Education is super critical

I recently attended a Chamber of Commerce Leadership series event where I had a chance to have old words reiterated with statistical backing. Those words, in a nutshell, were get an education or be a laborer the rest of your life. It was shown through statistical data that there is a direct correlation between average salary amounts and levels of education. However, ALL levels of education needed to be improved in order to actually gain in overall education level for a regional area. This started at the pre-school level all the way through higher education. Data showed that the regions of the US that had the best educational opportunities, more often than not, attracted and maintained the new, emerging talent coming of age in today's workforce. This en turn boosts a regions overall standard of living and makes that area more attractive to business and development. The development helps to promote revenues for the region so further infrastructure and planning can take place to insure the growth and well being of the region. The educational opportunities that boosted economic growth that brought development is all cyclical and beneficial to everyone in a region.

If thought about correctly, it comes down to everyone trying to better their personal education while promoting the education of others. This can mean CEU (Continuing Education Units) or obtaining another degree or certification AND it means encouraging children to better themselves by trying hard in school and then instilling in them the importance of further education. Further education is learning more about a subject. That can be improving your skill set within a trade or attending a certification program for a particular industry; anything that can help improve your knowledge set whereby helping to improve something else is further education. At the same time, stats showed that people with higher educational levels had lower unemployment. The highest unemployed group were people with high school diplomas or less and in direct contrast, the lowest unemployed group were 4-year degree college graduates. The correlations between education level and overall employment numbers and regional prosperity are uncanny. If anything can be said, it is that focus on education throughout the life cycle is important for the well being and growth of not just one's self, but an entire region.

The Greenville Chamber of Commerce's Fifth Leadership Series with the help of the Greenville News has been made available online. This is a link to the entire presentation by three speakers.  (Click the On-Demand option and go ahead and fast forward to about minute 24, if not it starts by default near the end of the presentation.) The speakers included Ted Abernathy of the Southern Grown Policies Board, Dr. Bruce Yandle of Clemson University College of Business and Behavior Science and Carol Coletta from CEO for Cities. Each speaker had unique information and stats to share that help to really show the relationships between education and regional/city prosperity.

All of this can be tied in with helping your company. The first improvements can be self education from the top leadership in the company. Their is no better way to lead than by good example. Pursue ways to improve overall knowledge about a certain market segment that your company currently operates in or is looking to expand into. Be involved in community events and organizations in order to be educated on what is going on outside of your immediate company realm. Then, expand that to your employee base. Having employees that know their company cares enough to keep them trained on the latest trends and tricks will be beneficial in retaining the those employees. The more an employee feels that they are getting from a company, the more willing they will be to work hard for that company and stay with that company. The benefits are two-fold here. First, people are furthering their education and secondly, the company is keeping training cost and employee turn over cost at a minimum. And both of these effects have a direct, positive influence on our community. Not only in our cities, but that also spreads out into the regions that we reside.