Q&A: SHNS Talks With AIM’s Brooke Thomson

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Q&A: SHNS Talks With AIM's Brooke Thomson

JAN. 16, 2024……A brand new session means renewed priorities — and for the enterprise neighborhood, a balancing act of celebrating financial progress whereas additionally addressing main issues throughout the trade. 

Brooke Thomson, CEO of Related Industries of Massachusetts, has been with the enterprise group for 5 years and main it for simply over one 12 months. AIM is the Bay State’s largest enterprise affiliation and represents greater than 3,400 employers throughout 150 totally different industries. Most lately, AIM released its 2024 Enterprise Confidence Index, which prompt that Massachusetts enterprise house owners ended 2024 extra optimistic in regards to the scope of the trade than they started. 

In a current dialog with the Information Service, Thomson talked in regards to the main challenges companies are dealing with in Massachusetts, AIM’s coverage priorities for the brand new session, and the way she expects enterprise confidence to pattern in 2025.

This interview has been edited and condensed for readability and size.

Q: AIM’s 2024 enterprise confidence report prompt that enterprise house owners are extra optimistic about financial development than they had been in the beginning of the 12 months — however there’s additionally a extra pessimistic narrative coming from numerous trade teams about financial issues resulting in outmigration. How do you view that nuance between the 2 outlooks?

A: What we noticed all through 2024 was this up and down, which we all the time say is reflective of uncertainty. What’s encompassed in uncertainty? There’s some optimism and there’s some pessimism, and definitely since COVID, what we’ve seen is, for our companies, it’s extra looking within the short-term how issues are going and making choices and creating technique, and so much much less [an] skill to plan outward for lengthy intervals of time. Housing, vitality prices, well being care prices, transportation — these issues nonetheless stay. I feel the optimism comes from the truth that I see an actual dedication with everyone to return to the desk to attempt to handle [them]. The place the priority nonetheless lies is, are we going to proceed ahead on this path, and the way lengthy is it going to take us to get the place we have to be to proceed to see that development? 

The problem is affordability. I’m conscious about this. I grew up within the Midwest — I’m that story of anyone who checked out all of the superb faculties and universities right here in Massachusetts, and mentioned, “I wish to go there.” I went to Mount Holyoke Faculty, I actually fell in love with Massachusetts [and] determined after graduating that I’d transfer into Boston [and] go to regulation faculty at Northeastern. I’ve lived right here longer than I lived there. I’ve acquired two women, I’ve determined to boost them right here, to essentially spend money on what Massachusetts has to supply. I fear typically that a number of the developments we’re seeing about excessive prices [and] affordability are impacting different folks, like me 25 years in the past, [and] their skill to do what I did. As anyone who represents a enterprise group, that’s regarding, as a result of that’s your expertise, that’s your pipeline, that’s your workforce, that’s your financial system. 

Q: As companies put together for federal tax coverage to probably change in months forward, and Massachusetts’s enterprise confidence index trails the U.S. index, how do you anticipate the boldness of enterprise house owners and employers to pattern in 2025? 

A: I feel actually within the first quarter with the transition in federal administration, it’s going to be a whole lot of up and down. Continued uncertainty. We’re all form of hypothesizing — what is that this going to imply, whether or not you’re speaking about tariffs, whether or not you’re speaking about federal sources? I feel Massachusetts final 12 months alone acquired $43 billion in federal sources — so when you’re a enterprise, and most companies have some form of funding flowing from the federal authorities, you’re saying, “What’s that going to imply beneath a brand new administration? Are they going to reprioritize?” I actually suppose it’s going to take Q1, perhaps even in Q2 to see the place the brand new administration’s priorities are. Because of this, I feel you’re going to see a continuation of what we now have seen, which is companies holding onto capital, holding off on big-scale funding, proper till they’ve extra of a way of what the short- and long-term local weather goes to seem like.

Q: What are some coverage priorities this session you’re hoping will handle trade challenges?

A: [There are] 5 key areas that we’re going to be targeted on. Financial development is a really broad objective — a whole lot of instances you hear the phrase “competitiveness” connected to that. At its core, [it means] ensuring Massachusetts is a spot the place companies wish to keep, develop and find. We’ve acquired to additionally appeal to industries that perhaps aren’t right here proper now, and that’s by no means been harder with the affordability challenges. It’s about having a business-friendly setting, making certain that we’re being very conservative and intentional after we’re speaking about further prices [and taxes] for companies. Now we have states [like] Tennessee [and] Texas which are bending over backwards to draw the oldsters which have been right here for generations. We’ve completed a fantastic job — you noticed on the finish of 2023 we had the tax minimize bundle, after which the financial improvement invoice — however will probably be incumbent on all of us to be sure that we keep that stability, whereas retaining that theme of, “Hey, companies, we would like you to take a position right here.” We all know that’s actually completed by insurance policies that ship these indicators out into the ecosystem. 

