Baton Rouge Business Report Trends for 2019 Roundtable

SPO NS ORE D CONT E N T

Trends for 2019 ROUNDTABLE

S P O N S O R E D BY

S P O N S O RED C O N TEN T

Meet the roundtable participants Connie Fabre Executive Director, Greater Baton Rouge Industry Alliance

Mathew Laborde

CEO, Elifin Realty

Michael Nizzo East Baton Rouge Market President, Business First Bank

Nick Pentas

General Manager and Partner, Mercedes-Benz of Baton Rouge

Christel Slaughter

CEO, SSA Consultants

Edgardo Tenreiro

CEO, Baton Rouge General Medical Center

About the I Trends for 2019 Roundtable

n mid-December, Business Report invited leaders representing each of our sponsors to a unique morning roundtable for a conversation about some of the most critical issues facing the Baton Rouge businesses and the community in the coming year. Topics included quality of life, education, crime, interest rates, tariffs and more. Panelists agreed Baton Rouge is in dire need of a collective vision, and they believe it is incumbent upon the business community to forge one. They believe education is getting better, but still has a long way to go.

And they shared their successes and challenges in addressing health care costs and workforce challenges. Comments made during the discussion have been edited and condensed for clarity and for space. Read a complete transcript of the roundtable at businessreport.com/2019-roundtable.

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S P O N S O RED C O N TEN T

QUESTION

What is the most pressing issue for the Baton Rouge community in 2019?

Improving the quality of life in the area. Obviously, the passage of MoveEBR was a big plus in that direction. We all know that transportation is a huge issue, but we need to get Baton Rouge to be the type of city that we all want it to be so that we can attract talent and retain talent. We can’t do that artificially from the top down; it’s got to come from bottom up. It’s about creating a city, and it starts with what’s been going on with downtown. That needs to expand to north Baton Rouge, Mid City and then in concentric circles from that. If we don’t have a city that people want to stay in and move to, then there’s no amount of anything that the Baton Rouge Area Chamber or any of our individual businesses can do to make that happen.

—Edgardo Tenreiro

The biggest challenge facing us is the divide. There are two sides pitted against one another, and all these big contentious issues that the community faces, whether it’s traffic, whether it’s race, whether it is the St. George issue, whether it’s education.

There are two roads that we can pick to go down. It’s either everybody digs in their heels and fights each other, or they get together, they work together and they solve the problems.

If you look at Mike Wampold, if you look at Jim Bernhard, if you look what the mayor did with MoveEBR, I think that’s a great model for how the city has the opportunity to tackle some of its big issues.

—Mathew Laborde

Retaining talent. I think it’s a pressing issue because a lot of our young people go to college here at LSU. They get TOPS and then they move to a city like Houston, which is our number one alumni city. So a lot of our local young talent is getting an education here for free and leaving. How do we retain that talent? One of the things I struggle with as a business owner is the talent pool. So what can we do to retain the talent? How do we make this city more attractive? How do we make the jobs more attractive? People do a lot of things that are kind of gimmicky. You see it on the West Coast and Silicon Valley where they make the offices fun. That might work for the creative minds, but there are also young people that might not be in the creative field. In my industry specifically, we need technicians. But people have stopped working with their hands.

They’ve made that less attractive. Everybody feels like they have to go and get a four-year college degree and a lot of those vocational occupations are very limited.

There’s a limited supply of that talent. So I appreciate the Ardendale Site at Baton Rouge Community College—things like that will help us. We need to let our kids know that it’s OK to work with your hands.

—Nick Pentas

I believe the Baton Rouge community has taken positive steps towards making this region a place where small businesses want to come, where entrepreneurs want to start new ventures. With that said, we could certainly improve our region by increasing the access and ability to get capital. Being in the finance sector, we recognize that small businesses need capital to grow. We see new startup ventures that have great visions and a good business plan, but not enough startup capital. If the region had more sources of venture capital and lending programs available for startup companies, we would really see our local economy grow.

