Category: WIN Summit

In a matter of weeks, Dakota State University President José-Marie Griffiths will speak to U.S. senators about workforce and economic disruption.

But you can hear her thoughts on the topic sooner than that in Sioux Falls.

Griffiths will help lead off the WIN in Workforce Summit on Nov. 1 as part of the panel Talent Talk: Get To Know the People Changing Our Workforce Landscape. The annual event will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Sioux Falls Convention Center and will bring together thought leaders such as Griffiths for a look at what the future holds for talent development, attraction and retention.

“Clearly, we’ve got to talk about the role of technology, both the positive and negative, what you should and should not do with it,” said Griffiths, a leading authority on artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

“It’s important to educate everyone about how these technologies work, and it’s becoming more important as AI is playing a role in so many people’s lives. The whole conversation around it has completely changed in the last six months. Many businesses are using AI without necessarily even realizing they’re using AI, and some are still thinking AI just began when actually it’s been around since the 1950s.”

The landscape is rapidly changing, however, and workforce will be disrupted because of it.

“Certainly within five years, maybe in three. It’s going to move quickly,” Griffiths said. “Everyone is concerned about it replacing jobs and how we’re going to retrain people who lose their jobs to something else. Some of these jobs will be doing very different things, and we’ll be learning how to work with technology rather than away from technology.”

While there will be the need to upskill in areas, Griffiths said the “power skills” – or what you might think of as soft skills – are going to be just as critical in facing the future.

“Your ability to communicate and adapt and work well and learn while doing, ask questions and be curious will be key,” she said. “It’s not about looking at your job as something with finality but looking at it as something with context and being open to working with different technology and systems and approaches. We’re all doing it right now. We’re just going to have to become a little more comfortable with change.”

For her own workforce needs at Dakota State, Griffiths said she has found success by casting out her recruitment efforts beyond her traditional geography.

“We’re targeting areas with people who have the qualifications we need and going beyond our normal range of locations,” she said. “Most recently, five of six people we brought in for interviews are from areas we wouldn’t have touched before. And additionally, we’re working closely with the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and sending people to trade shows related to cybersecurity, so we have a presence together and can both talk about the benefits of locating in South Dakota.”

She also has a message for business leaders looking to hire DSU graduates: Get engaged early and often.

“We have career fairs, but we also have employers regularly visiting campus. They might visit a couple classes and talk about the interesting things they do or host a pizza reception for students to meet them and chat,” she said. “It’s not enough to pitch them a job. We have to pitch them a career. We have to talk about the opportunities available to advance and the pathways that exist to do interesting things.”

It’s the kind of insight attendees can expect all day at the WIN Summit, said Denise Guzzetta, vice president of talent and workforce development for the Sioux Falls Development Foundation.

“Dr. Griffiths is the perfect example of the thought leadership and actionable advice you’ll take with you at this event,” she said. “Even in the last year, the conversation around AI has completely evolved, and it’s critical to tap into what forward-thinking leaders are doing today to get ready for tomorrow.”

About the WIN in Workforce Summit

Sessions at the WIN in Workforce Summit are eligible for nine SHRM and HRCI recertification credits. The Sioux Falls Development Foundation is recognized by SHRM to offer professional development credits for SHRM-CP® or SHRM-SCP® recertification activities.

Space is limited for this transformative event, so register soon here to reserve your seat.

Olympic figure skater and author Nancy Kerrigan knows what it takes to achieve big goals and career growth.

She’ll bring that message to Sioux Falls for the WIN in Workforce Summit, produced by the Sioux Falls Development Foundation, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 1 at the Sioux Falls Convention Center.

Kerrigan’s keynote address, “Stronger Than You Think You Are,” will inspire and challenge the crowd to tackle talent attraction, retention and development with a fresh perspective.

We caught up with her for a preview of what you can expect.

What’s the core message you plan to deliver at the WIN in Workforce Summit?

Preparation and perseverance allow you to keep pressure in perspective and deliver maximum performance.

As you travel the country speaking, what are some of the needs you see businesses facing in terms of talent attraction, development and retention? What are some things leaders can do to address that?

The most important thing in creating an environment that allows for preparation and performance is a strong support system. Putting people in place to provide the tools necessary for success and showing how that works in reality is critical. Have a good team around you and trust them.

Many in the workforce today and tomorrow will find they must continually upskill to evolve their career. You also have evolved your career multiple times and likely continue to look at new avenues. What are some strategies you’ve found to be successful in positioning your own career for the future that might be helpful to others?

Letting go of the past and having curiosity. While I will always be “the skater” to the rest of the world, for me, I have to evolve to keep growing. So putting the past in perspective and being curious about new things is very helpful.

In addition to your professional life, you’re a mother of three children navigating their middle school, high school and post-college lives. What are some generational characteristics you’re noticing in them related to education and career, and how have you been guiding them?

