Building Tomorrow’s Workforce: How Your Chamber is Tackling North Central Massachusetts’ #1 Business Challenge
A multi-pronged approach to solving the region’s talent puzzle
Ask any business owner in North Central Massachusetts about their workforce needs, and you’ll likely hear a complicated picture. Manufacturing and healthcare continue to report real difficulty finding and retaining workers, while other industries navigate a shifting landscape as hiring patterns evolve and technology changes the nature of entry-level roles. But even as short-term conditions fluctuate, the region’s long-term workforce challenges remain, driven by an aging population, persistent skills gaps, and barriers like transportation and childcare that keep otherwise capable workers out of the labor pool.
The Chamber’s own research, including a comprehensive regional workforce study conducted with the UMass Donahue Institute, has long identified these barriers as significant obstacles to full workforce participation in North Central Massachusetts, findings consistent with what we hear directly from members and with other state and national research. Regardless of where any individual business stands today, these structural issues require sustained, long-term investment rather than a response to any single moment in the hiring cycle.
Your Chamber has taken this challenge seriously, building a comprehensive toolbox of programs and partnerships designed to address workforce development from every angle: building pathways into careers, removing barriers to employment, advocating for systemic change, and keeping talent here for the long term.
“Workforce isn’t a single problem with a single solution,” says Melissa Glenny, President of Franklin Professional Associates, Inc. and Vice Chair of the Chamber’s Board of Directors. “It’s transportation, it’s childcare, it’s education, it’s skills training. Every day in my own work, I see employers dealing with all of these challenges at once, and that’s exactly why the Chamber has to stay engaged on so many fronts.”
Building Pathways Early
For many students, the path to a career starts long before graduation, and the Chamber’s scholarship programs are designed to invest in that pipeline early. Through both traditional scholarships for graduating high school seniors and industry pathway scholarships for adult learners, career-changers, and those pursuing vocational or technical training, the Chamber Foundation helps remove the financial barriers that keep talented individuals from pursuing further education or credentialing.
“A scholarship like this is workforce development, not philanthropy. When the Chamber removes the cost barrier for someone pursuing technical training, that person often ends up building things for a company like ours a few miles away,” said Mark Dyment, President & CEO of YMC America. “We’ve expanded our Devens facility because demand is growing, and we need the talent pipeline to grow with it.”
Removing Barriers to Employment
Beyond scholarships, the Chamber has invested in removing systemic barriers that prevent qualified individuals from entering the workforce. Through a partnership with the Spanish American Center and Mount Wachusett Community College, the Chamber supports an equitable pathways and micro-credentialing initiative designed to help underrepresented job seekers access short-term, industry-recognized credentials that lead directly to employment.
[Photo caption: Job seekers gain industry-recognized credentials through the Chamber’s partnership with Mount Wachusett Community College and the Spanish American Center.]
“So many people in our region have the skills and the work ethic, but they hit roadblocks navigating traditional education and training systems,” says Jim Vander Hooven, President of Mount Wachusett Community College. “Our partnership with the Chamber and the Spanish American Center meets people where they are and gets them into good jobs faster, and it’s just one of the many ways our college and the Chamber are working together to strengthen the region’s workforce.”
Job seekers with disabilities are an often-overlooked part of the regional talent pool. To help close that gap, the Chamber has helped connect employers with MassAbility and the region’s network of supported employment agencies.
The Chamber also recently convened a Talent Compact roundtable, bringing together representatives from higher education, workforce boards, municipalities, and community organizations to listen, identify shared challenges, and align efforts around real employer needs.
“Workforce challenges don’t belong to any one organization, they’re shared across employers, educators, and workforce partners,” says LeeAnn Johnson, Executive Director of the MassHire North Central Workforce Board. “When the Chamber steps into that convening role, whether it’s through the Talent Compact, hosting manufacturing tours, or bringing employers and job seekers together, it helps all of us move in the same direction instead of working in isolation.”
Practical Tools for Members
The Chamber also provides members with practical, everyday tools to find and hire talent. The Work North Central Jobs Board connects member businesses directly with job seekers across the region, and is free for members. Over the past year alone, the board has hosted more than 1,000 job postings and attracted nearly 30,000 page views.
[Photo caption: Employers and job seekers connect at a past Chamber hiring event, one of the many tools helping members find and hire local talent.]
These tools aren’t just for large employers. Whether you’re hiring one person or fifty, the jobs board, manufacturing tours, workforce convenings, and the Career & Hiring Event are designed to work for businesses of every size, and opportunities like sponsoring a scholarship in your company’s name remain accessible and affordable regardless of size.
