It used to be that a company’s marketing team focused most of its efforts on the business’s products and services. Lately, that’s expanded to include attracting prospective team members. To understand the competitive landscape, one need only take in the ubiquitous help-wanted signs and banners at businesses of all kinds and observe that billboards that once advertised a manufacturer’s products or a fast-food joint’s French fries are now often aimed at luring workers.
With so many organizations vying for prospective workers’ attention, it’s hard for a company to differentiate itself. But this month’s cover story subject, Redline Plastics of Manitowoc, has succeeded in doing just that. Instead of creating a mission, vision, values statement, leaders worked with the marketing department to develop cultural behaviors using snappy, eye-catching graphics and wording — including “Be a Ninja,” “Respond like a GT” and “Shut up and Listen” — that are displayed prominently on Redline’s website as well as on a wall of the company’s headquarters. Read this month’s cover story, starting on page 22, to learn more about Redline’s unusual talent attraction strategy, which it will need as it continues to see tremendous growth.
Business growth like the kind Redline is experiencing is just one part of economic development. Another part is helping nurture the employers of the future, and that’s part of the focus of entrepreneurship support services. The Greater Green Bay Chamber, for example, offers a full suite of startup services, including the Startup Hub on the Northeast Wisconsin Technical College campus and the Urban Hub in downtown Green Bay, a coworking space and community that also includes Tundra Angels, an angel investor group. “We are investing in the hope that in 20 to 30 years we will see (startups) hiring 1,000 employees,” says Kelly Armstrong, vice president of economic development for the Greater Green Bay Chamber. Read more about the region’s thriving startup scene in this month’s Insider on page 28.
To start the New Year on a positive note, check out Casey Britten’s feature on nonprofit organizations providing support and services to Afghan refugees. People who have fled Afghanistan have experienced trauma, so finding refugees a permanent place to live — and some stability — is a top priority. Later in the process, organizations including Lutheran Social Services and World Relief Fox Valley help refugees with employment skills and job placement. Turn to page 20 to learn more about the efforts, including support community members can provide.
As we embark on 2022, I must admit feeling a little battered by the past two years of tumult. Nevertheless, I try to hold on to pieces of optimism, so I’ll leave you with a wish for a healthy and prosperous new year and one of my favorite quotes from T.S. Eliot: “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.”