All the technology that they have access to means they interact with people in a different way than past generations. But face-to-face communication is still critical in my opinion. So I try to counsel them in the area of interpersonal skills, which I still think is the most important thing we can learn because we still have to live with each other.

Your career will be remembered for many reasons but certainly for your resilience – a critical element for success in the workplace today. What advice would you give to those looking to address their own resilience or lead others toward stronger resiliency?

When you fall down, which we all do, get back up. I have been told that an elite skater falls 40,000 times in their career, which means they also get up 40,000 times! We are all stronger than we think we are, so if you prepare well, you can handle just about anything.

About the WIN in Workforce Summit

Sessions at the WIN in Workforce Summit are eligible for nine SHRM and HRCI recertification credits. The Sioux Falls Development Foundation is recognized by SHRM to offer professional development credits for SHRM-CP® or SHRM-SCP® recertification activities.

Space is limited for this transformative event, so register soon here to reserve your seat.

Despite a workforce of more than 20,000, every team at Avera Health essentially comes together in the same way every day.

It’s called Daily Line-Up, a daily huddle with a central topic, a question to get people talking and a daily prayer to provide a moment of fellowship.

“It’s a chance to come together, communicate and be reminded of our shared mission,” said Julie Lautt, interim CEO and chief financial officer. “But even traditions like these are being reimagined by hybrid departments as they look for new ways to engage both remote and in-office employees in these conversations.”

The simple practice – and how it’s evolving – captures the spirit of workforce development today. It’s a blend of lifting up best practices while acknowledging even they often must evolve with the workplace’s changing landscape.

“Health care can be very hard work,” said Dr. Ron Place, who became CEO of Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center earlier this year. “We saw during COVID, locally and nationally, some people with long-term careers in health care chose to leave the profession. We need to think innovatively to support our workforce and harness technology to extend our workforce, especially in rural areas.”

Both Lautt and Place will share some of Avera’s strategies at the upcoming WIN in Workforce Summit, produced by the Sioux Falls Development Foundation. The event will be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 1 at the Sioux Falls Convention Center, featuring speakers from a range of industries.

For Avera, those strategies are a long list that starts with the system’s mission.

“We hope to show just how important it is to fully walk the walk when it comes to our people being the vital piece of our organization they truly are, as well as how we strive to live and breathe our mission every day,” Place said.

Other approaches Avera plans to share include:

• The streamlining of HR processes, from simplified interview scheduling to reducing barriers for job applicants.
• Working with education partners on creative ways to fill critical needs.
• The creation of an internal staffing organization aimed at filling jobs and improving retention, with opportunities to place both temporary workers and traveling nurses.

Avera leadership also plans to address communitywide issues impacting workforce, including affordable housing, transportation and building bridges for new American, immigrant and refugee populations to access career opportunities.

“I see that new doors are opening all the time in working with our diverse populations, but that’s an area of challenge,” Place said. “At Avera, we want to be the employer of choice for diverse populations.”

At the WIN Summit, Lautt will be part of the opening session titled Talent Talk: Meet the People Changing Our Workforce Landscape.

“Leading in health care takes innovative thinking. Avera also has a unique approach because of our dedication to rural health and workforce,” she said. “We had the foresight to raise our minimum wage to $17 per hour and to improve benefits, despite national health systems shifting in the other direction. We could see this people-centered industry needed a workforce investment, and it’s that kind of thinking that has made Avera a leader for over a century.”

It also has helped with retention. Avera has more than 1,300 employees who have been part of the organization for at least 25 years, and many spend entire careers there.

“We will have critical workforce areas we are focusing on for the future,” Lautt said, adding some of the strategies being brought forward include streamlining the hiring process and partnering with university and technical schools to ensure students choose and understand areas of opportunity.

“Leaders will need to focus both on culture-building of people in the office with them and for remote employees,” she added. “This will take fresh ideas and a continual focus to keep remote employees engaged with a mission that will need to stretch beyond our facilities.”

Place will be part of a panel called New Leaders, New Rules, New Culture that will allow him to share the leadership philosophy he brought to Avera McKennan.

“I challenge my leaders to build, sustain and know their high performers and foster individual development,” he said. “It’s important to empower employees to encourage creativity. Strong leaders give credit for success, yet they take on responsibility and ensure accountability for failure.”

They also underpromise and overdeliver, he added.

“Outcomes matter. While our intentions are important, it is our actions that are critical,” Place said. “I encourage my leaders to challenge assumptions. Things don’t have to be the way they’ve always been, and, in fact, it’s impossible to keep everything the same and continue to experience success and sustainability. It’s why standardization and innovation are both key.”

About the WIN in Workforce Summit

Sessions at the WIN in Workforce Summit are eligible for nine SHRM and HRCI recertification credits. The Sioux Falls Development Foundation is recognized by SHRM to offer professional development credits for SHRM-CP® or SHRM-SCP® recertification activities.

