the evidence that Michiganders are their worst enemy.

I was at a Battle Creek Meijer's on Saturday and noticed a lot of people had newborns or ones in the oven. Now, I know this is anecdotal, but by my assumptions people aren't going to start producing kids when they can't afford to. I understand that this can hardly be a true barometer of an economy as a whole, but I would like to think it is.

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ryternrezdence Unincorporated Area

ryternrezdence

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Has anyone seen this article in Rapid Growth? Beat Down Economics

It gives a different view of the job market in the state, and cites several interesting studies saying that economic growth in Michigan may actually be quite a bit better than we think it is. While many of the factory jobs aren't returning, many new jobs are being created in other sectors.

And manufacturing is still a major player--maybe THE major player. I was at a meeting with West Michigan Strategic Alliance last week, and it was said that 22 percent of Michigan jobs are still in manufacturing--even after so many jobs lost--and that's the largest concentration of manufacturing jobs in the country. Manufacturing isn't going away, but it is changing direction, and jobs are being created.

Hehe, that's okay. I just left the job a few weeks ago.

The openings were due to both turnover and growth. Either way, we had a hard time finding recruits to fill the positions for two reasons: 1) we just didn't get that many resumes, which means the pool of talent is somewhat limited and 2) when we did find someone worth hiring our company just couldn't compete in a few areas. Reason number 2 is why I left. Reason number 1 is why I figured I could leave and have no problem finding better employment elsewhere.

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Cabot Unincorporated Area

Cabot

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http://www.rightplace.org/cmsFiles/resourc...%20version).pdf

Above is a link to the report if anyone is interested.

I was at the presentation yesterday and was impressed. It was good to see our local media reporting on some real news.

I also recently toured MedBio, great facility growing company reinvesting in the center of the city.

If there are other question I will do my best to answer.

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GaryP Burg

GaryP

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http://www.rightplace.org/cmsFiles/resourc...%20version).pdf

Above is a link to the report if anyone is interested.

I was at the presentation yesterday and was impressed. It was good to see our local media reporting on some real news.

I also recently toured MedBio, great facility growing company reinvesting in the center of the city.

If there are other question I will do my best to answer.

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gvsusean Burg

gvsusean

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I've been looking through the report. It was estimated that the VAI and new MSU med school will generate 30 biopharma patents/year, which using the Taimerica Drug Model suggests that west Michigan will only create one new Biological Chemical Entity (BCE) every 2 years. Is that right? That doesn't sound very good IMHO. Also would it be correct to say that only 14% of the BCEs generate an IPO? If that's right we'd be generating a new IPO only once every 14.5 years :(
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