Roundup: Efforts to attract, retain talent in Magic City; financial planner offers crisis tips

The popular business concept of work-force development may not seem like an exciting topic.

However, increasing the number of well-trained professionals in the Magic City is crucial to its prosperity, said Josh Carpenter, who serves as director of the Office of Innovation and Economic Opportunity for the city of Birmingham.

“It’s all about talent — the recruitment of talent, the development of talent, the attraction of talent,” Carpenter told Iron City Ink in 2018.

This month, Business Roundup takes a look at a workforce development effort created by tech firm Shipt, and shares an ambitious vision for the city from one of the effort’s founders.

We highlight another, more recent effort created by the Birmingham Business Alliance.

In addition, a local wealth advisor offers some tips for making sound financial decisions during times of crisis, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

THE TOP FIVE

Britney Summerville, vice-president of community engagement for Birmingham tech firm Shipt, has a lofty goal for the Magic City. “I’d like to see Birmingham listed as a top five tech city in the next five years,” she said.

She shared this goal recently at a virtual event hosted by the Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce.

Summerville was an early team member at Shipt, which makes same-day deliveries of fresh foods and household essentials to 200,000 shoppers in more than 5,000 U.S. cities.

“The easiest way to explain what Shipt does is we bring the store to your door,” she told event participants.

In addition, Summerville is the founder and one of the leaders of Birmingham Bound, an organization that operates under the Shipt umbrella and seeks to help attract talent to the city.

The mission of Birmingham Bound “is to make a lasting impact on the success and awareness of our technology ecosystem,” she said.

Part of the impetus for Shipt to create Birmingham Bound was the company’s highly publicized $550 million acquisition by giant retailer Target in 2017.

A few months after the deal was announced, Shipt made a commitment to local, county and state officials to remain in Birmingham and create another 880 jobs.

The company believed that it had to take part in building the local talent pool, Summerville said.

Birmingham Bound also seeks to “lift up tech companies that are here to make it clear that you don’t have to go to the Bay Area to grow tech,” Summerville said.

The organization is “spreading the word across the nation that Birmingham is a tech ecosystem that should be on their radar,” she said.

The acquisition of Shipt by Target helped to spread that message, Summerville said.

The day the deal was announced was “a fantastic day” for the Birmingham area, Summerville said.

What had been “just a little pipe dream” for Shipt founder Bill Smith a couple of years before turned into a $550 million acquisition, she said. “It was insane.”

There were only about 100 employees at the company then, but Shipt now has about 1,000 people at its headquarters in downtown Birmingham, Summerville said.

Shipt has a community of shoppers “that shop for our mentorship base through a convenient app,” Summerville said. “They are trained to know what a good lemon looks like and how to communicate with members to adjust your preferences and your substitutions.”

The Shipt shoppers “are trained to go above and beyond” for subscribers, she said.

For more about Birmingham Bound, go to bhambound.com.

GETTING ONBOARD

Birmingham area companies now have a one-stop online tool to recruit and retain talent in Birmingham. On September 1, the BBA announced the creation of OnBoard Birmingham, an online hub for talent attraction and retention that promotes Birmingham as a great place to live and work.

OnBoard Birmingham is geared toward out-of-market talent, talent managers, recruiters, human resources leaders, and colleges and universities across the state.

“In working with human resources executives and recruiters across the region, we hear all the time that companies need a tool to sell the benefits of living in Birmingham,” said Karla Khodanian, manager of talent and higher education partnerships at the BBA, in a news release.

OnBoard Birmingham features a job board, a cost of living calculator and information about the city’s culture, amenities and neighborhoods.

The BBA will use OnBoard Birmingham as its main workforce development platform to partner with Alabama colleges and universities to host virtual events and showcase employment opportunities for graduates.

Shipt and Regions Bank are key supporters of OnBoard Birmingham and will be its first featured employers, according to the news release.

For details, go to onboardbirmingham.com.

TIPS FOR TIMES OF CRISIS

Patti Black — a certified financial planner and a partner at Bridgeworth Wealth Management — offers five tips for making financial decisions during times of personal or societal crisis.

► No. 1: Do nothing. Black means it may be best to delay making large financial decisions until a crisis passes. “When you’re stressed out, it is so hard to think clearly and to make good decisions,” she said.

► No. 2: Review your spending. Quantify your monthly fixed and variable expenses so you’ll know where to make changes if you experience a change in your income.

► No. 3: Increase your emergency fund. In times of crisis — such as losing a job — Black recommends that her clients have at least 6 months of fixed expenses set aside. “Make it hard to get to,” she said. “It should be out of sight and out of mind.”

► No. 4: Make sure your estate documents are up-to-date. These include your will, power of attorney, advanced healthcare directive and the beneficiaries named on your 401K, IRA and life insurance policies. “This is a critical piece of your financial plan,” even in normal times, Black said.

► No. 5: Stay invested in the stock market. The market has gone through turbulent periods, such as 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, but it’s always come back, Black said.