NH employers cite gap of women in tech, low workforce housing, child care access among state’s pressing issues

If you ask Granite State business leaders what issues are at the forefront of their organizations’ futures, they may cite workforce housing, employee recruitment and child care access. But where there are issues, these leaders are finding strategies to resolve them.

The three points came up in a roundtable panel Monday between tech and manufacturing executives, community development heads and U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan on “innovative solutions to some of New Hampshire’s largest challenges.”

In the hour-long discussion hosted by Saint Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics, Hassan quizzed six leaders on how topics like strengthening and retaining their workforces, connecting with area community partners and hiring women ­­— a group the Society for Human Resource Management says has declined by 2 million people in the aftermath of COVID-19.

U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-NH.

“We are losing a whole group of trained, qualified people that we desperately need in the government and private sector to be able to do the work that needs to be done,” Lebanon City Manager Shaun Mulholland told Hassan. “We have a system that is crashing — the child care system — with a model we’ve been operating on forever that doesn’t work.”

That’s why executives like John Shaughnessy, of Lancaster-based packaging product company PAK Solutions, are rethinking the office workweek by reducing it to four days and allowing more flexibility in work schedules that are supportive of the time employees need for child care.

Ed Miles, the NH Small Business Development Center’s director for the Seacoast Region, said the Manchester nonprofit NH Tech Alliance has found there to be a disproportionate rate of female college graduates (57%) to women employed in tech fields (26%).

In response, Miles noted that the alliance launched TechWomen|TechGirls, an initiative that allows women in information technology careers around the Granite State to network with one another and be recognized for their achievements in STEM.

Other support for working women and families comes from organizations providing housing by rehabilitating existing structures in communities like Lancaster, panelist Sharon Kopp said.

“We have six apartments that are done, two that will be done by Jan. 1 and eight more by the end of next year that will be done,” said Kopp, who was representing limited liability company Lancaster Realty Holdings in her report, but also serves as PAK Solutions’ director of community outreach.

“We also have two condos, we’re purchasing another condo, and we have a single home and a multifamily. And, we don’t just house our own employees.”

Where employers are retooling hiring and retention practices for female and family staff, they’re doing the same for current — and even future — high school and college graduates.

At Exail, a French company partnered with the University of New Hampshire that develops robotics and navigation technology for maritime and aerospace clients, there are internships for UNH students to go to France and vice versa.

“An intern at UNH is going to be going to the south of France to get hands-on training with autonomous robotic vehicles,” said Christine Bearse, Exail’s director of operations. “We’re also bringing French interns over to the U.S. where they get to stay here … and they get to learn about international business and cultural differences. This has really strengthened our company and brought in fresh perspectives.”

Miles said NH SBDC has found through surveys that today’s young professionals “want to be a part of something” and aren’t always ranking wages as their top employment priorities.

“To employers, regardless of your size, what we found was that you want to involve that kind of language in your job postings,” he said. “Put into your job postings things about growth opportunities and the mission of the company.”