‘High Five’ Cities for Worker Appeal
While some U.S. cities will have to scramble to attract workers to fill jobs in the near future, five will continue to be particularly desirable employment targets for those changing jobs or relocating. Atlanta, St. Louis, Chicago, Dallas and Columbus, Ohio, have a special attractiveness for workers that will make these cities some of the most desired working environments of the 1990s.
The affordability of housing, the quality of education available and the cultural amenities these cities have will keep current residents there and will attract workers who wish to relocate. The presence of numerous major corporations and the potential for industrial growth is a further attraction for workers seeking to relocate.
“These cities may not realize they possess this power, but each of them for different reasons has special status with job seekers,” says James E. Challenger, president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an employment counseling firm. “Many workers want to return to or stay in one such place. Those from other parts of the country who have heard of or know about the advantages of these particular cities migrate there to find a job if they can.”
Interestingly, even the cities that have had recent economic and employment downturns will remain attractive employment targets for workers in the future, predicts Challenger. Dallas, which has been adversely affected by the oil industry decline and subsequent problems with some of its financial institutions, nevertheless will remain the hub for commerce and finance in the southwestern United States. And Rust Belt cities such as Columbus and Chicago will benefit from an expected revival of U.S. manufacturing that will strengthen the economy of the industrial Midwest.
Firms Need ‘Followership’ Too
Leadership has been a hot topic recently as organizations look ahead to the challenges of the 1990s. But “followership” may become an equally important concept for business during the next decade.
“Followership is vital at every level of an organization,” says Lynne C. Lancaster, a Minneapolis-based management consultant. “The art of followership is as important as leadership in unlocking the potential of both organizations and individuals.”
The characteristics of successful followers are much the same as those of successful leaders. They need an in-depth understanding of the organization they work for, must be able to make sound decisions, must work well with others, need to feel a strong level of commitment and have a real enthusiasm about what they do and be willing to perform under stressful circumstances in the quest for a job well done.
Stephen C. Lundin, chairman of the North Central Institute for Management Studies, notes that, ironically, the skills followers should possess are often seen as being the responsibility of leaders. For example, organizations concerned with employee morale and productivity usually send supervisors to a class on motivation rather than sending the followers who carry out the work. “The workplace of the future will be an environment in which workers become increasingly autonomous and self-directed,” Lundin points out. “Employers will need to hire and train for followership.”
Former Health, Education and Welfare Secretary John W. Gardner writes in his new book, “On Leadership”: “Perhaps the most promising trend in our thinking about leadership is the growing conviction that the purposes of the group are best served when the leader helps followers to develop their own initiative, strengthening them in the use of their own judgment, and enables them to grow and to become better contributors.”
Teens Don’t Worry About Jobs
Today’s teen-agers occasionally may think about the working world they will one day enter, but apparently they don’t worry about it too much. An analysis of more than 9,000 letters written to U.S. representatives by seventh- and eighth-grade students in 1989 and early 1990 shows that few of the teens express major concerns about work or economic issues.
As part of the RespecTeen Speak for Yourself project, a national youth education program, students wrote to Congress about the issues they believe will have the greatest impact on their lives now or in the future. Drugs, the environment, violence in society, the homeless and education were some of the topics that received the most attention. While about 1% of the letters expressed concern with the national debt and deficit spending, fewer than 1% of the students mentioned jobs, individual economic security, import/export issues or foreign ownership of U.S. businesses or property as major issues affecting their future.
