What does ‘business-friendly’ actually mean?

NH employers are rewriting the definition

Tiffany Brewster

New Hampshire should be a place where businesses have every structural advantage to compete and grow — built on the workforce, infrastructure and policies that make it the best state in the nation to do business.

That’s not a slogan. It’s what 50 employer representatives from 44 businesses told us when we asked what “business-friendly” actually means to the people running companies in this state.

This past year, NH Businesses for Social Responsibility (NHBSR) convened four regional roundtables bringing together 50 representatives from 44 businesses across health care, manufacturing, financial services, energy, nonprofits and more.

The conversations focused on three interconnected workforce challenges: housing, child care and public education. What we heard was remarkably consistent across sectors and regions. Alongside these regional discussions, NHBSR directly engaged businesses with Gov. Ayotte’s office to tackle energy competitiveness — an area where New Hampshire faces measurable disadvantages relative to neighboring states.

Employers are defining a business-friendly state as one where workers can afford to live near their jobs, where parents can find reliable child care so they can show up to work, where public schools are strong enough to attract families and produce the workforce businesses need, and where energy policy keeps businesses competitive locally and nationally.

That definition carries a clear implication: When those foundations are strong, New Hampshire wins. When they’re missing, no tax cut makes up the difference.

The opportunity is significant. New Hampshire has the quality of life, the entrepreneurial culture and the geographic position to be the premier business destination in the Northeast. But realizing that potential means investing in the infrastructure that makes it possible.

The state needs 90,000 housing units by 2040. It has lost 13% of its licensed child care slots since 2017, costing families an estimated $114 to $178 million in earnings annually. And New Hampshire’s dependence on local property taxes to fund schools means a child’s educational opportunity — and an employer’s ability to recruit a relocating family — still depends on zip code.

Even as the state’s workforce infrastructure strains to keep pace, employers aren’t waiting. They’re already investing — purchasing housing for employees, subsidizing child care, building in-house training programs, and partnering with schools and community organizations to strengthen workforce pipelines. But they’re clear that individual company action can’t substitute for the structural investments that make a state competitive.

As one Monadnock area employer put it: “As we further reduce business taxes — the one not-so-regressive tax we have — businesses need to speak more loudly and say: not in our name. We need public goods to thrive.”

From these conversations, NHBSR and participating employers co-developed a new framework that defines “business friendly” from employers’ perspectives — reframing child care, housing, public education and energy as essential economic infrastructure.

For each issue area, employers identified pillars of success and a business action menu: concrete steps they’re willing to take and put their names behind.

At NHBSR’s spring conference, we’ll be bringing employers together to define what comes next: turning this framework into coordinated action.

The employer community has the credibility to lead this conversation. When a manufacturer says public schools matter for recruitment, or a bank says housing costs are driving away talent, that carries weight no advocacy organization can replicate. New Hampshire businesses are ready to use that voice — consistently and collectively — to build the state where they and their workers can thrive.

Find out more at nhbsr.org.

Tiffany Brewster is director of policy and advocacy of New Hampshire Businesses for Social Responsibility, which produces “Sustainability Spotlight” monthly for NH Business Review.