Space is limited for this transformative event, so register soon here to reserve your seat.

Here’s something Mayor Paul TenHaken thinks doesn’t gets talked about enough:

“It’s the fact that we’ve had a record number of people move here in the last two to three years, and we also are met with record low unemployment, and those two things don’t jive,” TenHaken said.

“Why is that?”

That’s among the many big questions leaders will ask and begin to help answer at the upcoming annual WIN in Workforce Summit, produced by the Sioux Falls Development Foundation.

The event will be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 1 at the Sioux Falls Convention Center and will bring together thought leaders such as TenHaken to address the state of workforce development today and tomorrow.

He will help lead off the day on the panel Talent Talk: Get To Know the People Changing Our Workforce Landscape.

“It’s great that we have so many jobs available, and Sioux Falls is a great place to live and work, but we have a lot of employers struggling as a result of that. Anything we can do to shine a light I want to do it, and that includes summits like this.”

Employers should remember that many people in the record number who moved to Sioux Falls in recent years are still working for employers not based here.

“It’s created a new step that needs to happen with workforce,” TenHaken said. “It’s not just getting people to move here for a job or getting people to move here and then hopefully they work here. We have remote employees here who could become employees for Sioux Falls businesses if they took an intentional approach to connecting with them.”

But first, “we also have to realize we’re losing people to jobs all over the country that are still in Sioux Falls,” he continued.

“They’re using the trail system, they’re living here and enjoying the quality of life but working for a company out of Denver or Austin or Nashville, and that’s very much a thing. I think we can put our heads in the sand and ignore it or realize we have to look at ways to attract people who want to come live here but not necessarily work here. The end goal is let’s get them to live here, to keep working for their employer and eventually they want to switch jobs, and they’re in our market and have a good chance of filling a local job.”

TenHaken also sees workforce issues from the perspective of an employer.

“The city is absolutely not immune from this discussion, so when people ask us about what we’re doing in government to help with workforce, it’s very personal because we have the same challenge the private sector is having,” he said.

“We’ve tried to keep pace with the private sector in terms of compensation but also offer things like time off to volunteer and help get our employees active in the community.”

The city also has invested in office environments and equipment that make it more appealing for employees to be in the workplace and is beginning a marketing campaign next year to highlight itself as an employer of choice.

“We need to do a better job of telling our story and what it means to be a public servant,” TenHaken said. “We want to deepen even more what it means to be a public servant in Sioux Falls.”

The city offers some work-from-home options “when it makes sense,” he added. “It is a tool in our toolbox we can use in the right situations, but there’s also just a culture of being accommodating and flexible if you have to come in at 8:30 a.m. because you can’t drop your kid off until then.”

Despite the workforce challenges, “I’d much rather be in our situation than other communities,” TenHaken continued. “We’ve made the right investments in everything from quality-of-life assets to our police force and the right infrastructure. So if people give Sioux Falls a look, they’re hooked for the most part. People fall in love with this community once they’re here and even more once they’ve left and realize what they’ve left. So one of our biggest focuses is how do we continue to make this a very attractive and viable community.”

About the WIN in Workforce Summit

Sessions at the WIN in Workforce Summit are eligible for nine SHRM and HRCI recertification credits. The Sioux Falls Development Foundation is recognized by SHRM to offer professional development credits for SHRM-CP® or SHRM-SCP® recertification activities.

Space is limited for this transformative event, so register soon here to reserve your seat.

When it comes to “the future of work,” you might say Steven Tims lives the topic daily.

“We’re rapidly changing to a more technically focused workforce,” said Tims, the chief operating officer of Viaflex, a Sioux Falls-based leading manufacturer of innovative polymer film and sheeting solutions for agricultural, construction, energy, geomembrane, industrial, telecom and installation services.

“We have a lot of industrial manufacturing shifting to automation, which leads to new jobs for automation technicians, engineers and in business intelligence. We’ve focused a lot on modernizing our business, and we’re starting to recruit talent to support it.”

Tims will share his experience on a panel called, appropriately, “The Future of Work” at the upcoming WIN in Workforce Summit produced by the Sioux Falls Development Foundation.

The event will be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 1 at the Sioux Falls Convention Center and bring together cutting-edge leaders such as Tims to share actionable insight around addressing workforce opportunities and challenges.

“I’m planning to talk a lot about ChatGPT,” Tims said. “We’ve embraced it fully. We’ve educated our team about where and how to use it. I use it daily, and we now have a council around AI at Viaflex that we’re beginning to use to ensure we’re taking full advantage of the technology available.”

Viaflex also has started to use virtual reality in employee training, leveraging that technology to save thousands in training and de-risk at the same time.