This coming spring, the Chamber will also debut a redesigned Career & Hiring Event, merged with the popular Small Business Showcase and moved from its traditional October date to March, giving job seekers and entrepreneurs a single, high-energy venue to connect with employers and explore career pathways.
Advocating for Systemic Change
Beyond direct programs and partnerships, the Chamber has been an active voice at the state and federal levels for policies that better prepare students for the workforce our employers actually need, including expanded industry pathways within our school systems and greater access to vocational and technical training, work-based learning, and career exposure well before graduation. At the state level, the Chamber has pushed for increased investment in vocational-technical education and policy changes that align funding and curriculum requirements with real employer needs, while in Washington, the Chamber has advocated for federal workforce development funding and policies that support employer-driven training models.
“We can build all the partnerships and programs in the world, but if state and federal policy isn’t aligned with what employers actually need, we’re fighting an uphill battle,” says Travis Condon, the Chamber’s Director of Public Affairs. “Advocacy is how we make sure the systems producing our future workforce are actually built around real jobs in our region.”
Solving the “Whole Person” Barriers
Finding a job is only part of the equation, keeping it often depends on factors that have nothing to do with skills or qualifications. The North Central Massachusetts Rides Transportation Management Association (TMA) was created to address the “last mile” problem, connecting workers to jobs in communities where public transit options are limited or nonexistent. For many employers, workforce transportation is the difference between a fully staffed shift and a chronic vacancy.
The Chamber is also a member of the Employers & Childcare Coalition of North Central Massachusetts, an initiative launched by the Community Foundation of North Central Massachusetts, with infrastructure support from the United Way of North Central Massachusetts, to develop sustainable models for accessible, employer-supported childcare. As a coalition member, the Chamber supports this broader regional effort to address a barrier that keeps parents, particularly mothers, out of the workforce or limits the hours they’re able to work.
“Transportation and childcare aren’t side issues, they’re workforce issues,” says Rozanna Penney, President & CEO of Heywood Healthcare. “As a founding member of the TMA and a participant in the new Childcare Coalition’s employer-supported childcare pilot, we’re seeing firsthand how removing these barriers helps us recruit and retain the people we need to care for our community.”
Each October, the Chamber also hosts a manufacturing bus tour for regional superintendents, media, and public policy leaders, building awareness and support among decision-makers for the modern manufacturing careers available right here in North Central Massachusetts.
“The outdated image of the dusty assembly line is holding our workforce back,” says Kevin Kassekart, President & CEO of VulcanForms. “When local leaders walk our smart factory floors and see data-driven production in action, it instantly changes the narrative. They see that modern manufacturing demands advanced technological proficiency, highlighting exactly what our educational pipelines need to be teaching right now.”
Keeping Talent Here
Solving the workforce challenge isn’t just about getting people into jobs, it’s about building a region where people want to stay and grow their careers long-term. Through programs like the Chamber’s Community Leadership Institute (CLI) and Future Leaders of North Central group (FLNC), the Chamber invests in developing the next generation of regional leadership, ensuring that talented individuals see a future for themselves in North Central Massachusetts rather than looking elsewhere.
Connecting the Dots
None of these programs work in isolation. Scholarships build the pipeline. Credentialing partnerships remove barriers to entry. Convening employers, educators, and workforce partners helps align efforts with real needs on the ground. The jobs board and hiring event connect employers with candidates. The TMA and childcare coalition address the barriers that keep people out of the workforce even after they’re hired. Advocacy at the state and federal level works to align policy and funding with what employers actually need. And CLI and Future Leaders keep talent invested in our region for the long haul.
“Workforce development isn’t a problem any one organization solves alone,” says Roy Nascimento, President & CEO. “It takes partnership, schools and colleges, employers, municipalities, along with workforce and community organizations all pulling in the same direction. Our role is to help connect those dots and ensure North Central Massachusetts has the talent pipeline it needs to compete and grow.”
This is workforce development in action. This is what your membership supports.
Put These Tools to Work
- Post job openings on the Chamber’s Jobs Board
- Sponsor a Traditional or Industry Pathways Scholarship through the Chamber Foundation
- Connect with the Chamber’s workforce and education partners
- Join a workforce convening or roundtable discussion
- Participate in the Career & Hiring Event to connect with students and job seekers
- Host a tour for students, educators, or policy leaders
- Partner with the Chamber to advocate for education and training policy reforms
- Host interns or co-op students
- Work with MassAbility or agencies that help place workers with disabilities
- Sponsor a CLI participant or get a rising team member involved with Future Leaders
Have a workforce challenge affecting your business? Interested in getting involved with any of the opportunities above? Contact Cory Wells, Community Economic Development & Loan Operations Administrator, at or call (978) 353-7600 ext. 228.