—Michael Nizzo

If we could develop a collective vision for our community and region, that would be really helpful. I’m encouraged by the passage of the taxes. That made me very optimistic about the willingness of our community to move forward and deal with some of the big problems that we face.

I agree with everyone that attracting and retaining talent is the key and there are areas in this state literally dying. They’re more rural, but they were once nice towns. You can watch communities stagnate, and you are either getting better or you are sliding in the opposite direction. Workforce is also key. With two major universities here, why aren’t we the city in the nation that has more interns and people graduate from college or with a graduate degree, or even an associate degree or certificate and they’ve already had work experience? It would be a fabulous thing. It’s a “try them before you buy them” kind of program, so it’s good for the employer as well. We need some leadership to help our community to really embrace that.

—Christel Slaughter

A community is only as strong as its weakest link, and one of our weakest links is crime in this community.

But crime isn’t the problem by itself. Crime is probably the result of a combination of things. We need to start in the highest crime areas and let success grow from there. I do think crime reduction is a key because people want to feel safe. Crime is key also for workforce development. We’ve got major industry right here that is trying to access the local community for workers; however, it’s been very difficult. Industrial plants often get asked, “How can your neighbors get more jobs inside the plant?” Plant’s answer is, “They have to be qualified.” So for many years, there was a disconnect because people didn’t understand what it means to be qualified to work in industry. For starters, people must be drug-free, and drugs and related crimes are keeping a lot of people from qualifying for jobs. But we are making some strides with training. There is the North Baton Rouge Industrial Training Initiative that ExxonMobil has been sponsoring for several years and that’s making a real difference, with probably over 190 people trained in either electrical, welding or pipefitting skills already.

The other major issue is the traffic congestion. I’m very encouraged by the MoveEBR tax passage. That is laying the groundwork for 2019.

I also think that it is very important for the bridge district to get funded.

—Connie Fabre

Daily-Report.com | BUSINESS REPORT, January 15, 2019

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S P O N S O RED C O N TEN T

QUESTION

Why do we lack a collective vision for Baton Rouge?

I think it’s a lack of understanding of root causes and rational logical solutions and I’m going to put the blame squarely on the leaders of the business community—or I should say the challenge, really. The solution must come from the business community and I don’t know that we have had our collective voice.

We haven’t developed it. I think the Chamber of Commerce has done a lot of great work in this regard, but there’s a lot more to be done.

Collectively, I don’t know that there’s a clear vision of what we want to accomplish. I think the challenge I would like to issue— hopefully through this forum—is “What are we going to do about this? What is the business community going to do about developing that vision?”

— Edgardo Tenreiro

If the area that encompasses Baton Rouge and New Orleans could be developed into a super region—as has been discussed often—that could be a game changer. Some years ago, there was a Canadian government entity that wanted to invest in a big intermodal port between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. It never did take off. Getting together on something like that and having a strategic vision that we are going to be the gateway to South America or what have you—that could double investment here. As another example, the federal government put together a strategic plan of highway upgrades and new interstate highways and they completely bypassed Louisiana. A more effective shared vision might get Louisiana on those types of plans.

— Connie Fabre

I’m not sure that people really understand the power of a shared vision. We have elements. We have the health district. We have the Baton Rouge Community College and the Career and Technical Academy, and we have the automotive technician training program.

And so on. What’s our collective vision? If we were able to have some of the community leaders or organizations come together and help shape that, then, for example, BRCC would be able to say, “Gee, we are moving in the area of information technology, so let’s put more programs out in that area.” Or we want to be known as the destination health care site. What does that mean for all of our businesses that are located here? How do we feed off of that, but also support that? I think it’s just not realizing the dramatic difference that can make.

—Christel Slaughter

When we invest in teachers,

her future gets brighter.

Thanks to a $13,000,000 grant, ExxonMobil Baton Rouge has partnered with the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) to bring professional development opportunities to STEM teachers across Louisiana to help improve student success in Advanced Placement testing. Learn more at EnergyGoesFar.com

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S P O N S O RED C O N TEN T

QUESTION

Are educational opportunities in Baton Rouge improving?