“You can virtually start up a machine very safely and simulate things,” he explained. “We can even use it to do a virtual plant tour, which is a great thing to have at a recruitment booth.”

With 450 employees and six locations across the U.S., the business that began as part of the former Raven Industries still has “a lot of startup energy,” Tims added. “We’re just trying to break through, and it takes awhile to change culture.”

He plans to discuss that at the WIN in Workforce Summit too.

After trying traditional advertising for job openings, Viaflex doubled down on referrals – tripling its referral bonus for employees, “and it’s going really well,” he said. “It’s really where our best talent is coming from.”

The company isn’t shy about its drive to recruit and retrain top talent either.

“We don’t do reductions in force; we do performance management,” Tims said.

“We do ‘A’ player salaries, but you have to perform, and we don’t care if we’re known as a company where every year the bottom 10 percent drop. We want it to be hard to get in here. We do great things for our team, we’re kindhearted people, but by dealing with people who aren’t pulling their weight, everybody else’s game goes up a little bit. So it’s this great recipe for success.”

Viaflex is a perfect example of the sort of business sharing its experience at the WIN Summit, said Denise Guzzetta, vice president of talent and workforce development at the Sioux Falls Development Foundation.

“This company truly blends a focus on people with a commitment to leveraging technology, and that’s why they’ve seen impressive growth and will continue to do so,” she said. “When you come to the WIN Summit, you’re going to experience an entire day of hearing from leaders like Steven who will challenge you to think differently, invest in new ways and see workforce gains follow.”

About the WIN in Workforce Summit

Sessions at the WIN in Workforce Summit are eligible for nine SHRM and HRCI recertification credits. The Sioux Falls Development Foundation is recognized by SHRM to offer professional development credits for SHRM-CP® or SHRM-SCP® recertification activities.

Space is limited for this transformative event, so register soon here to reserve your seat.

Travis Hahler lives in a world of constant change.

The Webster native and USD graduate – class of 2010 and 2012 – leads global change and transformation for Google, while based in South Dakota.

But Hahler is an entrepreneur, too, who is building his organization, The Neurological Nomad, into a powerhouse resource for businesses looking to drive change with people at the forefront.

In just a decade, Hahler has built an impressive resume working with more than 100 companies around the world, including 40 percent of the Fortune 100 list.

On Oct. 26, he will be a keynote speaker at the fifth annual WIN in Workforce Summit, which runs from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Sioux Falls Convention Center.

We caught up with Hahler for a preview.

First, congratulations on your success. What is it about your work that you think has helped you distinguish yourself so early in your career?

Thank you so much. I’m proud of the work I’ve done so far, but I am far from finished.

In terms of distinguishing myself, I think the biggest differentiator has been my perspective and unique point of view. I see a lot of really smart people with singular backgrounds like MBAs, psychology, neuroscience, but having all three creates a fuller view of things that others without that exposure wouldn’t be able to see. That perspective has allowed me to anticipate the needs of employees and leaders, empathize with their experiences, draw incredibly accurate conclusions about their actions and motivations, and be able to articulate all of that to leaders in a language they understand. The piece of all of this that has distinguished me the most is then being able to take that perspective and build tactical plans that seemingly anticipate employee reaction and employee needs while also taking into account the larger environment that the employee is living in at that moment.

What will the theme of your keynote be at the WIN in Workforce Summit?

The theme of the keynote goes hand in hand with the mission of The Neurological Nomad, which is to help today’s leaders leverage neuroscience, neuropsychology and human behavior to design employee-centric organizations and drive transformational change. So what that is going to look like for the WIN in Workforce Summit is first a discussion about neuroscience and the impact that our human physiology has on our behavior, and then we are going to talk about how we leverage that information in business and at our organizations. It’s my goal to help the audience see that neuroscience and behavioral psychology is the bridging point between successfully meeting their business goals and objectives, their workforce goals and objectives, and the desires and goals of their employees.

If I’m a CEO, do I really need to know much about neuroscience?

I think all incredible leaders need to understand people, and there are really two ways that incredible leaders can get to that level of understanding. The typical way a leader learns to understand people is through experience working with them. This is very surface level and built through years of experiences and trial and error. After that, you can probably guess what your organization’s reaction to something will be based on previous reactions over similar situations you’ve seen, or you’ll be able to categorize people’s motivations and ways of working based on other people that you know who are similar or exhibit similar styles. You understand what happens, but you don’t understand why. You can still be a great leader with this type of understanding.

I’m sorry to all the leaders that became great through this method because neuroscience is a shortcut and a multiplier all at the same time. Neuroscience explains the “why” behind people’s behavior. So if you understand neuroscience, you understand people. You’ll be able to do all of the same things I just mentioned in a fraction of the time. What’s even better is that you don’t even need to know someone in order to understand how they will likely react if you understand neuroscience. Understanding neuroscience is a fast track to becoming an incredible leader and understanding people.

