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THE CHALLENGE
The Waterloo-Cedar Falls region faces significant talent attraction and retention challenges common across the Midwest, with population trends indicating outmigration of young professionals and difficulty attracting skilled workers to key industries including advanced manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, IT, and agriculture. Despite possessing strong economic assets and quality of life advantages, the region needs to understand the real factors influencing how people choose where to live and work, identify barriers to talent attraction and retention, and develop a comprehensive strategy to reverse talent decline while strengthening workforce pipelines for high-growth industries.
THE CIVIC SOLUTION
CivicSol is partnering with Lightcast to develop a comprehensive Cedar Valley Talent Plan using cutting-edge workforce analytics and migration data. Our approach includes analyzing 20 years of historical population data to develop future forecast scenarios, conducting migration flow analysis to track where residents move and what attracts them elsewhere, and performing workforce gap assessments identifying skill mismatches in key industries.
The strategy process features extensive community engagement including 12 focus groups with residents, students, and employers, 15 stakeholder interviews with key employers and civic leaders, and comprehensive surveys of current and former residents. We are conducting best practices analysis of five peer metros that successfully positioned themselves as talent hubs, facilitating peer learning exchanges with regional leaders, and analyzing Cedar Valley's talent marketing and messaging against competitive regions. The final plan will integrate research findings with stakeholder-driven recommendations for workforce development, talent attraction strategies, and regional marketing approaches.
THE IMPACT
The Cedar Valley Talent Plan will position Waterloo-Cedar Falls to proactively address talent challenges through data-driven strategies that make the region a destination of choice for skilled workers and businesses. The plan will provide targeted opportunities leveraging the region's economic strengths, comprehensive workforce insights reflecting both current realities and future projections, and regional marketing strategies that authentically communicate the area's competitive advantages. By focusing on retention and attraction barriers while building on existing assets, the strategy will demonstrate how Midwest regions can reverse talent decline and create vibrant, opportunity-rich communities where businesses and people choose to stay and grow.
"This wasn't just about stopping talent from leaving—it was about creating a region so compelling that people choose to build their careers and lives here."
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