How do we address barriers to greater progress?

The recent school board election and the results were very encouraging. We have now, in essence, a supermajority of reform-oriented, pro-economic development representatives. So if ever there were a chance for business to get involved in transforming the education system, it will be in this next period. We have a huge opportunity. I’m not an education specialist. I tend to look at it from my own health care perspective: How can we get high school graduates that are prepared to enter nursing school? Both Our Lady of the Lake and the General have their own nursing schools and we want quality high school graduates that can become nurses. There is a huge demand for that career. We are all doing our part, but I think we need to go

even deeper and lower in terms of where these students are coming from and again, I think the Baton Rouge Area Chamber and others are doing a phenomenal job of transforming this.

— Edgardo Tenreiro

One of the opportunities for education in Baton Rouge is the new charter schools that have just been attracted to the area. So you’ve got IDEA, you’ve got BASIS, recruited by New Schools for Baton Rouge. They have gone across the country and recruited the top charter schools in the country that have had success in areas like ours with a student population like ours. I just got a chance to tour BASIS. The curriculum there and the environment,

the rigor is very impressive and that’s a public school. That’s a charter school. So I think part of it is on us to make sure that we keep our options open—and get the word out about what they are doing and the programs available—to start changing that perception and ensure that they are allowed to open additional schools.

for education. We’ve seen some great charter schools come in; our magnet schools continue to improve. By creating these options, competition is increased, and schools begin striving for better results. We have seen greater competition in education over the last couple of years and I certainly hope that continues.

One of the things we can do to help the schools is take a model out of Habitat for Humanity and get volunteers. Not to take away from that organization, but to encourage parents to volunteer.

There are plenty of parents that have some experience in construction or have done some light maintenance. When I volunteer at my kids’ school, they always say, “We have a dad here. I need you to pick this up or move this or help, you know, clean this up.” If we get the parents more involved and the construction business owners who volunteer their services, we can help maintain the schools a little better.

Maintenance is an area in which the public school system needs help. It’s frustrating to see your child go to public school and let’s say it’s getting an A rating, but the facility is run down. It’s dark and it’s dingy and paint is peeling off the ceiling of the gym in sheets and the playground is just sad. And then you go to another school and it’s brand new.

There has to be a balance. Maintenance is key; I know this so well from working in industry with maintenance people daily. I’d like get volunteers from industrial plants and the contractors to offer some help to the East Baton Rouge Parish Schools’ maintenance department to figure out how to improve best practices.

What best practices from industry can be shared with the school system or with the city government?

— Mathew Laborde

—Nick Pentas

Currently and going into 2019 and 2020, the environment exists where we are encouraging more and more options

—Michael Nizzo

—Connie Fabre

Daily-Report.com | BUSINESS REPORT, January 15, 2019

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S P O N S O RED C O N TEN T

QUESTION

We’ve had a lot of discussion about business taking the lead in addressing social issues and other public matters.

Do you think we’ve reached a turning point?

I want to put it in even stronger terms. Businesses not only can and should take the lead, but it is the only answer to the dilemma. One of the things that impressed me this year when the Baton Rouge Area Chamber travelled to Cincinnati for the canvas trip: The turnaround of that city was led by business. It was not led by interest groups. It was not led by the mayor. It was not even led by the chamber. It was led by the top business leaders of the community— they turned that place around. They put their money where their mouth is.

I came back from the trip convinced that only the top business leaders can develop the type of vision that others will follow. If businesses don’t get together with a common voice, there is no hope. That is how strongly I feel about how we need to be involved. Again, that’s not to say that we haven’t been involved, but I think we have not been involved with one voice in a coordinated fashion. I think that’s the next step—the next iteration of the efforts that we have had over the last couple of decades.

— Edgardo Tenreiro

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I don’t think this is anything new.

