If you haven’t taken the time to fill out the CPEG survey, please do so. It’s important that all local business participate to achieve the best results. As of Wednesday, Marshall County had the poorest participation rate! That’s not good!!!
You can read more about it and find the survey links in our previous post here (or just scroll down a couple of posts.) The survey is scheduled to close today, so please take a few minutes to give us your input!
I got this joke in an email. I thought it was worth sharing here.
During a recent password audit, a company found that an employee was using the following password:
MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofySacramento
When asked why she had such a long password, she rolled her eyes and replied: “Hello!?! You told me it had to be at least eight characters long and include one capital!”
Whether you employ sewing machine operators or software developers, teachers or technicians, CNC operators or CNAs, finding and developing talent is mission critical. It’s also mission critical for the future growth of our region, and that is why your participation in this study is needed.
Marshall County Economic Development Corporation, the Corporate Partnership for Economic Growth (CPEG), and other 
regional economic development and education stakeholders are partnering in an effort to better understand the workforce needs of local business and industry.
This collaborative Regional Workforce Initiative has three goals:
You can be a part of this initiative by completing the workforce survey located here.
The goal of the survey is to quantify the number of open positions, assess skills gaps, and identify barriers to company growth related to workforce issues.
The survey will take approximately 15 minutes, and should be completed by business owners, managers, human resource managers or someone with in-depth knowledge of your company’s current and future hiring needs. The survey requests information about current full-time openings and anticipated openings over the next 6 months, including salary, skills, and education requirements. You cannot save your responses and return later.
All information will be kept confidential.
The survey will be open until Friday, July 27th. Results will be compiled to inform work sessions focused on identifying solutions to address the barriers to filling existing positions. Only companies in Marshall, Kosciusko, Elkhart, St. Joseph and Fulton Counties that complete the survey are eligible to participate in these work sessions.
Additional details about the Regional Workforce Initiative, including a list of the regional partners supporting this effort, can be found at www.cpeg.org.
Thank you for your time in completing the survey, and for helping to be a part of the solution!
Becky is off for RAGBRAI 2012. She drove to the east side of Iowa today. She’ll camp tonight in Clinton, catch a bus to Sioux Center on the west side tomorrow and start the 500+/- mile ride back on Sunday. Seven days of biking (the shortest day is 42 miles, the longest is 104 miles, if she does the Karras Century Loop), tent camping, cold showers, Port-a-Potties and fair food. Yeehaw!
Not my thing, but I think this will be the 10th year she’s done it. Our sister-in-law, Toni, will be going with her. This must be Toni’s 5th or 6th time. Apparently this sickness is contagious, but you have to be someone susceptible!
Becky rode nearly 1300 miles in preparation this year. Sometimes that’s down around 1000 and sometimes as high as 1800. Wish her luck! It would take more than luck for me to accomplish what she has.
Becky usually emails me or calls me once or twice a day and generally I reformat that into an update email blast that I send out to anyone interested. Let me know if you want to be on the list for the updates.