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September 2, 2024
WAUSAU – Lukas Lindner – workforce development and advocacy director for the Greater Wausau Chamber of Commerce – said one of the complaints the chamber often hears from its members involves young professional retention.
Lindner said companies have shared that they hire a young professional, perhaps fresh out of college, and after only a short period of time – sometimes only six months – that person has already left the company.
Though some may have left because they didn’t like the job or felt it wasn’t the right fit for them, Lindner said the short tenure could also be because they couldn’t find a sense of community.
“(Maybe) they couldn’t get engaged with the local area, so they went back to where they’re more comfortable,” he said. “As a business organization ourselves, that breaks our hearts that that happens in our community. But we hear it, and we hear it quite frequently.”
Lindner said the chamber felt a duty to help in some way.
So, earlier this summer, the chamber surveyed 800-plus members and held focus groups with members of the younger demographic – including those who are on an upward path toward leadership in their careers.
“We wanted to know what they’re looking for from a business community, what we can do to help and specifically what the chamber could do to help them in providing that community,” he said.
What the chamber came up with, Lindner said, is the Next Wave – a new initiative designed to empower and connect rising talent in the community.
The program, he said, aims to accomplish those things by offering a vibrant social engagement group tailored to young professionals who are in the formative stages of their careers.
Lindner said it will also help provide those essential connections, networking opportunities and a supportive community where they can learn, grow and thrive together.
“My goal with this program is to provide a space for myself and my peers in the workplace to get to know each other and to become more comfortable in a business environment, to network and share ideas with each other, and to increase the confidence of this next wave of business leaders,” he said.
One benefit of this group, Lindner said, is that people will be networking with people they know, but also people they don’t know.
“Another benefit will be being able to talk to people in a smaller, more intimate setting, rather than going to a large chamber event where there’s a couple hundred people, and it’s quite difficult to network in that environment,” he said.
An idea that’s catching on
Though the Next Wave is just getting started, Lindner said business communities around the state have already been developing young professional groups that cater to this generation.
“I think a different element and goal of Next Wave is to make younger professionals aware of the community they are a part of and bring them together so they don’t feel like they’re alone,” he said. “Integration into a new employment situation or where someone has moved to a new community for a position is difficult.”
Part of the program’s success, Lindner said, will be contingent on employer awareness.
“They can easily refer employees to us, and then we can start to help everybody – both the employees by helping them find a sense of community, and the business by helping their employees create ties here, which, in turn, helps employers reduce their turnover rates,” he said.
Some employers, Lindner said, do a fantastic job of integrating their young talent – but sometimes it’s only integrating those people within the organization itself, not beyond the walls of that business and with other elements of the community.
“There’s such a fixation about the work/life balance nowadays that if we (at the chamber) can try to build the community for somebody, that’s really important for us,” he said.
Though not specifically intended to help those folks who work from home, Lindner said Next Wave can also be helpful for those workers who don’t see colleagues on a daily basis.
“They need to get out, for their mental and physical health,” he said. “Some people working from home may not leave their home for three or four days. Building a community outside of their home is a real thing.”
Kicks off in September
Next Wave officially launches this fall with the first meeting taking place Sept. 5.
After that, Lindner said meetings will be held every other month on the first Thursday of the month, from 4:30-6 p.m. at the chamber office in Wausau.
He said the first 45 minutes of the meeting will be devoted to socializing and networking; the other 45 minutes will be for topical conversation or speakers, if any are on the agenda for that evening.
“Periodically we will bring in other young professionals and emerging leaders from within the community to speak and talk on topics relating to the next generation,” he said. “Based on the focus groups, this is going to be a very fluid group. There are a lot of different needs that they wish to see filled with the group.”
Lindner said that includes activities beyond the socialization and networking aspects.
“Education of the group is important, too,” he said. “The more you educate somebody about the community they’re in, the easier it is for them to become a part of it.”
Beyond that, Lindner said the plan is for the group to decide for itself what it wants and needs.
“The chamber doesn’t have an agenda to put forward for this other than providing a service to our membership to build community of the next generation of leaders,” he said. “It’s largely a social networking group that meets six times a year building that sense of community within our membership.”
Because of space constraints at the chamber office, Lindner said Next Wave attendance is capped at 30.
Others interested in attending will be put on a waitlist.
Lindner said Next Wave is included in a chamber membership.
“Our hope is that employers see the value in having their employees be a part of this community and then be able to jump on as a business that supports it,” he said. “Supporting the idea of integrating our young professionals is something that we see as being very attractive to our business members… The employers’ role is referrals and support of the next generation.”
Lindner said the chamber has already spoken with several employers who have committed to sending employees to be a part of the Next Wave community.
By engaging with Next Wave, he said employers can play a pivotal role in nurturing the area’s next generation of professionals.
Lindner said it will also demonstrate a company’s dedication to the professional and personal development of young talent in the Greater Wausau area.
Reducing talent drought, brain drain
Right now, Lindner said, “we are in a talent war.”
“In our region, we don’t have a big four-year university – our closest one is Stevens Point,” he said. “We have a technical school (Northcentral Technical College), but (so do many areas). So, we’re kind of in a talent drought.”
For the chamber, Lindner said when young talent enters the workforce in the Wausau region, “we need to embrace them and make them feel like they’re welcome and part of the process.” “That is a big part of this Next Wave program – creating a sense of ownership and sense of community so they don’t leave and go to the likes of Madison, Minneapolis or Milwaukee for that big city community feel when we can provide that here,” he said. “It’s just that people don’t know that. That’s something that we can do as a chamber of commerce on behalf of our members.”
When looking at things from a workforce perspective, Lindner said Marathon County has a very large impending retirement population.
“We have a large population of people who are either getting close to retirement or are beyond retirement age that have not stepped away from the workforce yet,” he said. “We would be in big danger if a lot of those individuals retired without replacing them with young talent. So, this group really is going to be important for our community because it’s an investment into our next generation of leaders and the next wave of people that are going to be in the workforce in the Greater Wausau area.”
More in store
Though the Next Wave meetings will initially be held at the chamber office, Lindner said the plan is to eventually hold them at the 1904 WPS Powerhouse building, located directly behind the chamber office on Clark Island – at which time they’ll be able to host more than 30 people.
The chamber, he said, currently holds 20-year leases on the property and this fall will kick off a multi-million-dollar capital campaign to raise the funds necessary to renovate the 12,000-square-foot building, much like it recently did with the old train depot where the chamber’s current offices are located.