Are there some basics that can help me shift my thinking and see an impact with my workforce?

Absolutely, and that is why I do what I do. Neuroscientists don’t publish research that is simple to understand, so I view my job as an interpreter between science and business with regard to neuroscience and behavioral psychology and make it simple. The benefit that you get when learning theory about neuroscience is that it can be both theoretical and experiential at the same time because neuroscience dictates how you react as well as how others react. So, as you learn, you can also reflect on personal experiences and see how neuroscience or neurology influenced that reaction and the reasons you reacted as predicted or the reasons you didn’t.

What can neuroscience tell us about what motivates people? Does that directly tie to workforce attraction and retention?

There is a lot out there about motivation and the brain, but I think it’s deeper than that. What neuroscience tells us about humans is that from our humble beginnings, we have sought safety and security. First, it was from the wild, and now it is what most people would call “stability.” Our brain is wired for that. When we think about attraction and retention for employees, the quickest way to get a bad reputation and for your employees to start leaving is by creating an unstable environment in the workplace and triggering your employees to seek stability.

I don’t want to give too much away because we will explore what those trigger points are and ways to overcome them during the keynote, but here is what I will say: This is going to be exceptionally important as our world continues to change at a greater velocity than ever before. Stability will need to shift from the idea that “I’ve been here for many years, and I know it is the same day to day, and that provides me stability” to “I know my leaders and the way that they have taken my well-being and needs into consideration every time we change or transform and that provides me with stability.” It’s incredibly different from what we have traditionally seen for our workforce, and I believe neuroscience is the key to helping our leaders where they need to be for this shift to happen.

What are some of the common or most compelling issues that you’re hearing from the businesses you work with through The Neurological Nomad? Are there any emerging issues?

As I’ve been talking with different organizations and leaders, there are certainly a few things that I am hearing across the board. The first, and this has been for a while, is the rate of change as companies race to embrace digital transformation and prepare their organizations for what is next and their future. Second, employee retention and attraction. Finally, social justice, diversity and employee wellness.

The common string among all of these is how we operate and understand our employees. I think there has been a long time where employers have been promising certain things and failing to execute on those promises, and the Great Resignation was simply the result of a loss of trust in their employer. We need to rebuild that trust and create organizations that put employees first, not just write it on our corporate values on the website. I’m sure this isn’t a shock to you, but neuroscience is a huge part of making that happen.

What’s the most common mistake or oversight you see companies make when it comes to trying to implement change?

I think the biggest oversight I see is that organizations don’t understand their people and their people’s skill sets. This often leads to the organization not realizing the benefits of the change because their people were not prepared to operate in the new environment. I see this with companies that are going through digital transformation journeys a lot.

Often, organizations also try to do too much too fast. This is usually the result of an organization that hasn’t been proactive about advancing or in industries that haven’t been disrupted in a while. The ROI is rarely realized because people are too overwhelmed with change and not given an opportunity to internalize the new ways of working.

There is also usually a major disconnect between what leadership thinks their organization’s culture is and what it actually is and the maturity of that culture. What happens here is that leaders will often leave out critical engagement opportunities during the change process because “that’s just part of our culture” when in reality it’s not or it’s not mature enough yet to lean on it.

The good news is that we are going to talk about all of this during the keynote, and neuroscience has a lot to say in these areas!

What’s the biggest takeaway you hope the Sioux Falls audience has from hearing your keynote?

We have a lot of incredible people here in South Dakota and many great companies that either exist or will exist. My hope is that this will help our business leaders transform their organizations to either become people-centric or improve their people-centricity. I believe this is essential to being able to future-proof our South Dakota organizations and continue to grow, compete nationally and attract more great businesses to our state.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I would add just two things.

First, you are not alone in this journey. Building and growing a people-centric business is tough and complex, but I believe in what neuroscience and psychology have to offer and the ways that it can transform organizations. You’re not going to leave a 60-minute session and have all the answers, and if you need a partner in your journey, reach out to me at The Neurological Nomad.

Second, I’m so honored to be given the opportunity to speak at a South Dakota-based conference. I have spoken at hundreds of conferences and events but never one in South Dakota, so I am really excited to be a part of the WIN in Workforce Summit, and I hope you’ll join me there.

Register today

The Sioux Falls Development Foundation is an approved recertification provider for the Society for Human Resource Management, and human resources professionals who attend WIN can earn nine professional development credits.

Tickets are $89 for in-person attendance, which includes lunch and snacks, and $20 for virtual attendance. Group discounts are available. Contact deniseg@siouxfalls.com.

To learn more and register, click here.

For at least half the year, Kristin Hoefert-Redlinger and her team at Northwestern Mutual are regular visitors on area college campuses.

But they’re not necessarily sitting at career fairs or staffing information booths.

