Truckee Jobs Collective formed to assist businesses seeking year-round staff

TRUCKEE, Calif. — Finding employees to stay year round is often a challenge for businesses in the North Lake Tahoe area, and an issue that the Truckee Chamber of Commerce has set out to tackle this year. 

“The idea is to make sure employees are able to work enough hours to live here,” said Megan Hines, membership services manager for the chamber.

To aid local businesses with retention and recruitment of employees, the chamber created the Truckee Jobs Collective, a multi-faceted project aimed at addressing those issues.

One aspect of the project is the chamber's roundtable meetings, where employers can connect directly to each other and share their concerns with finding employees as well as the specific type of employees they need. The chamber held its first roundtable on April 30, which hosted around 30 business owners.

Hines said they had participants talk about what kind of work they were offering, how many hours they could offer and if they had employees that currently needed more work. Near the end of the meeting, employers were able to network with each other to potentially connect their employees with other businesses if they could offer additional hours.

“It was the first time we had done this so we didn't really know how it was going to go,” said Hines. “I can't say we solved all the problems but it was a positive first meeting.”

With the busy summer season approaching, Hines said many of the business owners requested another meeting. In June, the chamber will host a second roundtable for employers as well as job seekers, allowing the two groups to connect directly in person. The meeting will be at held at the Tahoe Donner Public Utility District on June 17 from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

In July, the chamber will also be launching a job finding website for local workers.

“That will be a website where employers and job seekers can go on fill out profiles and find each other,” said Hines.

The website will incorporate two factors that differentiate it from other job finding sites, Hines said. First, employers' profiles will display a two minute video showcasing the culture of their company.

“The overarching goal of these short videos is to showcase three or four reasons why a person might want to work for you or your company,” said Hines, who is helping businesses create the videos.

The site will also have a list of 27 options that job seekers can choose from to specify what type of employment they are looking for. These include whether or not a business offers healthcare, if the workplace is dog friendly or if the job allow employees to work remotely.

“You can search based on perks and benefits that matter to you,” said Hines.

Though the chamber has easily connected with business owners, Hines said they are hoping to reach as many job seekers as possible.

“We think it'll be easy to get employers on it because we are the Chamber of Commerce, but we want to make sure it's a balanced website from the beginning,” she said.