Site Selection Network: Hub For Sought After Site Locations and Manufacturers

By James Renzas

Site Selection Network Is The Hub For Sought After Site

Locations And Manufacturing Industries.

The Site Selection Network (SSN) of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) serves as a single-source resource for new business lead sourcing, community marketing, job creation and tax generation for the economic development community.

The Site Selection Network is represented by more than 100,000 companies. Under its new administration of Location Management Services, SSN is expanding its horizons, incorporating the hotel, tourism and entertainment industries; the commercial, industrial, and real estate industries; and the automotive industry.

What is the Site Selection Network?

The Site Selection Network of NAM is the largest site selection and search engine for desired job and revenue creating industries. It focuses on two markets: companies that want to relocate or expand in the United States and economic developers who represent communities recruiting businesses to locate in their area.

The SSN proactively provides it members with qualified leads and ensures that its members recieve the best options that fit their search criteria. Through the SSN, members have the ability to list their organization on the website, including their specifications and link to their organization’s website. This allows companies to make direct contact with communities.

The Site Selection Network offers more leads, less competition and company confidentiality.

Proposal process

The Site Selection Network will provide all companies seeking locations with a final report on submitted proposals. The final report will consist of qualified proposals listed in comparison to company specifications. It will also indicate how the communities compare regarding incentives, building and acreage requirements, sale price/lease terms, logistics and utility specifics, along with any other factors that the company has requested.

All proposals are pre-screened for the company’s stated requirements. The company will only be provided with community proposals that fulfill those requirements.

A SSN representative will contact communities that do not have a qualified proposal and explain why it was not offered.

SSN received a request from a manufacturer, asking for site selection options within a small geographic area, approximately 200 square miles. SSN delivered four qualified proposals to the manufacturer. After two months, the company made a site decision and began building in less than five months.

Another manufacturer came to SSN asking for site selection options covering multiple states. Out of 16 proposals, 11 were qualified and sent to the company. After careful consideration, a decision was made, and building began the following season.

The SSN process is completely confidential. The revealing of a company’s name, selected site or details of the proposal are at the company’s discretion.

Why join Site Selection Network?

Companies join SSN for assistance in relocating or expanding its facilities. They can place information and relocation requirements on the website, while keeping the company name completely confidential. Confidentiality allows businesses to have protection for its employees, and against high-pressure proposals from communities.

Companies that use SSN will not be disturbed with thousands of calls from recruiters. With the SSN, only one representative will contact your company and the representative will only contact you if the location is a match for your requirements.

SSN is constantly expanding in the manufacturing industry and in other highly economically desirable industries. Not only can your company obtain leads, it can also increase its marketing availability to the economic development community through the industry specific national associations. Which means through SSN your company can have a benefit equivalent to more than $2 million in marketing.

Who is involved with the Site Selection Network?

The SSN has established several members nationwide, serving NAM, and the Council of Manufacturing Associations, including specialty manufacturing companies in such industries as: biotechnology, medical device manufacturing and healthcare, high technology and electronics, energy and petroleum, aviation, automotive manufacturing and plastics and textiles.

SSN is endorsed by the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA), Society of Industrial and Office Realtors, The International Council of Shopping Centers, and the Automotive Parts Remanufactures Association (APRA).

Memberships for Site Selection Network and its services are not exclusive to these associations. It does not require any company to belong to any group or organization. SSN is currently adding new members each week.

James Renzas is President and CEO of Location Management Services, LLC (www.locationmgmt.com), a Mission Viejo, CA-based site selection firm that specializes in negotiating financial incentives and tax credits for Fortune 500 companies. Mr. Renzas has been helping companies find competitive sites in the United States for more than 25 years and holds an advanced degree in economic geography. He can be reached at (949) 472-4482 or jrenzas@locationmgmt.com.

Succeeding in an Era of Labor Shortages

By James Renzas

Succeeding in an Era of Labor Shortages

James Renzas

President

Location Management Services, LLC

Mission Viejo, CA

With all of the news about layoffs in the automotive industry and its suppliers, you wouldn’t think that the United States and European Union are entering an era of labor shortages, but they are. There are several factors causing this shortage:

1. The Baby Bust – the invention of the birth control pill resulted in much lower birth rates in the United States and Europe than previously recorded. This lower birth rate hit at a time when the Baby Boom generation was entering its child bearing years. Consequently, Baby Boomers, as a whole, have produced far fewer offspring than previous generations on a per-capita basis. The accompanying chart shows the U.S. rate of live births per 1,000 versus job and labor force growth. As the birth rate declines jobs growth continues to increase, resulting in a narrowing of the gap between labor force and employment opportunities.

2. Off-shoring – the recent trend to off-shore lesser skilled and commodity type jobs from the United States and Europe has lead to a surplus of unemployed unskilled and semi-skilled workers, but a shortage of more highly trained technical workers as capital is substituted for labor in more advanced countries. The accompanying graph shows the impact of off-shoring on the availability of software jobs in the United States. As the chart shows, software jobs are being exported far faster than jobs are being created in the United States for persons with these skills.

