[null, {"document_url": "http://finance-commerce.com/2014/04/state-launches-hunt-for-talent/", "unformatted_src": "http://finance-commerce.com/files/2014/04/shutterstock_GreaterMSP.jpg", "src": "http://finance-commerce.com/files/2014/04/shutterstock_GreaterMSP.jpg", "formatted_filename": "shutterstock GreaterMSP", "alt_text": "shutterstock_GreaterMSP", "rendered_width": 620, "rendered_height": 330}, null, {"document_url": "http://finance-commerce.com/2014/04/state-launches-hunt-for-talent/", "unformatted_src": "http://finance-commerce.com/files/2015/09/subscribe-nowb.png", "src": "http://finance-commerce.com/files/2015/09/subscribe-nowb.png", "formatted_filename": "subscribe nowb"}, null, {"document_url": "http://finance-commerce.com/2014/04/state-launches-hunt-for-talent/", "unformatted_src": "http://finance-commerce.com/files/2017/09/DCS.jpg", "src": "http://finance-commerce.com/files/2017/09/DCS.jpg", "formatted_filename": "DCS"}, null, {"document_url": "http://finance-commerce.com/2014/04/state-launches-hunt-for-talent/", "unformatted_src": "http://finance-commerce.com/files/2017/10/FC_cover_102417.jpg", "src": "http://finance-commerce.com/files/2017/10/FC_cover_102417.jpg", "formatted_filename": "FC cover", "alt_text": "fc_cover_102417", "rendered_width": 150, "rendered_height": 225}, null]
Home / News / Business & Economy / State launches hunt for talent State launches hunt for talent

By: James Warden April 25, 2014 1:46 pm 1 Comment

Ecolab CEO Doug Baker and Pohlad Cos. CEO Albert Colianni Jr. will head a “talent task force” that aims to shore up Minnesota’s workforce with young professionals in advance of what Greater MSP and the Urban Land Institute Minnesota see as an impending labor shortage, the groups announced Friday.

“This is a people place. Workplace productivity is our No. 1 competitive advantage,” Peter Frosch, Greater MSP’s director of strategic partnerships, told an audience during an event at Target Plaza North in downtown Minneapolis.

The task force launching next month will be made up of about 10 to 12 people, Frosch told Finance & Commerce in an interview afterward. The exact composition of the group hasn’t been determined, but Frosch expects members to include corporate human resources, higher education and young professional leaders.

There will also be an advisory group made up of 20 to 25 people, as well as an informal “insight network” that the task force can tap into for more information via surveys and other tools, he said.

The task force should release a draft report at the end of October or beginning of November that details goals, strategies and actions that should be taken.

The task force’s role is to create a systematic approach to retaining and attracting talent, Frosch said. That’s important because the metro’s economy relies on skilled workers and a handful of trends are likely to make it harder for companies to find those kinds of workers.

One reason is that Minneapolis-St. Paul is now competing with places like Rochester and North Dakota that once provided a steady supply of workers for metro businesses, he said. Mayo’s upcoming Destination Medical Center, for example, will lure skilled employees to Rochester.

Perhaps more importantly, the state is aging faster than new employees are entering the workforce. From the 1950s to the 2000s, Minnesota added between 47,000 and 91,000 people over 65 years old each decade, State Demographer Susan Brower said last month. But that number should more than triple in the 2010s to 285,000 and grow to 335,000 in the 2020s.

Brower predicts that Minnesota will have 85,000 to 100,000 more jobs than workers by 2020.

While the task force is doing its work, Greater MSP and the Partnership for Regional Opportunity, a group that arose from the Corridors of Opportunity initiative, will be working to “create a set of shared, objective metrics” that will provide a unified way to measure progress in the region.

Julia Silvis, a Minneapolis-based engagement manager with McKinsey and Co. who’s working on the project, told the audience she envisions 20 to 25 measurements in five or six categories. They will cover areas like the economy, the environment and social characteristics. And the measurements will be benchmarked against peer regions for comparison.

Silvis told Finance & Commerce that she expects a draft of the measurements to be completed by late summer. The groups will then spend the rest of the year getting feedback and have a final version done next year.

According to the groups, the goal is for the final measurements to be endorsed and used by organizations across the Twin Cities. Doing that will improve the way regional priorities are set, increase coordination across regional initiatives, improve awareness and use of existing data and, ultimately, boost economic competitiveness.


Corridors of Opportunity Destination Medical Center Doug Baker Ecolab Greater MSP labor Pohlad Cos. Urban Land Institute Minnesota 1:46 pm Fri, April 25, 2014 Finance & Commerce
James Warden




By James Warden

All (402)




