If you attended the Manufacturers’ Workforce Summitwe hosted last month, you learned about a breakthrough initiative called Collective Impact. Collective Impact is an intentional way of bringing together people and organizations so they can share information and work toward solving complex problems. In our case, that problem is meeting manufacturing workforce needs.
It is no longer enough to simply recruit workers from the existing pool—because, right now, the shortage is too great. Competing with other manufacturers for a limited number of qualified employees is not the answer. Rather, the goal is to grow the total number of good potential hires in that pool. We can work toward that goal by promoting manufacturing as a desirable and rewarding career, thus increasing the number of job-seekers and benefiting the manufacturing sector as a whole.
A great tool for showing off what Connecticut manufacturers are doing is Stuff Magazine, published by the Hartford Business Journal. It is a publication for comprehensive middle and high school guidance counselors, and it’s designed to help them educate students about the exciting and challenging career opportunities in manufacturing.
Do you want to be involved in the next issue of Stuff? Time is short, but it’s not too late! The deadline for submission to the next issue is Thursday, August 1st.