Instead, they’re in the classroom or meeting with athletic teams, offering workshops on everything from emotional intelligence to networking and branding.

“These are things that benefit students with career readiness and leadership skills,” said Hoefert-Redlinger, Northwestern Mutual’s chief talent officer.

“We speak on campuses to give back, mentor and teach students critical soft-skills, and in turn, many of our top internship candidates find us.”

After sharing information that will benefit the students more broadly, there’s a brief pitch to attend a Northwestern Mutual information session to learn more about what the company offers.

“And then we talk very transparently at our information sessions,” Hoefert-Redlinger said. “We offer a top 10 internship in the country, so we have a strong story to tell.”

She will detail her approach to working with college students on a panel at the fifth annual WIN in Workforce Summit, held from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Oct. 26 at the Sioux Falls Convention Center.

The Summit is organized by the Sioux Falls Development Foundation and supported by Forward Sioux Falls.

Hoefert-Redlinger’s panel, Collegiate Engagement Made Easy, will be part of an overall track around talent attraction and include fellow panelists Jessica Carlson of the University of Sioux Falls and Cal McKeown of LifeScape.

“In so many ways, talent attraction and development begins on college campuses,” said Denise Guzzetta, the Sioux Falls Development Foundation’s vice president of talent and workforce development, who will moderate the panel.

“We’ll share ways the Development Foundation is engaging with college students nationwide and look forward to bringing outstanding insight from our panelists.”

The Northwestern Mutual team regularly visits 16 campuses in South Dakota and northwest Iowa.

“We don’t love bringing someone in as a new college graduate. We prefer to begin that relationship while they’re still in college through an internship because our highest long-term retention is from individuals who have completed an internship with us,” Hoefert-Redlinger said.

“It’s real-life experience. You’re living the life with the mentorship of a financial adviser, so you get to test-drive a career, see if it’s right or wrong, and the risk on both sides is limited. And even interns who don’t stay with us long-term become our best brand advocates. They send us referrals and become our clients.”

There have been other lessons learned, too, from building relationships with younger students to the advantage athletes sometimes have in pursuing a Northwestern Mutual career.

Hoefert-Redlinger also always shares information with college students about the Sioux Falls Young Professionals Network, or YPN, and the broader experience of living in the city.

“I really believe as employers it’s our responsibility to sell the city of Sioux Falls and to sell the state of South Dakota, so we make that part of all our speaking engagements,” she said. “And we get our interns really involved in Sioux Falls, including philanthropy, so they’re plugged in and introduced to a lot of people. Even if it’s not with us, then they have a path here.”

She is a frequent attendee at WIN in Workforce and encourages others to attend too.

“If you struggle with retention and recruitment, you’ll hear from people who do it well and want to share ideas,” she said. “You’ll hear from everyone from young professionals to companies who share different approaches. It’s a great platform to show the opportunities here and how it amazing it is that we live in a city that wants to retain talent enough to invest in a whole event around it.”

The Sioux Falls Development Foundation is an approved recertification provider from the Society for Human Resource Management, and human resources professionals who attend WIN can earn nine professional development credits.

Tickets are $89 for in-person attendance, which includes lunch and snacks, and $20 for virtual attendance. Group discounts are available. Contact deniseg@siouxfalls.com.

To learn more and register, click here.

How to attract and maintain a diverse workforce.

Reinvention: The flip side of disruption.

Collegiate engagement made easy.

Workforce reimagined: How manufacturing and tech can help us have hard conversations

Culture, culture, culture: If you do it right, nothing else matters.

That’s just a sampling of the topics that will be explored at the fifth annual WIN in Workforce Summit, held Oct. 26 from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Sioux Falls Convention Center.

The Summit is organized by the Sioux Falls Development Foundation and supported by Forward Sioux Falls.

“We just have continued to evolve and now are part of a national conversation about talent and workforce,” said Denise Guzzetta, vice president of talent and workforce development.

“We bring people globally into our event and into all the engaging things we’re doing here. It’s just very well planned and diversified as far as the talent and expertise.”

Attendees at the summit can choose from nine sessions divided among three tracks:

• Talent attraction, which includes a look at best practices across the area collegiate network.
• Talent development, which will offer insight around how organizations are up-skilling and growing their own talent internally.
• Today’s issues, which will explore themes such as culture, wellness and sustainability.

“As a community, we have leaders across all these areas, and we’re bringing them together in one place so you can hear directly from them,” Guzzetta said. “When you look at the new generation of talent and what they’re looking for in a workplace, there are increasingly conversations around these themes.”

Additionally, the Summit will feature two keynote speakers.

NFL Pro Bowl running back Justin Forsett, an underdog fan favorite, now is a podcast host on LeBron James’ UNINTERRUPTED Podcast Network and is an entrepreneur and inventor featured on ABC’s Shark Tank as the CEO and co-founder of Hustle Clean.

