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Answer to Sioux Falls Workforce Woes: More Marketing!

Sioux Falls employers think their workforce problems stem in part from negative perceptions of South Dakota:

“Most of the professional people we ask don’t know very much about the overall economy.  They only know they can’t find the right person for the job,” Mac Holladay, Market Street Services, said.

…”There are a variety of reasons for that.  Many people talked about the external perception of the state. That, in fact, if they could get people to come here, they’d be won over.  But so many of them did not see South Dakota in a positive way,” Holladay said [Brady Mallory, “Solutions to Improve Sioux Falls’ Workforce,” KELO-TV, 2015.09.16].

What? You mean Lawrence & Schiller’s three-million-dollar Mars campaign hasn’t worked?

The Strategic Workforce Action Agenda (executive summary here; 37 pages of detail here) calls for plenty more marketing (because those nice people at Lawrence & Schiller have families to feed… and because Scott Lawrence himself was on the SWAA Task Force). And not just marketing, but unified marketing:

The Sioux Falls Area should strive to maintain a consistency of message related to its talent attraction campaigns. Multiple narratives, formats, themes, and designs in online and print media and placements in external markets could be confusing for viewers and actually dilute the impact of each separate initiative. While there is less potential for confusion with state-level marketing, it will nevertheless be important that local, regional, and state-initiated efforts are consistent to the degree necessary to convey a seamless message. Currently, the State of South Dakota implements the Dakota Roots program targeting expatriates and has recently launched the Build Dakota initiative focused both on scholarships to technical institutes as well as talent marketing campaigns across South Dakota and in adjacent states. Messaging will principally be focused on skilled trades occupations. Any new talent attraction initiative developed and implemented by Forward Sioux Falls should be informed by existing efforts, leveraged effectively, and seek to coordinate messaging as effectively as possible [Market Street Services, “Sioux Falls Area Strategic Workforce Action Agenda,” June 2015, pp. 12–13].

Of course, if you want to unify your marketing with the state’s efforts, you have to work with the state’s marketing contractor, and that would be Lawrence & Schiller. Clever.

Ah, but the Action Agenda isn’t trying to kick everyone else off the South Dakota marketing gravy train. The task force apparently thinks Electric Pulp did a boffo job putting Mayor Mike Huether on the “SiouxFallsHasJobs.com” campaign and should spend more on that campaign:

Forward Sioux Falls should also work with the City of Sioux Falls to leverage and complement the “Sioux Falls Has Jobs” campaign with messages and information promoting the full regional Sioux Falls market and employment base. This might entail simply adding new employment openings to the website or creating billboards in the same style and design as the city’s versions but featuring leaders from outside Sioux Falls proper. Forward Sioux Falls should contribute resources to support the expansion of the campaign to high-value external markets [“SFASWAA,” June 2015, pp. 13–14].

Money talks. But Sioux Falls, instead of spending all that money talking, why not just pay workers enough to feed their kids?

10 Comments

  1. Nick Nemec 2015-09-23 07:45

    I wonder what marketing campaign North Dakota used to attract workers to the coldest, most remote oil fields in the lower 48?

  2. Craig 2015-09-23 08:29

    Nick they didn’t need a campaign – they simply said “we have oil – we need someone to take that oil out of the ground – we will pay you piles of money to do so” and people started showing up.

    When a truck driver can move to the oil fields and make $150k his first year…. he will ignore many of the less attractive features of an area. I’m sure if we started paying $60k a year for call center work or $120k a year for teachers we would have people moving here tomorrow… with or without a marketing campaign.

  3. rwb 2015-09-23 08:43

    I’m sure it couldn’t have anything to do with the many South Dakota laughingstock incidences in the near past:

    The ranchers whining about Joan Jett being a PETA supporter and then having her replaced by a band that had three. Haha…you just can’t make this stuff up.

    The Scott Hoy debacle. “Please, just make it stop.” …or whatever his message was.