Look, for example, at what Baton Rouge General did with the Mid City Redevelopment Alliance. Now we are all seeing the fruits today of that work over the years. We have four Rotarians in the room and at the beginning of some of the Rotary meetings, they’ll present a little snippet of history from what the club has done in the past. The other day, one of the flashbacks to the past was that the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge paid from the club’s revenue to pave several miles of roads downtown. So this is nothing new. Maybe we took a step back as a business community and we are seeing the effects of that, and rightfully so.

Now a lot of business leaders are stepping up and saying, “We need to take the reigns again.”

—Nick Pentas

It seems that past governors or mayors haven’t been able to put forth a compelling enough vision to solve some of our lingering problems. I do think that business and industry can absolutely make the difference and I’ve seen that recently working with CRISIS, which is the Capital Region Industry for Sustainable Infrastructure Solutions, and working together with MoveEBR.

Business and industry, health care—we have had many different sectors come together in CRISIS. With that success, now maybe the business community can continue to grow on that idea and come together as another forum to collaborate with government, and then tackle whatever the next issues are. Having businesses at the table will help drive the vision.

—Connie Fabre

Those who need to step up are young people, young professionals and some of the people around this table and their peers. They have great ideas. They have different ways of seeing the world. It is frustrating the heck out of my clients to have young people in their workforce and to try to deal with this rich talent and robust energy that they bring, but I do think from a community standpoint, Nick is exactly right.

We did see some icons of leadership in the past and some of those people are still around and some are not. It’s time for the mantle to be taken up by other people and I think that it’s the next generation that’s really going to take us where we need to go.

—Christel Slaughter

S P O N S O RED C O N TEN T

QUESTION

What is the most pressing issue in your industry or business, and how do you plan to tackle it in 2019?

What we need to do in health care is provide high-performing physicians and hospitals that can improve the quality of the health of employees and reduce costs. I don’t know that we collectively have provided to the business community the value that they demand. On the other hand, I don’t know whether companies understand the intricacies of what they need to do in order to demand that from their brokers, consultants, networks, insurance companies and ultimately from the physicians and hospitals. So there is a lot of education that needs to happen, a lot of learning on the part of business to understand the levers that they can pull and push to demand the type of care that their employees and families deserve. Obviously, groups like Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon, and other companies are dipping their toes with gusto in this environment and we will see where we all have high expectations of what that could be. We are unsure of what that could be, but certainly is going to involve high quality, low cost. [At the General], we believe that regardless of what happens on the health care reform environment, on the state level, or even in the private sector, we know that high quality and low cost is going to reign supreme. So we are focused on cutting our costs, improving our through-puts, and improving our productivity and quality.

If we can do those things at the same time—and I think that we have been able to do it over the years—then we will be prepared. The challenge I would issue to leaders of businesses is this:

Pay attention to what is happening to your health plan. Don’t let the broker or the consultant tell you. You have to get involved.

— Edgardo Tenreiro

On a granular level in commercial real estate, it is the lack of data. This is more focused on the commercial side, but if you were to ask me how many office buildings sold in 2018, I couldn’t tell you. If you were to ask anybody that, there’s not a person on this planet that knows that information. I recently went to an event with a lot of other agents from around the country and one of the reasons for that is the public records in East Baton Rouge Parish are not linked together. The Clerk of Court doesn’t really talk well to the Assessor.

All of that information is not in a form where you can readily find it, and it takes a lot of manual labor to collect it.

What does that mean? That means for investors and business owners making the decision on whether to buy an office building, they do so based off of feelings instead of facts. That’s the biggest challenge I see and that’s also the biggest opportunity. If you come to me on Feb. 15 and ask how many office buildings sold in 2018 in Baton Rouge, I will be able to tell you. I promise you that, because we are putting the people and the systems in place to be able to get those kinds of answers to our clients. At the end of the day, we are in the information business, not the real estate business. Being able to be the expert for our clients and have reli-

able, accurate data that is put together based off of what’s really happening, rather than our assumptions and feelings about the market, is key.

