As a native of Fort Dodge, Andy Sheffield knew this town was a good place to raise a family. But when moving back home after about three years of working in Phoenix, Arizona, Sheffield and his family faced some difficulties.

“When we were moving back one of the challenges we had was finding housing,” Sheffield said. “It took us quite a while and we were pretty fortunate because we were able to stay with family until we bought a house.”

Sheffield is human resources manager at CJ Bio America, and he said housing challenges can be even more difficult for workers trying to move to the area without family support.

“It can be a deal-breaker for some people if they can’t find a house,” he said. “We’ve had other people that end up accepting the job, but maybe they live out of the area or commute a further distance.”

The Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance is keenly aware of the challenge to both recruit new workers to the area, and retain the workers we have here, said Kelly Halsted, economic development director.

To encourage healthy business growth, it falls on the community to provide the things that people want, Halsted said.

“Retention and recruitment … That goes with quality of life,” she said. “The good trail system, a good healthcare system, schools. Those types of things. It’s not just the company that has to retain their employees, it’s the community that has to retain them in our population here by creating a great place to live.”

There is a “workforce committee” devoted to helping the area with its employment needs, said Sara Messerly, Operations Manager at IowaWORKS.

“They have done a lot of initiatives over the years for recruiting and retaining employees, working with the city on different things to make the city more attractive to workers coming in,” Messerly said.

Making the community attractive can work wonders for our companies, said Cathy Nelson-Schoon, Workforce advisor-business services representative for IowaWORKS.

“One of the things people want to know — They don’t even care about a job, they want to know, ‘What does your community have to offer to us?'” Nelson-Schoon said. “They’ll move here and then look for a job if you have the right magnets to pull them in, for recreation.”

Messerly concurs.

“And the area’s done various studies,” she said. “As a result of some of these things and employer summits we’ve determined what the needs are for the employers and the community, in order to make the area attractive, to entice workers to come here and to stay once they get here. Different things that have developed are things like the trail system, the waterways, the ATV park, young professionals group.”

A shortage of workers for manufacturing isn’t just something in this region or in Iowa.

“Lack of workers is a national problem,” said Helen Adamson, human resources director for BHJ USA. “Everyone is struggling to bring more people to their towns or cities to fill these positions.”

Adamson said some of the problem is finding people who will work in manufacturing.

“Most manufacturing companies have issues attracting workers in general due to the limited number of people who want to work such jobs,” she said. “BHJ processes meat and fish products for the pet food, pharmaceutical and feed industries. We are not a slaughterhouse and the jobs are not as physically demanding; however, handling meat requires employees to work in a cool and wet environment.

“This isn’t glamorous work, but it is rewarding.”

In the Fort Dodge region in particular, “I think it’s a very competitive market within manufacturing,” Sheffield said. “I think it can be a challenge to attract people from outside the area to come to the area for a variety of reasons.”

Apart from housing, one challenge he’s heard is a lack of entertainment.

“For me, personally, I think the entertainment and what the offerings are good, but maybe for someone is used to a larger city they may not be,” he said.

“Daycare comes up too. The amount of providers. And, of course, for folks who work nontraditional business hours it can be a challenge to find daycare.”

But Fort Dodge is moving in the right direction, Sheffield said. With new housing initiatives and other aspects being improved the community is growing better for companies.

CJ Bio itself, of course, tries to attract workers by being competitive, he said.

“Wages, benefits and also just the overall workplace. We try to create a good company culture that people are excited to come to work every day,” Sheffield said. “We try to get people in positions to make sure we’re rewarding them, challenging them.”

BHJ is building a workplace culture focused on ” a simple value of respect,” Adamson said.

“Promoting employees up through the ranks along with bringing in new employees from other towns or states will provide us with a diverse workforce that will hopefully set us up for success,” she said. “BHJ offers educational incentives and is currently focusing on a new leadership development program with our sister companies in Europe and Canada. Being an international company allows us to send key employees to our other sites, in the US or Europe, to learn about new methods of manufacturing.”

BHJ is also pursuing new automation techniques which will make the jobs safer and less physically demanding, she said.

Adamson hopes more will be done to teach children about manufacturing, and help them see the kinds of jobs that are available.

“Manufacturing has changed in that it used to be easy to find candidates for our jobs,” she said. “I’ve been in recruitment for 27 years and I remember having lines of candidates come in for interviews at our plants. With the focus on a four-year college education, it eroded the trades, and contributed to our shortage in the industry.

“The focus that trade jobs are receiving will help build the market again, but it will take time.”

Iowa Central Community College has quite a few programs relevant to CJ Bio’s industry, Sheffield said.

“They do a lot of career events, and informational things for students,” he said. “We work with them in partnership to help provide information about the programs, the jobs, manufacturing.”

There are a great range of jobs available at CJ, requiring anything from a high school diploma up to a four-year college degree, he said.

Working with both Iowa Central and the GFDGA has been good, he added.

“They’ve done a really good job of working to, I guess, identifying those needs and address them,” Sheffield said. “I think Fort Dodge as a whole as seen a lot of business growth, which is great. Now it’s just getting the other things to catch up.”