Rick Weddle (Site Selectors Guild): Welcome to Site Selection Matters, where we take a closer look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, president in the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners, and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession. In this episode, we have as our guest, Dennis Donovan, a principal with Wadley Donovan Gutshaw Consulting, one of the nation’s leading site selection and location advisory firms. Today, Dennis will talk with us about how EDOs or economic developers can work to position their communities in the post-pandemic era. Join me as we welcome Dennis Donovan to Site Selection Matters.

Dennis, in this post-pandemic era, it seems like communities, just like companies, should be reassessing their competitive situation and their target industry focus to make sure they’re positioned correctly going forward. Is this correct? Do you see it that way?

Dennis Donovan (Wadley Donovan Gutshaw Consulting): Yes, I do. You know, this is really a continuation. I mean, it’s what I call continuous product improvement. Continuous business improvement should always be looking at the assets and liabilities that the community has to offer, and what that holds for the future, and how you rank vis-a-vis the competition. So I think that’s key. And one of…you know, in terms of competitive positioning, coming out of the pandemic, without any question, the number one consideration in terms of how successful a community will be from a retention expansion and a recruitment standpoint is the talent pool. I have never seen, even in the heydays, before the Great Recession, a tighter labor market that we’ve had today. Now, there’s change, there are differences around the country. It’s not uniform. But there are significant challenges. And they stretch from qualified entry-level through semi-skilled through skilled and certain professional positions as well.

So documenting in areas labor market resources, especially as they relate to the target industries, is going to be vitally important. And let me tell you, Rick, one of the challenges that I see not being adequately met, I do not see enough workforce assessment that is demand-driven, that we’re just taking stock of what the demand for certain skills are now and in the future. And I see too much in terms of communities and workforce development focusing on jobs. We need to be focusing on skills, the skills required, and then that leads into certain occupations or jobs. So this is gonna be really important, the demand-based, skills-based within your target industries and overall, and then I would say, you know, we hear all about upskilling and so forth. And that is true. But believe me, because of technology, there are going to be portion of the workforce that may not be able to participate fully in the post-COVID recovery. So we need to have a training aimed at not only the marginalized but at those at greatest risk of being displaced. And they can be upskilled to form bottom of the foundation for companies that are gonna require entry-level labor.

So this is a new paradigm here. And we don’t have a lot of time to do a lot of redesigning, we do it very quickly. So holistic collaborations of educators, government, business really needs to be business-led. It’s going to be key in terms of making sure that we have a workforce that can sustain