— Mathew Laborde

Rising interest rates. Also impacting the auto industry are tariffs and also distractors/disrupters. You have these big companies like Amazon that are jumping into other realms. Think about the small businesses that have been overtaken by big companies like Wal-Mart. You have to think about some of these big retail companies and how big they are getting.

That impacts our local community and our local businesses. How we stand together is to look inside our community and do business with each other. We have to open communication to see how you can help each other. Interest rates are making things more expensive. It’s going to impact real estate, home-buying, car purchases, getting loans. I understand there has to be a need for interest, but it’s also one of those things that nobody likes paying.

Interest doesn’t provide value. I know it makes money for some industries, but it doesn’t provide a value to the consumer.

—Nick Pentas

For banks, the regulatory environment is always a focus. The current administration has not really repealed many banking regulations, but we have seen a deceleration in the formation of new regulations. The current environment allows banks to better predict their cost of compliance, which will ultimately benefit the consumer. In 2019, I believe the banking industry will continue to see the changes that we’ve seen over the last several years. Many community banks have merged and have been sold, therefore we have fewer community banks in our region now, but this doesn’t mean local banking is going away.

Business First Bank had an excellent 2018 in which we completed two merg-

PREPARE FOR THE ‘PARENNIALS’ CHRISTEL SLAUGHTER I WENT TO a conference and there was a speaker on how ‘perennials’ are making decisions. A parennial is a millennial who is a parent. How frightening is that? But here’s what I learned: Your website needs to load up quickly. They need to be able to go on Yelp and see the pediatricians’ ratings. They need to be able to see blogs and links because that conveys someone who is more substantial or up to speed on what they are looking for. They want to be able to text their doctor. They want to be able to have a close relationship with their health care providers. It’s really fascinating that they want evaluation tools and the things that they are looking for are really very different from previous generations. I think that’s really going to shake people up. I told that to someone that I was going to work with—a big clinic out of town. The business manager is probably in his 50s and he said, “Well, we can fix that. We just don’t even put the bad ratings of the website.” I said, “They are not looking for the ratings on your website. They are looking at other websites for that.” It just goes to show we are not all connecting.

ers and expanded into the Dallas market. Today we are right over $2 billion in assets. As a business-focused community bank, we have the infrastructure in place to meet the needs of the customers that we serve while continuing to operate like a community bank. We continue to place a high value on creating relationships with small businesses and individuals. We’ve also seen how our larger banking institutions have become bigger as they continue to push their customer base to online and automated application to conduct business. As these trends continue, I would recommend that both individuals and business owners establish a relationship with a community banker. There are so many opportunities that require a banking relationship and cannot be optimized from a customer’s perspective through an online application. Having a banker that truly understands your business can really provide a competitive advantage.

—Michael Nizzo

We have the great advantage of being able to look across industries and lots of different kinds of businesses. The interesting thing is that there is a lot of disruption in the market, whether it’s tariffs and competition, changing technology, data outlets, and so on. What we see are clients trying to face those issues and deal with them in appropriate ways and sometimes they require new solutions that they haven’t tried before. We seem to be doing a lot of strategic planning. Sometimes, one particular business line either has a lot of potential or is not hitting its mark, and maybe we need to evaluate whether it should even be in this business anymore. There’s a lot of succession planning—certainly family-run businesses fall into that category. A lot of companies have skimped on leadership development because the economy wasn’t as good or they weren’t growing, but now the market is better and baby boomers are starting to retire. They are getting in these new workers who are different. We are seeing more interest in assessments before someone is employed and in the promotion of people. We’re seeing more executive coaching. When I look back on the 360’s that we’ve done, the leadership training, conflict resolution, little diagnostic tools along the way, it’s not a surprise that some are doing as well as they are doing because they really invested in their people all along the way.

