The Workforce Summit

"A business' most important investment is its investment in its people."

"I challenge all of you to take what you learn here, come together with people you don't normally network with and solve these problems together."

"We have over 90 businesses represented here today."

"Every organization has an informal structure. It is the informal structure, or the emotional connections, that gets business done.  Emotion is much more powerful in motivating your workforce than any tangible construct you could provide."

"The informal organization is all about culture. It's intuitive, and the informal organization fills gaps in the formal structure."

"The Baby Boomers are the largest generation in history followed by the echo generation – the offspring of the Boomers that are now preparing to enter the workforce. And right now, we have the biggest generation that is ready to retire, but that doesn't mean they are going to retire.  People are living and working longer."

"There are four different generations in today's workplace: The Traditionalists, the Baby Boomers, the Gen Xers and the Millenials."

"It used to be you go to school, you get a job, you climb the corporate ladder, you retire, then you die. It's just not that way any more."

"It costs a company about $7,000 per day to have a key position vacant. Yet, companies do not have the systems in place to effectively create a strong labor pool."

"You need to recruit continuously. There is no reason why companies cannot develop databases and track those individuals interested in their organizations.  Even if a company is not hiring, it should always be recruiting."

"Recruiting employees is a war. If you have the right technology, the right mentality, and the right recruitment, you will win."

"Leadership is more about transforming yourself than anything else. Leadership is about becoming someone others want to follow."

"If you want to be successful in life, you must learn how to influence others."

"Everything in life is absolutely about the ability to influence."

"While we can't do this [build a workforce] overnight, we can lose the opportunity overnight by stopping our work."

"Not only do we need to train workers to meet the needs of industry, but it will also create better lives for people now and for future generations. Too many people in Wyoming are working more than one job. That hurts their family lives - it's hard to hold two jobs and raise two children."

"Workforce now has the attention of public policy makers, where it previously did not."

"In this time of incredible structural change, not only do we need to work harder, we need to work smarter."

"For Baby Boomers, we can expect that our skills will be obsolete within 10 to 12 years. For the Busters, the generation immediately after the Boomers, their skills will be obsolete within 36 months."

"Retraining adults is the most significant issue facing us. We need better ways to anticipate the future and respond faster."

"The lack of performance in the workplace is far more frequently caused by environmental rather than individual factors. Nevertheless, we continue trying to fix the individuals rather than the environment. It's cheaper and easier to fix the environment."

"Seventy-five percent of employees think they could do their jobs better if their workplace environment was improved. On the other hand, the majority of employers think they could get more productivity from their employees by pushing them through individualized training."

"Companies that invest heavily in their employees see increased profits and increased sales. Even in years of economic struggles, they are much better off than companies that do not invest in their people."

"If you put people in a world class environment, they will give a world class performance."

"Environment affects behavior. If you put people in a nurturing environment, they will treat each other in that way."

"With a world-class environment, world-class equipment and a motivated staff, we re-train ‘untalented' people to do amazing things."

"It's the way that you think about people that determines their behavior."