On Tuesday, April 25, the Chamber hosted the first event in our Front Porch Series. This new event series will offer regular networking, education or business training opportunities, and other exciting offerings to help you as an active employee, business owner, business operator, or entrepreneur. The first in this series included a half hour New Member Orientation, a presentation on attracting, retaining, and engaging employees from JKL Associates, and plenty of time to network and enjoy tasty food from Florida Technical College.

New Member Orientation

The Chamber hosts New Member Orientations at least quarterly. New Member Orientations cover all things Chamber and are a great Chamber refresher for longtime members as well as new members. Established members are also welcome to send new employees that would like to get involved or learn more about us. Join us for a New Member Orientation at a future Front Porch event, or drop by the Chamber any time and pick up a Member Quick Guide.

Your Employees A.R.E. Your Best Asset (Attracting, Retaining, Engaging) by JKL Associates

The Front Porch Series will regularly offer educational content to help you navigate running a business. Larry Klimek, a Promise Guide with JKL Associates, helped us send out a survey to our members to find out what is keeping YOU up at night. We learned that attracting and retaining employees was the number one issue. Some points of interest from Larry’s presentation include:

• As leaders, we must adapt to changes in culture and the individual needs of talent in order to retain them.
• Leaders must deal with the “beta fish” in their sea of employees in order to avoid being left with the the “beta fish” alone.
• Organizations must live their “vision statements” and behaviorally demonstrate them in all transactions with employees, customers, vendors, colleagues, etc.
• Employers must identify their workplace culture, define roles within their organization, build relationships within and around their organization, have engaging communication with their teams where they are truly heard, and invest time and money to save future headaches.

Networking

Despite a slight bit of wind and rain, we had a great time networking with our attendees both under the front porte cochere and inside the Chamber lobby.  Florida Technical College’s culinary program supplied us with garlic chicken, rice, and beef to enjoy alongside wine and beer.

Watch the Chamber website events page for the next Front Porch event.  Future offerings will include free headshots, additional business training, and more.