—Christel Slaughter

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S P O N S O RED C O N TEN T Looking at the situation from our members’ viewpoint—mostly petrochemical, heavy industry companies—the top pressing issues seem to be related to some federal gridlock. On one hand, the Trump administration has stopped so many new regulations coming out, which is a good thing. But there are a couple of things where industry just wanted resolution—in safety regulations and things like that. The tariffs are raising some costs for steel and other materials. Understanding the predictability of doing business is the issue here. One member in particular, who just announced a very large project, is moving forward, but the tariffs threw them for a loop and the announcement was pushed by six months or more because of the unpredictable nature of things. I know that Louisiana Chemical Association is leading a group of managers to go to Washington, D.C., to talk to key officials to help them understand the ripple effect. I do understand it’s a balancing act of the whole country’s economy. At least we have the chance to go and educate our government leaders.

—Connie Fabre

Taking on health care NICKPENTAS

I know health care is expensive; I know it’s an issue. But what is the genesis of the problem? I think you begin with your own business. One thing we started doing was that I took out all the vending machines that had junk food and I put in healthy vending machines.

I also made sure you can use Apple Pay. The lady that put them in, she is in there every few days. She’s like, “Everybody is buying all these healthy snacks.” Start with that. Smoke-free facilities, weight loss competitions, step competitions. I see people walking around the dealership all the time trying to beat their peer on their break.

We have people come in and provide flu shots, instead of just saying, “Go get your flu shot.” For those who don’t have health insurance, we pay for the flu shot. We are giving our employees healthy cookbooks instead of a ham for Christmas. We did a company flag football team and we are creating a soccer team and we are going bowling. Then you also benefit from team-building there, too.

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EDGARDO TENREIRO

I’m going to get in the weeds, but I would say as business owners, 10% to 15% of your employees or family members drive 70% to 90% of your health care costs. You need to think about the techniques that my health care provider is using to change behavior that is driving 90% of my costs.

Again, you have to get down in the weeds and there are techniques and there are programs and structures that you can develop with incentives and so forth to modify the behavior of those who are driving your health care costs. And then engage them in a positive modification of those behaviors so that over time, you can control your health care costs. We know this because at the General, we have started this complex care center where our employees have chosen to go to this center. We have health coaches. We have nutritionists. We have exercise physiologists. We have internal medicine doctors that could have a huge effect on the health of

those individuals, then we modify our health plan to provide the appropriate incentives, financial, to these employees by $0 deductible, $0 copay. It’s been a remarkable journey over the last three years. Those are the kinds of innovative programs that as employers, CEOs should demand of their network of providers so that you can once and for all get control over your costs. Then if you supplement that with the kind of things that we have been talking about in terms of health and wellness and healthy choices for food and nutrition; and if you add another layer, which is, “What kind of city are we building? How come we don’t have sidewalks? Why do I have to get the car to go from my hospital to the mall to go to a restaurant to eat a healthy salad? Why can’t I just walk?”

That’s why I am so encouraged about MoveEBR, and also about the work that the Baton Rouge Area Foundation and others have been doing with just having a walkable, bikeable city. We are encouraging healthy behaviors that we have not done in the past.

S P O N S O RED C O N TEN T

About those rising interest rates

QUESTION

What challenges do you face in workforce recruitment, and how are you addressing those?

An engaged workforce is key. And I think it’s important for the leaders of companies to establish a bold vision that’s exciting and that people want to buy into. Because I think, speaking as a millennial, the millennial generation wants to be part of something that makes a difference. So at Elifin, our goal is to be the number one commercial real estate brokerage in the Baton Rouge MSA by the end of 2020 or sooner, in terms of volume of business; not number of agents. We’ve had one person relocate from Manhattan, we’ve had one person relocate from Houston and they’re excited to be in Baton Rouge.

They’re excited to be on Government Street in Mid City, and to be involved in this growing, unique community that’s in this city right now. But I think setting that vision is really important. It’s not just about being nice, or having the best snacks in the break room; it’s about setting a vision that people really want to be a part of.

— Mathew Laborde

Our group started with one MercedesBenz store in Baton Rouge and now we’re up to four Mercedes stores in the Southeast. The CEOs of the other locations and I got together to decide what our company was going be about. We have culture cards that every employee wears. It has a mission statement—a company mantra. On the back are our pillars. We call it our quiver of arrows and it’s just basically what our core principles are. Some examples: “Smile, you’re on stage.”

