What Does Workforce Development Mean? | The C-Level Strategy Series with Jon Arnold | Segment 4

In this multi-part series, Jon Arnold, President of Investment Services at J. Arnold Wealth Management, talks with area business leaders about the issues businesses face every day.

In Segment 4 of this series, the panel discusses how their organizations tackle workforce development.

On the panel are Guy Coviello, president and CEO of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber; Barb Ewing, CEO of the Youngstown Business Incubator; Bob Mesaros, president and CEO of Commercial Metal Forming and
Jeff Leo Herrmann, CEO of the Youngstown Publishing Co.

“Where we have seen the greatest success is really engaging with students to create internships that are meaningful for them,” said Ewing.

“I couldn’t even guess right now the number of interns we have brought on that have transitioned into really great employees for us.”

Mesaros described workforce development as the “foundation,” of his company.

“If you look at recent history, why do companies fail? It’s because they don’t look at, internally, did we hire the right people?”

“We look at it from a whole different perspective,” said Coviello, noting that his organization represents 2,400 businesses across many sectors.

“We need to retain the talent here. We need to help companies keep their workers. We need to expand the availability of the workforce here. We also need to attract more people to the community.”

Upcoming segments will cover more topics. You can view the discussion in its entirety here.

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