It is well known that a lack of adequate staffing is impacting businesses across the country and is the top challenge for many of our area businesses.
Not only is that negatively impacting business operations, but customers are also frustrated. Heck, how bummed were people that they couldn’t get their Starbucks Latte or Smokey’s BBQ due to lack of staff? I get it.
We are trying to understand what caused this issue. From what I read, there are multiple reasons. COVID of course, but also retirements, resignations, population loss, availability of remote employment, high child care costs, and the list goes on and on.
Now before we all say woe is us, the good news is there are multiple initiatives to help us alleviate and solve the problem, just as multiple sources created this predicament.
Training programs at the Charleston schools, Mattoon schools, Lake Land, and others are preparing the workforce of tomorrow.
Also, these programs provide exposure to opportunities in Coles County, keeping our future business leaders in the area. Businesses are offering incentives and implementing programs to improve productivity, worker satisfaction, and workplace culture.
Coles Together has planned and organized tours of area businesses to help highlight their operations and opportunities while building relationships with future employees.
The Chamber of Commerce, including local, state, and national leaders, are very involved in promoting solutions. For example, Senate Bill 3719 is the Illinois Chamber’s initiative to help solve the shortage of CDL truck drivers by offering incentives to both the employee and the employer.
DOWD: Mattoon in Motion hosts Peace Corps fellow
Locally, the Charleston Chamber has partnered with Eastern Illinois University to place marketing interns at area businesses. Manpower just established an office within our Chamber building. Their presence in Charleston simplifies the process of recruiting for Charleston-based businesses.
And last but not least, our team is working on a webinar with Manpower that will focus on how companies can close the gap with their hiring needs considering the candidate/labor shortage they are experiencing.
Its purpose is to help prepare businesses for a candidate-driven labor market, which is causing challenges with the recruiting and hiring processes.
If you really enjoy your work and want to share ways you believe the culture in your office could help other businesses, we want to hear from you. What could other local businesses learn from your experience?
My Town: Clint Walker’s memories of Coles County as pulled from the archives
Cosmic Blue Comics
From the Nov. 22, 1992, Journal Gazette, this photo of Cosmic Blue Comics in Mattoon; where I spent virtually every Saturday afternoon for about two years. That small back room you see just off to the right of the Coca-Cola sign was where they kept the many, and I mean many, long-boxes of back issues. I still own my bagged copy of “Tales of the Beanworld” issue No. 1 that I found back there. Sadly, this location is now just a “greenspace”.
Mattoon Arcade
Pictured, Shelbyville’s Bob Murray from the June 2, 1982, Journal Gazette, displaying his dominance over the TRON arcade game at the “Carousel Time” arcade at the Cross County Mall, later to be the Aladdin’s Castle, soon thereafter to be not a thing anymore. I spent just about every Saturday at that arcade, perhaps with that exact same haircut. No overalls, though. I was more of an “Ocean Pacific” kind of kid.
Icenogle’s
Pictured, from the Nov. 28, 1988, Journal Gazette, Icenogle’s grocery store. Being from Cooks Mills, we didn’t often shop at Icenogle’s…but when we did, even as a kid, I knew it was the way a grocery store is supposed to be in a perfect world, and that’s not just because they had wood floors, comic books on the magazine rack, or plenty, and I mean plenty, of trading cards in wax packs.
Cooks Mills
I had long since moved away from Cooks Mills by the time this Showcase item about Adam’s Groceries ran in the June 13, 1998, Journal Gazette, but there was a time when I very well could have been one of those kids in that photo; for if it was summer, and you had a bike, and you lived in Cooks Mills, that’s where you ended up. At last report, they still had Tab in the Pepsi-branded cooler in the back. I’m seriously considering asking my money guy if I could afford to reopen this place.
Mister Music
Pictured, from the July 16, 1987, Journal Gazette, this ad for Mister Music, formerly located in the Cross County Mall. I wasn’t buying records at that age, but I would eventually, and that’s where it all went down. If you don’t think it sounds “cool” to hang out at a record store with your buddies on a Friday night, a piping-hot driver’s license fresh in your wallet, you’d be right. But it’s the best a geek like me could do. Wherever you are today, owners of Mister Music, please know that a Minutemen album I found in your cheap bin changed my life.
Sound Source Guitar Throw
Portrait of the author as a young man, about to throw a guitar through a target at that year’s Sound Source Music Guitar Throwing Contest, from the April 18, 1994, Journal Gazette. Check out my grunge-era hoodie, and yes…look carefully, those are Air Jordans you see on my feet. Addendum: despite what the cutline says, I did not win a guitar.
Pictured, clipped from the online archives at JG-TC.com, a photo from the April 18, 1994, Journal Gazette of Sound Source Music Guitar Throwing Contest winner, and current JG-TC staff writer, Clint Walker.
Vette’s
Here today, gone tomorrow, Vette’s Teen Club, from the June 20, 1991, Journal Gazette. I wasn’t “cool” enough to hang out at Vette’s back in it’s “heyday,” and by “cool enough” I mean, “not proficient enough in parking lot fights.” If only I could get a crack at it now.
FutureGen
FutureGen: The end of the beginning, and eventually, the beginning of the end, from the Dec. 19, 2007, JG-TC. I wish I had been paying more attention at the time. I probably should have been reading the newspaper.
Doug Abolt is president and CEO for the Charleston Area Chamber of Commerce.