Michael NIZZO

I think it’s important to note that while we have been in a rising rate environment for some time now, inflation has not become an issue. Since inflation seems to be in check, we are expecting 2019 to be more stable than 2018. In 2019, it should be easier for businesses and individuals to predict their financing costs. Historically, we are still in an overall low interest rate environment.

“Ethics before profits.” “Dominate your role.” If you get caught not wearing it then a co-worker can actually tell you to do pushups or jumping jacks on the spot, which makes it fun. Culture is very important to us, so we meet weekly to share “wow” stories about how our employees go above and beyond to take care of our customers. Like helping someone on the side of the road or doing something extraordinary for a guest. Each week, we give the winner a Culture Coin worth $500 and a total of $50,000 in coins per year. The employees cash them in at our annual holiday party. We have given away a jet ski, a four-wheeler and numerous trips, among other items. It’s a huge investment on our part, but it is well worth it. Everything that we do is based on our culture. Can we find good people and make them better? That’s how we improve our workforce and that is why people will move to work for you. I’ve hired people from Vermont, from California. When we ask our employees what they like most about working with us, the most common answer is the “family environment.”

—Nick Pentas

Business First completed two mergers in 2018 and for me it was really a case study on how important it is to know and continue to develop your company’s culture. Every company has a unique culture, and that matters not just for recruitment of great employees but, on the flipside, employee retention. At Business First, we spend

a lot of time developing our culture to identify what type of bank we are, and what type of bank we want to become.

Every employee is part of this process.

In 2018, Business First held a bankwide culture event. This event allowed every employee the opportunity to meet with coworkers in other markets; ask questions of our CEO, Jude Melville; and express what it meant to them to be part of the Business First family. Having a great culture has also proven to be a great recruitment tool. Many of our new co-workers have come to Business First based on the recommendation of our current co-workers.

—Michael Nizzo

Workforce development is a pressing issue. The large number of retirements is challenging, and the skills gap issues— we need more technical skills and less four-year degree skills. Drugs are taking out a big slice of potential workers.

Digitization and utilizing technology to the next level will be a big focus this year in industry. Here is a great story from one of the managers.

He said, “In the past, when I gave plant tours, when I was working in the plant, we would take people on plant tours and they would say, ‘Where are the people?’

They would be amazed that the plant was running, and valves were opening by themselves.” This manager took a group of students through recently and they said, “Why do you have people?

Why are people running this plant?”

Digital manufacturing can make our facilities safer, more reliable and possibly change the nature of some jobs by making them more high-tech. We are going to be focusing on digitization this year a good bit.

The bigger picture Christel SLAUGHTER

We just finished the compensation study for the Baton Rouge Police Department. They are probably about 30%—generally speaking— below even the city of Gonzales as well Louisiana State Police and the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Department. Someone told me about 17 years ago, when he competed for a slot in the BRPD Academy, they had about 600 applicants and it was very competitive. Now we have filled the academy, but we may have just 40 to 60 people. Some of them are not qualified. They wash out. I want to live in a community where public services are great, but we have to pay for those. Transportation was allowed to deteriorate to the point where we absolutely had to take action. I fear that we are not really looking across different sectors—whether it is education in public schools or public services, or the police department—to discern the elements of a healthy community. What businesses want is stability and consistency, and when they begin to feel that they are not welcome or this maybe is not the place that they are going to attract the best executives, they leave. Smoothie King’s corporate office left the Northshore. They gave fabulous incentive packages for hundreds of people to move to Texas with them and not that many people took it because they love Louisiana. That’s great, but why did Smoothie King move? Because they couldn’t get the executives and the high-power talent that they needed here.

—Connie Fabre Daily-Report.com | BUSINESS REPORT, January 15, 2019

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BUSINESS REPORT, January 15, 2019 | BusinessReport.com