    The unbelievably stupid Mars “campaign” by the geniuses down at Lawrence and Schiller. – one of this crowd’s favorites.

    Young people who might come to South Dakota googling it and finding out that the state legislature and many local school districts place a shamefully-low value on the people who are going to teach their kids. Who would want to bring their family to a place where the state’s leaders are proud to have the lowest teacher pay in the country.

    So this stuff is out there – and much more, like the Roger Hunt crusade to look at teenagers’ genitals and get his business up in women’s uteri.

    The people with the age, education and skillsets are looking for a place that is in the 21st century, not one that’s stuck in the 18th.

    A marketing blitz might help, but it’s a major boulder to roll up the hill, particularly as the Republicans add more mass to the boulder. If they do, PLEASE don’t let Lawrence and Schiller close to it.

  4. Jerry Stone 2015-09-23 08:50

    Promote from within. Do not recruit Management or any level of Supervisory, Skilled or Technical Staff from out of the region. Entry level employees can be found within the region (150 miles) via normal ads and postings. Money isn’t everything. Sioux Falls already offers a very attractive life environment. Reward the existing population with opportunity for advancement, training and a reasonable expectation of a brighter future if they stay the course.

  5. Nick Nemec 2015-09-23 09:17

    Show me the money.

  6. Detroit Lewis 2015-09-23 09:29

    Like I said to the SF city council before they voted to fund those stupid billboards with the mayor on them, “We don’t have a jobs problem, we have a wage problem.”

  7. Jeff Barth 2015-09-23 09:35

    rwb makes some great points. Our State does not distinguish itself as a fun, progressive place to live. Our educational system has been underfunded for… ever. Our Governor want to train people for jobs so they can help existing business prosper. He does not want them trained as citizens, with an understanding of the world and their place in it.

    There was a time when there were not enough women in Wyoming. To encourage women to move there, Wyoming was the first state to give women the right to vote.

    We need workers. Hmmm… profit before people? Not working?
    How about we raise our wages to gain approbation nationwide and change our slogan to;
    WE PAY PEOPLE TO WORK. And we’ll care for and educate your kids.

  8. 96Tears 2015-09-23 11:15

    Lawrence & Shill’s target audience is NOT people outside South Dakota. It’s propaganda for people in South Dakota to give the appearance something is being done. Just like they do with the no-bid tourism contract. It’s to keep you in the dark. Don’t like it that taxpayers bankrolled $11 million to the politically connected marketing firm and got back nothing? Well, let’s bankroll $20 million or $30 million and see if that works!

    Republicans in Pierre refuse to understand their greatest potential for economic development success is NOT smokestack chasing in other states or hoping to hog tie expats and drag them back home for their own good. I know they know better. I know they know that when a prospective employer is considering South Dakota, the first thing they consider is the quality and future stability of the education system from pre-school to doctorate. But it is an article of faith for Republicans in Pierre to kill public education and dump the load on college students.

    They will not allow taxes to be increased to end the stupidity of being last in teacher pay. They refuse to decrease the student’s share of college financing by increasing the state’s share. They will not fund needed loan and grant programs. And now the SDGOP flagship John Thune is willing to kill funding for Perkins loans to show how nasty Republicans can be in Congress.

    And if you’re in the workplace, this is the state that proudly proclaims it allegiance to low worker costs … translation – Your salary, your protections in case of injury, your insurance and other benefits to protect you are kept as low as possible. And if your kid wants a job, our Governor and his legislators made sure the increase in minimum wage voted upon by the people did not include him or her. What an incentive! What a great story to tell!

    Geez! What’s wrong with people that they don’t drop everything and move to South Dakota? And when young people leave South Dakota because they got the boot from legislative policies (cited above), why aren’t they running to come back for another kick in the teeth?

    Political control first, being responsible last, is the SDGOP motto for running government (into the ground).

  9. Deb Geelsdottir 2015-09-23 22:12

    What you all said, word for word. Exactly.

Comments are closed.