[Note: This was originally published in the Business Xpansion Journal]
"As we move into the fourth quarter and beyond, I would hope that everyone who manages creative workers would remember the same thing that helped you save money in 2009 and 2010 from employees' ideas, can help you make money moving forward," says Rebecca Ryan, president, Next Generation Consulting, a market research firm engaging the next generation of workers.
During the downturn, companies turned to their talent for ideas about how to run better businesses, which resulted in millions and millions of dollars in savings. Employees were willing to come together to do what was good for the organization, and that same approach can be leveraged on the income side. Ryan notes even though the process to continually solicit employees' feedback can be somewhat unwieldy, she hopes managers will continue to communicate often and solicit employees' ideas for how things can be made better.
Boshart Engineering, Inc. in Ontario, Calif., believes extraordinary people create an extraordinary company. The engineering firm helps manufacturers of cars, trucks and off-road equipment comply with California Air Resources Board and EPA regulations. The firm's employees are carefully selected for their specific and unique talents, which are nourished, encouraged and recognized, according to the company's values statement. Boshart Engineering helps team members to succeed and broaden their expertise, which includes pursuing higher education goals.
Boshart Engineering started in Ontario with two employees 10 years ago and now employs 40 people, 15 people in Michigan, and two people in Colorado, says Ken Boshart, president, Boshart Engineering. The company has recruited its talent out of the University of California-Riverside and Chaffey College, and has held discussions with other schools of engineering, including at California State Polytechnic University-Pomona.
"The engineering pool is good here," Boshart notes. The strength of his talent has allowed the company to expand into a new product area, diesel emission particulate filters for heavy duty trucks and off road diesel equipment. "It has developed out of work we are doing on electric vehicle conversions and a relationship we developed with a South Korean company that was involved with electric vehicle batteries and diesel particulate filters," Boshart says.
Boshart Engineering is representative of Ontario's strong entrepreneurial environment. Another firm involved in greening the transportation industry is Phoenix Motorcars, which provides two best-in-class, all-electric vehicles that are designed and manufactured in Ontario. What's more, the Green Career Institute expanded into Ontario from the Bay Area because of Ontario's entrepreneur- friendly environment, and for its base from which to retrain and educate workers for a new generation of green-collar jobs.
"The programs we provide put us ahead of that curve [training workforce for these new jobs] because we're training a diverse range of students and workers, in everything from solar to electric, from weatherization to wind and geothermal," says Nicolas Carter, Ph.D., director of green career services for the institute "In Ontario, we're at the center of a rich economic and academic opportunity."
In addition to entrepreneurial and workforce strengths, Boshart has successfully partnered with Ontario's economic development officials. "The city of Ontario has been proactive in terms of assisting us and understanding our business," Boshart says.
Moving west to San Antonio, the biomedical industry collaborates and networks with each other to further develop the region's sector. "If someone needs equipment or expertise in an area, we will work with one another," says Joe Mims, the CEO for Transplant Technologies of Texas, which oversees the firms, Bone Bank Allografts (human tissue distribution) and Skeletal Regeneration (synthetic bone replacement). "Most [companies in the network] are non- competing areas so we are able to utilize and not be redundant in certain services, testing, equipment or expertise," Mims notes.
Mims is a serial entrepreneur who has lived in the San Antonio region for most of his life. Among quality of place advantages, Mims finds an ideal business operating environment at the 1,200-acre plus Texas Research Park, where the University of Texas Institute of Biotechnology has located a large center, which houses a department of molecular medicine, for example. Mims has purchased 10 acres at the Texas Research Park to consolidate three business operating units to; an initiative which will start by the end of the year.
Beyond the room to grow and industry synergies, Mims' medical technology firms benefit from the presence of Brooke Army Medical Center located at Fort Sam Houston. The unit is the military's largest medical operation, where all the service branches have consolidated their activities.
Mims finds San Antonio not only provides access to higher education research centers, and military medicine, but also due to the number of biomedical startups, a substantial talent pool.
MOTIVATING CREATIVE TALENT
The ability to partner with Ohio's higher education system creates opportunities for medical device entrepreneurs in Columbus. The region benefits from the entrepreneurial base of doctors located at Ohio State University, a university with $700 million in research expenditures annually, and from the state's largest health system, OhioHealth, says Will Indest, vice president of venture development, TechColumbus, a business incubation program. It is located on the west campus of Ohio State University, in a corridor featuring research labs and facilities for tech- oriented businesses. There are 25 companies located in the incubator; 125 companies outside of the incubator also work with TechColumbus.
A part of TechColumbus is the TechStart program, which is in the middle of implementation, and which was created through Ohio's Entrepreneurial Signature Program's $15 million grant for three years, which is expected to leverage $7.5 million. "This money will be directed into early tech startups, some even pre-company, some maybe just an idea from the university," Indest
says. The funds are direct toward companies in niches such as information technology, for example in business-to-business software solutions; medical devices; and advanced materials.
Entrepreneurs can also access angel funding through the Ohio TechAngels, run by TechColumbus. "Working from pre-company to the robust angel investment is what is unique about TechColumbus," Indest notes.
Indest points out the affect of the recovery, which will not mean business as usual, on the entrepreneurial climate. "The most interesting way to look at it is that entrepreneurs and companies less than five years old account for two-thirds of the job creation in the country, according to the Kauffman Foundation," he says. If you translate that into the new jobs being created by organizations such as TechColumbus that focus on technology entrepreneurship and providing access to venture capital, the increase in activities creates not only new but higher paying jobs.
In regard to the demographic make up of entrepreneurs themselves, we are witnessing a generational shift. Where Gen-Xers (born 1961-1981) are risk friendly, and more entrepreneurial minded, The Millennials (born after 1981), are looking for job security. "They were looking for security even before the Great Recession happened because they were raised in an environment where they had to go through metal detectors to get into schools," Ryan notes. "Parents are ‘helicopter parents,' hovering and protecting them. The Millennials are looking for authority and a sense of security. On a whole they are not as entrepreneurial as Gen-Xers were."
So, as a whole, what are creative economy workers looking for when searching for jobs and communities to call home? "All the research science says people would rather know that their job will be there and they are willing to take less pay," Ryan says. "Every CEO I am talking to says we are going to pick up in quarter three of 2010 but not before."
Creative economy workers are looking for something they can throw their time, energy and effort behind. "Creative workers want a sense that what they are working on is something that is future oriented, that is hopeful, that is positive, and that will be good for the organization," Ryan says.
This talent base was willing to come together to advance organizations, offering invaluable input to company leadership, such as ways to save money. The hope is that these channels of communication will stay open as the recovery takes hold.