Summary continued

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Goal: Tennessee Top in Southeast for Good Jobs

Best Practices

Throughout the state, local economic development officials in predominately rural regions expressed a need for more training. ECD regional staffs will offer best practices training to assist economic development officials in dealing with recruitment prospects, including requests for information and requests for proposals. Stemming from positive feedback out of the Governor's Conference, regional directors will also offer more general training for local economic development officials on best practices for broader recruitment techniques and technical assistance programs for manufacturers to help them remain competitive.

In the Southern Middle region, the ECD staff is holding regional training sessions for local economic development professionals on best practices for answering prospective company requests for information and requests for proposals. Northern Middle Tennessee regional staff will have a broader approach, offering training to interested economic development offices on national best practices for recruiting. ECD staff will offer customized training sessions to interested organizations, with interest anticipated from more rural areas of the region. Allen Borden, ECD statewide director, is charged with implementing best practices programs for use in all of the regions where stakeholders express a need.

Business Development

Governor Haslam's Jobs4TN plan revealed that more than 86 percent of all new jobs in Tennessee are created by existing businesses. Feedback from businesses across the state and from local economic development partners showed the need for continual outreach to Tennessee businesses. ECD regional staff will work in collaboration with local chambers and economic development offices to reach out to existing businesses while local economic development professionals take more of a lead in larger markets. In more rural areas, ECD regional staff will coordinate with local chambers and economic development offices to make sure the largest employers are covered, expansion opportunities are fully explored, and state incentives are explained thoroughly.

ECD regional staff will also play a vital role in all nine regions in the business recruitment process. ECD staff often serves as a point of contact and coordination during prospect visits to the state. The East Tennessee regional staff and regional partners are launching an effort to inventory companies in the region that fall within the six targeted clusters of the Jobs4TN plan. ECD staff and regional stakeholders will then contact suppliers of those companies to see if co-location makes sense. Other regions such as Northwest and Southeast will pursue aggressive visit schedules and coordinate larger market visits with local chambers and economic development organizations.

Partnerships

ECD regional staff, through their outreach and stakeholder meetings, identified areas where strategic partnerships are needed to engage the Jobs4TN plan. Those areas include

  • tech transfer from research institutions,
  • workforce development efforts,
  • innovation support at regional business accelerators, and
  • early-stage capital investment to support Tennessee entrepreneurs.

Regional directors and their staffs will pull together stakeholders in these areas and others to facilitate new partnerships supporting the goals of Jobs4TN. One of the more crucial areas where partnerships and new avenues of communication are needed is in the workforce development arena.

In several regions, ECD staff plan to play a matchmaking roll between large employers and workforce development resources. In the Greater Memphis region, ECD staff and the staffs of local workforce development boards will work with the new WINrecruits.com database to cross-reference employer need and employee availability. ECD staffs see a need to partner with the new business accelerator grant winners in some way, from connecting the incubators to rural entrepreneurs to helping the incubators find sustainable funding.

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tennessee's business magazine job creation issue cover

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Governor Haslam's Jobs4TN plan revealed that more than 86 percent of all new jobs in Tennessee are created by existing businesses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strategic partnerships are needed to engage the Jobs4TN plan in these areas:
  • tech transfer,
  • workforce development,
  • innovation support, and
  • early-stage capital investment.