Keep up with Region 5

Beset by the COVID-19 pandemic and its recessionary shocks, companies across the globe are paring workforces at alarming rates. In the United States alone, some 40 million workers had filed jobless claims by the end of May, with the biggest losses occurring in the leisure and hospitality, professional business services...Continue Reading

The Covid-19 Black Swan has completely disrupted the U.S. and global infrastructure market, magnifying the cracks in the global infrastructure investment model. The magnitude of the problem is significant, but so is the opportunity. The International Finance Corporation sees emerging market domestic private investment declining by $700 billion this year ove...Continue Reading

While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to create an environment of unpredictability, the one certainty is that the way in which people previously commuted to their jobs — and the way in which goods and services were traditionally delivered — is likely changed forever. It is still too early to predict th...Continue Reading

Throughout August and September, Twin Cities Business is hosting online conversations with executives from each of the 10 companies that received our 2020 Minnesota Manufacturing Excellence Awards. You can register here for free to join us live at noon every Tuesday and Thursday through Sept. 15. And if you missed one, catch up now: Protolabs Protolabs presiden...Continue Reading

As part of a new series Comparably has in partnership with Entrepreneur, entitled “If I Knew Then: Leadership Lessons,” I have the privilege of hosting virtual fireside chats with high-profile CEOs of major brands, from Waze and Blue Apron to NerdWallet and the Dallas Mavericks. During our one-hour sit-downs, I ask these incredible leaders to share invaluable lessons that the...Continue Reading

The city of Little Falls recently welcomed 20 new ice cream flavors to town with the grand opening of the Lindy Scoop Ice Cream Shoppe, Aug. 28. Featuring flavors from a standard vanilla or a sweet maple nut to more unique flavors like caramel collision, coconut explosion, pirate’s bounty and jumpin...Continue Reading

Women’s entrepreneurship has been dramatically on the rise in America during the past decade. There are now 12.3 million women-owned businesses in in the U.S., according to a report by American Express and SCORE. The average annual revenues of women-owned companies rose 68% in 2019, to $384,359 from $228,578 i...Continue Reading

Effective hiring and retention practices are key to effective leadership. The reality is that managers that hire well and that are able to keep talented employees produce better results. Replacing employees is time-consuming, expensive, and disruptive. Plus, when an employee leaves, it can impact the entire team and cause a rippl...Continue Reading

With 700 million users, LinkedIn provides a massive opportunity for businesses to increase sales leads and revenue. In this video, the creator and host of “The Startup Story” shares tips for leveraging LinkedIn to start conversations with cold contacts, namely: Research, learning more about the contact you’re reaching out to from their profile as well as other socia...Continue Reading

As discussed in the first article of our series on Hidden Biases in the Workplace, we all have biases. It is critical that you are aware of your biases, especially when recruiting for your company. Humans make decisions every 2.5 seconds: Should I get out of bed or hit snooze one more time...Continue Reading

When Hennepin County Commissioner Jan Callison thinks of the long saga known as the Southwest Light Rail Project, she said she thinks of the movie “The Princess Bride.” The Princess Bride? Specifically, the scene when Westley’s friends think he is dead and bring him to see the character Miracle Max, played b...Continue Reading

It’s almost as if the Minnesota State Fair is actually happening. The Fine Arts Exhibition will open in its usual place on the fairgrounds – with limited capacity (of audience, not art), but still. You’ll have to reserve a time slot and buy a ticket ($10). The first five nights (Thursday, Aug...Continue Reading

If you or your clients have incentives contracts, now is the time to examine your incentive agreements to understand the potential risks if your company is unable to perform key obligations. The first step in any crisis is to determine exactly what the problem is. Review your incentive agreements to confir...Continue Reading

Indemnification provisions are an important part of the fine print of many contracts. These clauses generally operate to protect one party against the other party’s actions or failures to act that lead to a loss claimed by a third party (not a party to the contract). A common example i...Continue Reading

The last several years of corporate site selection have been influenced by many trends. Among these are corporate tax cuts, a red-hot industrial real estate market, the explosion of e-commerce, increasing trade protectionism, record economic growth and, in a stunning reversal, a global health pandemic and recession. It seems th...Continue Reading

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the risks inherent in the global supply chain, particularly the worldwide reliance on China for medical supplies. The supply chain turbulence experienced during the pandemic undoubtedly will impact future business decisions, extending beyond medicine to other industries, including electronics, aerospace, automobiles, defense, consumer products, and technology. Incentivizin...Continue Reading

As the U.S. economy begins to dig itself out of a deep hole caused by the COVID-19 crisis, many businesses now face the stark reality of a substantially reduced pool of working capital along with credit lines that will likely not thaw out anytime soon. Yet despite those challenges, retailers...Continue Reading

Newly dispersed work teams are facing new challenges. During the early months of the global pandemic, more than three-quarters of organizations reported 80 percent or more of their employees were working from home, according to a global survey on workplace re-entry. While workplace mobility isn’t new, the scale of remote work has accelerate...Continue Reading

While APP involves a modest amount of additional upfront time for planning, the investment pays significant dividends throughout the project — and at the most critical times. Detailed planning is executed in advance, enabling the project team and stakeholders to discuss project objectives, prioritize needs, and examine costs from th...Continue Reading

As corporate decision-makers develop their business strategies for the future, the markets they consider are rapidly changing. This dynamic trend was already in place before the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic as businesses sought to alleviate concentration risk. With the unprecedented impacts on the global economy of the curren...Continue Reading

The global pandemic has upended the labor market and dramatically and suddenly reversed U.S. economic expansion. COVID-19, especially, has caused U.S. manufactures to face unprecedented labor challenges. With COVID-19 and the need for social distancing, these shortages are escalating. Many factories have shuttered to protect workers and prevent COVID-19’s spread. Eve...Continue Reading

St. Paul – The Minnesota Public Facilities Authority (PFA) today announced $122 million in loans and grants in the first half of 2020 for water and infrastructure projects in 24 communities throughout Minnesota. “COVID-19 hasn’t postponed the need for Minnesotans to protect one of our most prized natural resources, our water,” sai...Continue Reading

Whether you’re a 9-to-5 office worker or an entrepreneur used to running around to clients and conferences for different business opportunities, the health crisis has caused many people to make the dramatic shift to working entirely from home. As someone who’s experienced the whole spectrum of work setups — everything from corporate office...Continue Reading

Workplace bias takes many forms, but the result is always the same—exclusion of members of the workforce from experiences and opportunities for which they are qualified. This is the first post in a series that will walk through addressing hidden biases in the workplace. We will start with identifying biases...Continue Reading