Subsequent in line is workforce. That’s training, coaching and the way we’re ensuring that we now have that workforce. We noticed the most recent knowledge come out from the Census Bureau that our inhabitants is declining, however not on the charge it was declining the final couple years. The alarming quantity is actually these 24-to-31-year-olds who’re [leaving], and that’s the place the affordability challenges are available in round housing, transportation, well being care, vitality. How can Massachusetts be artistic in an effort to be aggressive? It’s not going to be Tampa — it’s not going to be 80 levels in January. It’s not going to be Nashville — you’re not going to get a 3,000 sq. foot home for $200,000 and also you’re going to have some site visitors congestion. But when we’re artistic within the locations the place we may be, we will actually compete with a few of these different states. 

We’re very targeted on financial inclusion, as a result of it’s a aggressive benefit for our employers. And the final two can be vitality and transportation and infrastructure. On the vitality facet, we’re on the finish of the pipeline. Due to local weather change, we now have actual calls for on our system, and we’re working to attempt to transition to cleaner, extra dependable vitality. All of that’s extraordinarily time consuming and expensive, and it requires strategic, considerate funding in how we’re going to get there. What we’re doing right here at AIM — and why this can be a coverage focus for 2025 — is [asking]: when we now have a enterprise local weather the place there’s already actually excessive prices, and all of us have a common objective of assembly our local weather targets, how will we transition the system in a manner that doesn’t overburden our companies or our householders financially, so they are saying, “I’ve to maneuver out of Massachusetts?” On transportation and infrastructure, we acknowledge that we now have to deal with a number of the main points on transportation in and round Boston — however we now have to symbolize the cities and cities which are elsewhere who’ve their very own transportation and infrastructure challenges. AIM’s strategy is actually taking a look at it from a complete state financial improvement perspective and saying, “How are we utilizing the present sources that we now have proper now to make the modifications we have to make to maintain each area of the state functioning no matter whether or not you utilize a automobile, you utilize the MBTA, you’re taking a practice, you’re taking a bus?”

Q: What does that time period “competitiveness” imply to you?

A: Competitiveness, for me, is actually [about] retaining Massachusetts robust. That’s ensuring that the issues that drew me to Massachusetts as a child from the Midwest are the issues that [draw] people who find themselves someplace throughout the ocean taking a look at coming to america, anyone that’s down in Texas, saying, “The place do I wish to be? The place do I wish to increase a household? The place do I wish to work?” Competitiveness is affordability. If we will’t preserve the expertise that makes us so nice right here, the whole lot else actually isn’t going to matter. If Secretary Hao was right here proper now, she’d say, “Brooke, however have a look at how far we’ve come!” And I feel we actually have, however after I journey to [other states], after I speak to my counterparts on the different state Chambers, [they talk about how their] Legislature[s] [are] taking a look at insurance policies to attempt to attract extra companies there, seeking to attempt to minimize enterprise prices. They’re coming for us. The good thing about being nearly as good as we’re is we’ve set a basis that different states wish to emulate. It’s a course of that [can] take a long time, and so we’ve acquired to comply with by on the insurance policies that we’ve already set a extremely robust basis on.

Q: The governor’s model of the FY2026 price range can be filed quickly. Is there something you’re hoping that it adjusts for when it comes to financial struggles or issues forward?

A: AIM is all the time targeted on ensuring of some issues. One, we don’t wish to see any new broad-based tax will increase. We additionally wish to see continued funding within the Stabilization Fund. After which with the transportation challenges that we now have, we’re trying mindfully on the price range to see that it correlates with [recommended] investments and makes use of these present [surtax] sources that we now have.

Q: Apart from the affordability side, is there one overwhelming concern that you just hear about out of your members?

A: Workforce. We nonetheless proceed to see, even with a extremely low unemployment charge, that a whole lot of our employers both have open positions or they’ve positions the place, if that they had a wider pool of parents to select from, they might make totally different choices. We do so much within the recruitment area. What we see time and time once more — that’s considerably new post-COVID— is employers will get a possible rent, they’ll have the interview stage, the particular person will appear actually nice, they’ll do the background verify, they present up the primary day, after which they by no means present up once more. It’s one thing that was utterly extraordinary earlier than COVID. The profit is to tug the information that we see from this taking place whereas additionally [asking] what in regards to the recruitment course of perhaps may be modified in order that we will forestall this from taking place. Is it a coaching state of affairs? Is it that we’re not discovering the proper match? In order that’s a spot the place we’re in a position to attract knowledge, but additionally present providers, nevertheless it’s one thing that doesn’t matter when you’re a producer, doesn’t matter when you’re a well being care system — [businesses are] simply not getting the candidates they want. That’s why one of many main points we’re going to give attention to this 12 months is workforce and training, as a result of there’s something that’s lacking to create that nexus that stops this drawback from rising.