“He pitched an idea, got funding and now his products are sold in major retailers, and he just has a wonderful story,” Guzzetta said. “Everybody thinks you have to be the smartest or most athletic or the best and what he’s going to tell you is it really is your mindset and how you’re looking at things.”

Then, Travis Hahler, a South Dakota native leading global change and transformation for Google, will speak on the themes of his own business, The Neurological Nomad. As an independent consultant, Hahler brings neuroscience, neuropsychology and behavioral psychology to business executives at large and small organizations.

“He helps companies with transformation and working through change and understanding what motivates people,” Guzzetta said. “That’s what everybody is trying to figure out right now is what motivates people.”

The Summit is designed for everyone from CEOs and business owners to human resources professionals and even high school and college students, she said.

“If you’re touching workforce in any way – maybe you’re a nonprofit or an economic development organization, or you work in operations for a manufacturer – there are going to be takeaways of value for you,” Guzzetta said. “One of the messages we’re sending loud and clear is that WIN in Workforce is where everyone has a voice and everyone sits at the table.”

The WIN in Workforce Summit also will provide plenty of time for questions, networking and sharing best practices.

“Hopefully, you’ll become what we’re calling The Great Attraction, or The Great Upskill,” Guzzetta said. “There’s a huge opportunity right now to make investments in talent.”

The Sioux Falls Development Foundation is an approved recertification provider from the Society for Human Resource Management, and human resources professionals who attend WIN can earn nine professional development credits.

Tickets are $89 for in-person attendance, which includes lunch and snacks, and $20 for virtual attendance. Group discounts are available. Contact deniseg@siouxfalls.com. To learn more and register, click here.

It’s likely the most valuable day you’ll invest in workforce development all year – so register now for this fall’s fifth annual WIN in Workforce Summit.

Three professional tracks will guide the day, which will run from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Oct. 26 at the Sioux Falls Convention Center.

“We talk about talent development, talent attraction, and then we take the issues of the day and talk about best practices,” said Denise Guzzetta, vice president of talent and workforce development for the Sioux Falls Development Foundation.

“And it’s just amazing. This year, the content is going to be fantastic, and we’re also going to have a lot of different companies sharing their journeys and how they have evolved their programs so they can continue to build on their growth. We see that in our business community. We’ve been very successful regardless of the environment.”

Retired NFL running back Justin Forsett will be the keynote speaker. Forsett, founder and CEO of personal care company Hustle Clean and a co-host on LeBron James’ Uninterrupted podcast, will kick off the event with a message on transforming your career path.

“He went on ‘Shark Tank,’ he pitched an idea, and now his product is sold throughout Walmart and Target, so just a great inspirational message from someone who started homeless, had an opportunity to focus on a talent — sports — and took that talent and realized he wanted to make a career change and did that successfully,” Guzzetta said.

Examples of topics include workforce reimagined, collegiate engagement made easy, how to attract and maintain a diverse workforce, reinvention and culture.

The Sioux Falls Development Foundation is an approved recertification provider from the Society for Human Resource Management.

“Human resource professionals who attend WIN in Workforce will earn nine professional development credits, which is wonderful, and the networking benefit is huge,” Guzzetta said. “WIN is just a great place to engage and really grow. Workforce is something we’re tackling on a national and global level, so coming together to talk strategies and things you can implement right away is really powerful.”

Register by July 31 and take advantage of the early bird discount, with admission to WIN for just $30.

For information and to register, click here.

The 2021 WIN in Workforce Summit brought together business owners, HR professionals, and educators to hear the latest tips and tricks for how to retain their best employees, attract new ones, and create workplaces that people are proud to be a part of. Get a recap of the event here.

What does the workforce of the future look like? It depends on where you’re viewing it.

For Matt Paulson, founder and CEO of the state’s largest digital media company MarketBeat, “the future is hybrid,” he said.

“People want flexibility, but they also want to be in an office. And I’m seeing people move to different jobs for more flexibility. I think that’s a trend. They’re less interested in jobs where you’re working a ton of hours with no flexibility.”

For Lucas Fiegen, vice president of Fiegen Construction, “I think the biggest thing is you have to be creative,” he said. “We saw an opportunity to expand the industry and help workforce, and it was saying yes to those things and thinking through how to do it strategically.”

Those two, plus dozens of other local experts, will share their insight at the upcoming WIN in Workforce Summit on Oct. 28 at the Sioux Falls Convention Center. The annual event, produced by the Sioux Falls Development Foundation, will feature keynote speaker Chad Greenway and multiple sessions revolving around topics such as Your Workforce in 2030, 4 Tools for Retaining High-Functioning Teams, Talent Tips That Work and Future Labor Skills – Employment Prospectus 2030.

