Sam R. Hall: Notes from the Brain Drain forum
Jul. 2—The Brain Drain panel discussion Thursday night was lively and — oddly enough — refreshing. Yes, talking policy can be refreshing, particularly when you have smart people in positions of influence who aren't afraid to speak hard truths and call out long-held notions.
The smart people on the panel were David Fernandes, president of Toyota Mississippi; Scott Waller, CEO of the Mississippi Economic Council; and Rob Hairston, projects director for the Community Development Foundation. It was my honor to moderate this discussion, which was heightened by an engaged audience that asked some good questions and followed up with interesting conversations after the event concluded.
Here are some of the highlights from the forum, which I hope will spur continued conversations around how we can retain our best, brightest and most skilled workers, not to mention recruit others — particularly those who have left the state — to come here.
Listen to what people are telling us
If there was a single thread that ran throughout the evening, it would be this: Listen and adapt.
Listen to what younger generations are telling us they want. Listen to what workers truly desire. And once you've heard them, take action to adapt current situations to meet these growing needs.
Waller, more than once, said that those in older generations — he would say as he pointed to his graying hair — have to learn to change their perceptions to better understand and relate to the generations that are coming up and starting to fill roles in our communities, businesses and organizations.
"Those who can adapt will survive," Waller said, leaving unsaid the reality that "those who can't adapt will not." That goes not only for businesses but for our communities and our state as a whole.
Three areas of focus for brain drain
OK. There are more than three. There are countless areas on which we need to focus. But if you divide these different ideas into the biggest categories possible, you'd come up with something like this:
Education. We absolutely must continue to realign our education system to produce students who are prepared to enter the workforce at all levels. That includes high schools focusing on career readiness as much as (if not more than) college prep. And it means understanding that the idea of college has to be expanded to include any post-secondary education or certification.
Business. Businesses must be flexible to meet the growing demands of our workers. Not only must we recruit new, good-paying jobs, we have to do so in specific industries like energy and technology that are becoming more and more in demand. And we must do a far better job at highlighting these kinds of jobs that already exist in other fields. For example, Toyota is a manufacturing plant, and Northeast Mississippi Medical Center is a health care facility, but both have incredible technology positions that pay good money and are in high demand.
Quality of life. People will not stay here if they don't enjoy living, playing and raising a family here. They can find jobs anywhere. What they want is a place that is home to them.
Quality of life matters most
Hairston continued to hammer this point over and over, and he's absolutely right. People want things to do, events they can attend and places they can go to meet people and enjoy themselves. A strong social life is imperative for success in battling brain drain.
Growing up in Tupelo, I remember thinking that I wanted to live somewhere bigger because there just wasn't much to do here. Coming back, there is so much more. Tupelo has done a tremendous job in that area. But, as Hairston made clear, anyone who thinks Tupelo has done enough is fooling themselves. It's hard to tell people who have done so much that there is even more to do, but that's the truth that needs to be told.
To paraphrase something Hairston said after the forum, it's not saying that the people who have worked so hard to this point have failed. They didn't fail. Hairston and others are standing on their shoulders to build the next level. Someday, a new generation will stand on this group's shoulders and hopefully build us even higher.
And quality of life does not mean just in the community. Fernandes told the story of how Toyota started listening to what their workers wanted out of shift work and made changes to allow workers more flexibility with shifts so they could spend longer stretches at home with family or friends. Sometimes it's not about pay — or just about pay — it's about the little things, like freedom and flexibility. Convincing more employers to shift paradigms on what work looks like is going to be key.
So much more...
There is no way in to cover in this column everything we discussed — much less those important aspects of this issue we didn't. But there are a lot of people who continue to work on this issue, from MEC on the state level to school districts, businesses, CDF and the CREATE Foundation on the local level.
Everyone should be a part of this conversation because there is no one solution. This is a complicated, all-encompassing issue that will require solutions big and small. Everyone has a role to play, and everyone has something to say on how we can improve.
So let's start by listening. Then let's get to adapting.
SAM R. HALL is executive editor of the Daily Journal. Contact him at sam.hall@djournal.com or follow @samrhall on Twitter.
