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Pillar 5: Adaptable Workforce

Pillar 5: Adaptable Workforce – Foster a future-ready, abundant and diverse workforce.

In many locations across the United States, talent attraction is a key issue.

As the national economy evolves and technology driven approaches increase in importance, having a skilled and adaptable workforce is essential. Keene is fortunate to have educational institutions that attract young talent to the region. The challenge is how to attract, develop and retain young people and skilled people into the local and regional economy and workforce. This ability to attract and retain talent is intrinsically linked to the unique appeal of Keene and its value proposition as a community. The Comprehensive Master Planning process aims to connect the community appeal and amenities to the value proposition for a future ready workforce. This will include identifying values and vision that make a compelling case as to why Keene should be someone’s home of choice.

Below is what we know so far from the community visioning phase of the comprehensive master planning process).

Jump to:

History

Related Macro Trends

Currently Happening in Keene

Community Survey Results

Community Snapshot Highlights

Consultant’s Insights and Potential Trade-Offs

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History

Related Macro Trends

  • A future-ready workforce means it has the capacity to anticipate and adapt to changing skill needs. This requires a flexibility and nimbleness to see opportunities and respond. This will require a broader understanding of the trends in the country and internationally.
  • Across the country, the retirement age continues to push later and later, a trend that is not expected to change in the near term. According to a recent survey by Pew Research Center, nearly 20% of people over 65 years old were employed last year.
  • The Toolbelt Generation: With the rising costs of higher education, young adults are looking for alternative pathways for job readiness. Skill trades and vocational trades are becoming more popular for Gen Z.

What is Currently Happening in Keene:

  • Cheshire Career Center
  • Lehnen Lab, an R&D space for companies and individuals who need to automate industrial processes, a classroom for educators and students, and a demonstration and educational center for their partner companies.
  • SAU 29 Strategic Plan, 2024-2030
  • KSC OSHA Education Center – Keene State College is host to New England’s authorized OSHA Training Institute Education Center and is authorized by OSHA to deliver occupational safety and health training.
  • Magnify Monadnock is a regional promotion organization that fosters economic vitality throughout the Monadnock Region by attracting the next generation of students, residents and workers who seek meaningful careers, strong communities, and an extraordinary quality of life.

What the Community Survey Results Show:

  • Under the Community and Social Fabric topics of the Community Survey, 59% of survey respondents identified embracing equity and inclusivity principles, and 66% of survey respondents identified offering life-long learning opportunities as important to shaping the future of Keene.
  • Workforce development is key to this Strategic Pillar. Under the Economic and Built Environment topics of the Community Survey, 84% of survey respondents identified encouraging and attracting desirable businesses, and 81% of survey respondents identified developing more local employment opportunities as important to shaping the future of Keene.
  • Under the Environmental and Landscape topics of the Community Survey, 63% identified embracing renewable energy and 60% identified working with surrounding communities on environmental initiatives as important to shaping the future of Keene.

What the Community Snapshot Highlights:

  • 17,000+ people work in Keene. The city is the densest employment cluster in Cheshire County, with more than half of jobs in the county overall.
  • Major employers in Keene include Cheshire Medical Center, C&S Wholesale Grocers, Keene State College, Keene School District, Imaje Corporation, and National Grange Mutual Insurance.
  • More than 50% of Keene’s workforce come into the city for their job. This showcases Keene’s regional role as a hub for employment and broadens the city’s workforce.
  • Keene residents have low unemployment rates and strong labor force participation, which are signs of a healthy workforce. In fact, 75% of Keene residents between the ages of 25 and 54 are in the labor force, indicating a strong prime-age workforce.
  • Keene residents have become increasingly educated over the past decade. In 2022, more residents have bachelor’s, master’s, or advanced degrees than in 2010. 44% of the city’s population over 25 years old have a bachelor’s or advanced degree, compared to just 34% in the county and 39% in the state overall.
  • Keene has above-average levels of people living and working in their community. Keene has the highest share of employed residents living in their respective residential locations compared to larger cities like Manchester, Rochester, Concord, Nashua, and Dover.
Community Snapshot Report >>

Consultant's Insights and Potential Trade-Offs:

  • Keene has the potential to be a creative center that helps spur innovation and flexible thinking. This is already a part of the community culture and can be further amplified, especially by looking at best-practice case studies and drawing the best examples into the community and this Comprehensive Master Planning process.
  • A capable and adaptable workforce is built on a solid foundation of education and includes training and opportunities beyond retirement. An adaptable workforce is better able to react to the fast-paced changes and realignments that characterize today’s modern and technology driven economy.
  • The City has the opportunity to work with existing educational institutions and businesses to identify compatible upcoming industries and recognize potential barriers to attracting new investments.
  • A diverse workforce not only reflects a range of industries, job levels, and advancement opportunities but spans four distinct phases of life: high school, post-high school, prime working age, and transition into retirement or encore careers. Providing a comprehensive approach to workforce development that touches all four phases requires extensive partnerships, innovative strategies, and a careful balance of resources.

Keene is a community that is attractive to many people. Knowing that there are a range of views on this topic, we are keen to hear your comments about the future trajectory of the city.

What do you think would be the ideal workforce development strategies that could create the best overall outcomes for Keene?

8 Comments

How can the City, the College, and private companies best partner to meet workforce needs?

One recent idea- in a Keene Sentinel article last month, Keene State College President Melinda Treadwell noted “the recent partnerships to meet local workforce demands in the manufacturing industry. This initiative is in line with one of several recommendations from a task force Gov. Chris Sununu created last year in response to concerns about declining enrollment in higher education in New Hampshire and across the country. ‘As we move forward, we’re working to accelerate pathways for our students and help them think about the future,’ Treadwell said. ‘And that means focusing on those high-impact practices. We want to graduate students into the workforce.’ Over the next three years, Treadwell said the college will be working to guarantee paid internships for every student at Keene State. She said the goal is to determine how to create a scalable system, which can be applied to more students in more degree programs over time.”

While Keene State and Antioch are awesome resources, we need to reach out to high school and “community college” tract workforce as well. Especially when it comes to encouraging the trades, it is actually best to talk to younger students about trades and more specific training programs. Not everyone needs or wants college, I would love to see thoughts and plans for apprenticeship programs. Working with our local businesses to offer hands on internships for construction, electrical, plumbing, cooking, etc… There are many other fields that could do the same. And the big one is actually basic people skills, which is hard to train “online”.

Keene Community Education offers apprenticeship training for plumbers and electricians. We’re working toward expanding options for adults who want to go into manufacturing or other trades.

I just had a great conversation with a Keene resident who has a physical disability, and he said that accessibility for him is about more that the built environment (ramps and automatic doors)- it also includes job opportunities. He shared a few experiences where employers were not able to accommodate his needs. It made me wonder whether employers in our region are missing an opportunity to reach a broader pool of potential employees by not being more proactive in terms of accessibility.

Keene State College is thrilled to be part of the workforce development efforts in the region. We are particularly excited about new offerings in precision optics, and a one year certificate pathway available for students starting in 2025. This one year pathway has a curriculum developed in consultation with local industry leaders, and will provided students with job-ready skills that enable transition to local careers. National and regional partners have help put the right equipment in place, with an emphasis on diamond turning machining and thin-films for optics, and local foundations have seeded the effort to create new learning spaces. We are focused on educating and training young adults with this new pathway, and excited about how this can serve our region and the robust precision optics network in our backyard.

Updated webpages for the Keene State College Precision Optics pathways.
One-Year Certificate Pathway for full-time students: http://www.keene.edu/optics
AmeriCOM Partners Website, provides national recruiting to the KSC Precision Optics program, identifying Keene as a regional ecosystem for optics.
https://thefutureisoptics.com/precision-optics-certificate-program-at-ksc/
Lastly, we have 5-day workshops currently offered in the area of diamond turning machining – enrollment site is here:
https://lifelonglearning.keene.edu/portal/events/reg/participantTypeSelection.do?method=load&entityId=3985238

Open House Dates for the One-Year Precision Optics are April 9th and May 3, sign up at the http://www.keene.edu/optics link.

Thank you!

Comments are closed.

MORE INFORMATION​

For more information about the Keene Comprehensive Master Plan Project, please contact:

Mari Brunner, Senior Planner
City of Keene
3 Washington Street
Keene, NH 03431
(603)352-5440
mbrunner@keenenh.gov

David Beurle
Chief Executive Officer
Future iQ
(612)757-9190
david@future-iq.com

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