“We have an incredible lineup of presenters that ensures you’re going to leave this event with actionable takeaways you can immediately apply in your workplace,” said Denise Guzzetta, vice president of talent and workforce development.

“Whether you’re trying to understand Generation Z, hoping to improve your recruitment and retention or looking to learn some best practices, this event is going to deliver for you.”

For Paulson, who will speak on the 2030 workforce, the pandemic has represented “a 10-year leap forward” in terms of how, when and where people work.

In his own downtown office, “nobody’s there the entire day,” he said. “I get a sense of productivity by how long projects remain on their plate. We’ve done a great job attracting people by saying we’re not X big employer. We get applicants looking for something different, so that’s been an advantage.”

He also sees more people trying out being their own boss.

“People sometimes see the good parts of entrepreneurship and don’t realize you have to work 60 hours a week for a long time or more,” he said. “But the equation in people’s heads is changing too. It’s not about maximum cash and who cares how much I work. It’s more of a ‘how can I fit my job around my lifestyle’ and not my lifestyle around my job.”

Fiegen will speak at the summit about how his family business has seen success increasing interest in the trades through a unique partnership with O’Gorman High School to support the school’s industrial arts program.

“Year one they were building sawhorses and sheds, and now we’re starting to get other trades involved, so this year they were pouring and finishing concrete, and next semester we’re going to have some masons come out and show them how to lay a block foundation,” Fiegen said.

“We’re trying to figure out as the program evolves how they can have hands-on experience in a multitude of industries.”

It has expanded to add CAD technology and 3D-printing programs and has attracted more students than anticipated.

“My uncle Rusty goes in once or twice a semester and talks about next steps and where kids can go, including tech school, and the different opportunities they have,” Fiegen said.

His company also is working with new employees aspiring to management positions to start them in the field, including mentoring and shadowing.

“We want them to get in-the-field experience and then transition them into a construction management role.”

If these topics sound like ones you should explore further, click here to register for the WIN in Workforce Summit.

“These ideas and experts are just the start of what you’ll learn,” Guzzetta said. “We look forward to connecting with you and your team.”

Just when you thought you’d figured out your millennial workforce — here comes the next generation.

By 2030, the number of Generation Z employees in the U.S. workforce will triple, bringing with them a burst of creative and digital-friendly skills essential to the U.S. remaining competitive globally.

Already termed “influencers” and “digital creators,” Gen Z’s hypercognitive and socially driven communication styles and workplace preferences undoubtedly will have a positive impact.

This incoming generation will be one subject covered in the upcoming WIN in Workforce Summit on Oct. 28, headlined by Chad Greenway.

To learn more and register, click here.

From best practices on enhancing communication and engagement tips to competitive incentives, this strategic learning session will provide the tools your organization needs now to prepare for the newest generation of talent, including:

• Discussing global generational trends impacting your current and future human capital strategies.
• Gaining an understanding of the ties between engagement and inclusion while learning best practices.

Nathan LaCroix, talent acquisition sourcer for Avera Health, will participate in the discussion “Workforce Guide for Generation Z.”

The panel will be moderated by Greta Stewart of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and also includes Breanne Lynch from the Harrisburg School District and Josh Muckenhirn of ISG.

We sat down with LaCroix for a preview of the conversation.

First, how do you define Generation Z? Is it by birth year, life experience? And what are their key characteristics?

I would define Generation Z as the cohort following millennials, born between late 1990s and early 2010s. Generation Z is the largest generation in American history and constitutes 27 percent of the country’s population.

This the most diverse generation by far, considered digital natives since they grew up with internet and during the rise of smartphones. They tend to be independent, hardworking, highly educated, higher demand for flexibility.

As you recruit members of Gen Z, what stands out? How are you adjusting your approach for them?

It’s important to customize the different recruitment tactics. Focusing on more social media efforts, possibly collaborating with influencers, improving the organization’s perception within the age group. We highlight our value proposition and the value the particular position brings to the organization. This helps them understand the importance of the role and the change to make a meaningful impact. Going beyond status quo is important.

How about a little Generation 101. How do you find Gen Z differs from millennials?

Gen Z are defined by their competitiveness, independence and wanting to be judged by their own merits. They are skilled at multitasking as they have always lived in the connected world.

What should organizations know about creating an optimal work environment that both attracts and retains Gen Z?

It’s important that organizations are offering flexibility, coaching opportunities from peers, providing meaningful work, work/life balance, clear development opportunities and social awareness — because they are digital natives.

What do you hope WIN attendees take away from this conversation?

Just how influential Gen Z is and how much of a positive impact organizations can realize when having them join the workforce. We can evolve with Gen Z and provide best practices to help retain and recruit top talent.

Great things are ahead, and I, for one, am excited to work with the next generation.

Click here to learn more and register for the WIN in Workforce Summit.

Chad Greenway to headline WIN in Workforce Summit