3. Geographic Mismatch – shifting trends in the location of economic activity and the movement of population from the Northeast to the Southwest has resulted in a mismatch of labor force skills to job opportunities. As the accompanying map illustrates, population has been continually shifting away from large employment centers in the Northeast and Midwest, resulting in a temporary mismatch between where job-seekers are located and where new jobs are being created. Human scale factors such as proximity to extended family, fear of relocation and other barriers to the movement of labor further exaserbate this situation. In addition, high housing prices in many areas makes it more difficult to recruit workers with technical and professional skills from outside of the area.

4. Skills Mismatch – For many years most young labor market entrants have been told to pursue white collar jobs instead of blue collar jobs, resulting in a surplus of people trained to take while collar jobs (e.g. college graduates) and a deficit of vocationally trained (e.g. blue collar) job applicants.

5. Homeland Security – increased homeland security efforts and border controls has made it more difficult for workers to move from one country to another for employment. Companies that rely upon ready access to foreign labor have found it more difficult to recruit workers due to homeland security concerns of federal government officials.

Given these factors which contribute to labor shortages and mismatches, what can corporate real estate executives, site selectors and commercial real estate executives do to ensure that their clients and their companies will have ready access to labor in the future as labor markets continue to tighten?

Of course, the simplest approach is through compensation. Companies will increasingly need to conduct regular compensation studies to determine if they are competitive in the marketplace for the type and quality of labor force desired. Typically, industry associations, business employer groups, state employment offices, and private companies conduct regular salary and benefits surveys which can be compared against a company’s existing salary structure to determine if pay is in-line with other potential employers.

Benefits can also be used as a competitive weapon in the battle for quality employees. Some companies have enhanced their benefits programs to compensate for local geographic cost of living differences. Some companies provide low cost or no-interest loans to employees that they wish to recruit in order to get them to move to more costly areas. If the employee leaves the company the loan is payable immediately, but the employee gets to keep the appreciation in housing value, if any.

On-site day care has been used as a means for attracting more and better quality clerical employees in companies that require a large, young workforce of childbearing age. These companies enter into a relationship with an independent vendor who provides these services in a location either near or on company property in exchange for subsidized facilities or financial assistance. Employees love the ability to be close to their children and to be able to run over to see their kids during lunch or even if there is a special event at school. One company we interviewed at LMS has 10 applications for every available job because of this benefit. While other companies in the same geographic area are starving for good quality labor, this company has been able to attract more applicants than they need at similar wage and benefits levels.

Some areas are using Workforce Development Board funds from the federal government to give high school and college graduates the skills necessary to compete for highly technical blue collar jobs that they are often unable to compete for. Contra Costa County, California for example is using WDB funds to marry the needs of expanding employers in manufacturing industries with the skills of the local labor force. Because vocational training has been de-emphasized in California for the last 20 years, manufacturers are finding that many applicants do not have the math and reading skills necessary to qualify for well-paying jobs in the manufacturing sector. Areas that want to compete for job creating activities will have a well-coordinated program matching the needs of local employers with the skills training programs offered through community and vocational colleges.

Corporate culture often plays into the ability of a company to attract and recruit employees in a tight labor market. People want to be in an environment where it is fun and challenging to do work. Companies that make work fun and challenging can often compete well for a labor force that is becoming increasingly sensitive to work-life balance issues by providing flexible work schedules built around child-rearing responsibilities and, in some cases, telecommuting options.

A recent development in labor force recruitment has been the rise of home-based jobs which rely on broadband internet and distributed telephone systems to enable employers to recruit technical and communications personnel who work directly from their homes. This allows companies to access labor markets that are geographically diverse and increases the ability of employers to find hard-to-recruit personnel in their local labor markets. One such recruiting company – telecommute-jobs.com – currently has work-at-home jobs in a variety of areas including data entry, customer service, reservations, and computer programming. Stay-at-home parents and those who are not located near one of the employer’s corporate facilities can now be added to the company’s labor force without the expense of added parking lots or office space. This saves the company money for occupancy cost and the employee the cost of commuting. In exchange for the additional flexibility and freedom from having to commute, employees will often work for less than if they were required to report to a corporate facility. This technique has worked well in many applications, including the low-cost airline, Jet Blue, which has all of its reservations agents working in home-based jobs.

Suggestions for Employers

The labor shortage in the United States and the European Union is likely to get far worse before it gets better. Demographic changes and continued economic expansion following the mini-recession of the post dot-com world are likely to combine for tighter labor market conditions in many areas.

In order to successfully compete for an ever tightening supply of workers, employers need to re-think not only where they employ people, but also how they use these human resources in the most effective way. It starts with the recognition that labor resources are frequently the most important assets a company has, but also the most volatile. Machinery and equipment may break down, but it doesn’t have child rearing, health issues and family emergencies to deal with and thus this component is far more predictable.

Recognizing this, companies that adapt to highly complex human needs for wages, benefits, work satisfaction, time flexibility, and geographic diversification are likely to be in a more competitive position for the best of these resources. Starting at the top, companies need to re-think their operations in terms of competing for increasingly scare human resources by recognizing how different and unique this resource can be and how important it is in the success of any company.

About the Author

James Renzas is President and CEO of Location Management Services, headquartered in Mission Viejo, California. Mr. Renzas has over 25 years of experience in helping companies find the optimal location for corporate facilities and leads a group of 37 highly qualified consultants through the United States, Europe and the Pacific Rim to help companies with corporate expansion and relocation issues.