News

Monday, May 24, 2021

It was four years ago now. Doug Wickstrom had worked for over a decade in manufacturing, most of it spent at a custom machine company that serviced the cheese industry. He supervised projects ranging from four-figure tune-ups to multi-million-dollar expansions and construction. He was versatile, able to take on any role from installation and training to project management — and he soon opened his own company after reaching a comfortable six-figure salary. But he was also a family man and farmer seeking a life that included more time at home, and he was intrigued when he received the phone cal...

Why Virtual Selling is in Your Future

Monday, May 24, 2021

Author Jeb Blount explains why manufacturers who don’t master virtual selling techniques will lose ground to those who do. Jeb Blount is the bestselling author of 10 books on sales, leadership, and customer experience. An in-demand speaker, he spends more than 250 days each year delivering speeches, workshops, and training programs to high-performing sales teams and leaders. Through his global training organizations, including Sales Gravy and Innovate Knowledge, Blount advises many of the world’s leading organizations and their executives on the impact of emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills on customer-facing activities, and delivers training to thousands of participants in both public and private forums. The COVID economy ha...

Long Prairie EDA Welcomes New Board Members

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

The Long Prairie Economic Development Authority board of directors consists of a diverse group of individuals, each of whom bring a unique set of values and backgrounds to the collective. Our members come from all walks of life, with various degrees of education, training and work/life experience. While some of our board members have previous and/or current experience serving on boards and others have no experience, they all share a common desire to serve their community, and to willingly contribute to and participate in the economic growth of Long Prairie. Our board members are: Lauren Hebert, David Wright, Dallas Nelson...

How To Attract Remote Workers To Your Community

Monday, April 19, 2021

You know you need remote workers, now let's talk about how to attract remote workers to your community. REMOTE WORKERS bring an abundance of advantages to a local workforce, from growing the tax base to diversifying the labor pool. As remote work continues to grow, more communities will benefit from adding remote workers to their local workforce. WAYS TO ATTRACT REMOTE WORKERS TO YOUR COMMUNITY REMOTE WORK IS THE NEW NORM Nearly two-thirds of U.S. workers who have been working remotely during the pandemic want to continue to work from home, according to a GALLUP POLL. Between April and May 2020, the number of remote workers in the U.S. doubled, GALLUP REPORTS...

Front Line: Job Creation Through Reshoring

Friday, April 16, 2021

Back in the 1980s, the term “offshoring” became a business buzzword as more and more U.S. companies moved manufacturing to foreign countries, typically to save on labor costs. In recent years, “reshoring” has been added to the lexicon as companies decide to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., for various reasons. In 2020, reshoring created more U.S. jobs than foreign direct investment (FDI) for the first time in seven years, according to data collected by the Reshoring Initiative. In 2020, U.S. companies reshored nearly 69,000 manufacturing positions, while greenfield investment in the same industries created fewer than 42,000 jobs, according to the Initiative...

Broadband Roundtable: Internet Access and Speed Are Key to Economic Growth, Business Vitality, Health and Education

Tuesday, April 06, 2021

St. Paul – Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) Commissioner Steve Grove and DEED's Office of Broadband Development Executive Director Angie Dickison were joined by seven industry and community advocates from broadband coalitions and nonprofit groups for a discussion on March 30 about the importance of broadband access to economic growth, business vitality, health and education. This roundtable was part of a broader series of discussions the agency is hosting called "The Next Minnesota Economy," focusing on inclusive economic growth, reskilling our labor market and creating good jobs. Currently in Minnesota, about 92% of households and businesses have access to interne...

Minnesota Small Business Development Centers Partner with First Children’s Finance to Support Minnesota’s Child Care Industry

Friday, April 02, 2021

St. Paul – Under a partnership agreement announced today, First Children’s Finance will operate as the first statewide satellite center in the Minnesota Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) Network – providing specialized business and financial assistance to child care businesses across Minnesota at no cost to the businesses. Minnesota SBDC is part of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). “Without access to affordable child care, parents can’t earn a living, businesses can’t recruit reliable workers, and children miss out on early educational opportunities,” said DEED Commissioner Steve Grove. “This has never been more apparent than during the pandemic – an...

Essential and Emerging Skills Sought by Minnesota Employers Now

Monday, March 15, 2021

As business needs continue to evolve in response to the pandemic, many employers are putting new emphasis on finding candidates with essential workplace skills. According to RealTime Talent, while many job postings include post-secondary or technical training as a requirement, there are also many jobs for which employers are specifically seeking essential soft skills, such as time management, written communication, building collaborative relationships, self-confidence, and being a forward-thinker. This article takes a closer look at what skills are most sought by Minnesota employers now and what skills are emerging as the new foundational skills career seekers should try to develo...

Does 2021 Mean A Road To Recovery?

Tuesday, March 09, 2021

Grow Minnesota! conducted in-depth conversations with nearly 300 businesses in 2020, to learn what challenges and opportunities they were facing in light of the immense changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. While not a substitute for hard economic data, these conversations provide key insights into how businesses are navigating unprecedented disruptions, and offer a glimpse at what Minnesota can do to help companies recover and grow in the coming months. Not surprisingly, the impacts of COVID-19 took center stage in our virtual visits with businesses this past year. However, the results from Grow Minnesota’s! outreach also reveal some surprising insight...

Google Adds New Features To Help Remote Workers, And Other Small Business Tech News

Sunday, March 07, 2021

Here are five things in technology that happened this past week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them? 1—Google Workspace is adding new features to help remote workers. Google recently added some new features to Google Workspace in order to help those working remotely collaborate and improve their workflows. Some of the new features include making a Workspace available for frontline workers and officially launching Google Assistant for Workspace—the company’s audio assistant—for all Workspace users. Additional features will also be available such as improvements to Google Meet video calls, time management features, status setting, and multi-lingual live captioning...

LEAP Is Staples' Non-Profit Advocate

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Every town has a go-to place, a gathering spot where friends and neighbors take on the world’s problems, hash over local news and banter about ideas of how things should be done, what can be done and how to do it. More often than not, when the coffee goes cold, so do the ideas and good intentions until another day. Minnesota has its share of these small-town meeting spots for ad-hoc community advocacy groups that are unable, for one reason or another, to gain the traction needed to become an effective agent for their aspirations. In some places, however, it works...

Top 30 Jobs in Demand Now in Minnesota

Thursday, February 04, 2021

St. Paul – The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) has updated its list of the top 30 jobs in demand now in Minnesota. You can see the list at CareerForceMN.com/JobsinDemand. “Many of the jobs most in demand now are in fields with a significant potential for career growth,” said DEED Commissioner Steve Grove. “For example, entry level positions in health care and manufacturing offer a path up to well-paying, family sustaining careers as a person gains experience and training. And in many cases, employers provide on-the-job training to help dedicated employees grow in their careers.” In the listing of the top 30 job...

5 Ways COVID-19 Changed Site Selection

Thursday, January 28, 2021

COVID-19 didn’t just upset the established model of corporate site selection in 2020; the global pandemic obliterated it. Site Selection Magazine’s annual survey of site selection consultants, conducted in late November, revealed five ways in which the global outbreak of coronavirus significantly altered how companies choose their business facility locations: Instead of people chasing jobs, jobs are now chasing people. Remember the good old days when everyone checked into the central office each workday and reported for duty? Yeah, neither do we. When the pandemic hit America in early March, worksites around the country began shutting down and the shift to remote wor...