Join us for our installment of the Pacesetters Doing Business series featuring Boston Planning and Development Agency on December 7, 2023.
12/07/2023
3:00pm - 4:00pm
Virtual
Jenny Holaday will share her journey into leadership as President of Encore Boston Harbor and first woman to run a casino in Massachusetts.
12/13/2023
2:00pm - 4:00pm
Encore Boston Harbor
Step into Winter Wonderland at our BIMA Holiday Gala. Gather your digital media and marketing peers for a night of networking and entertainment.
12/14/2023
6:30pm - 9:30pm
InterContinental Boston
Designed for mid-level managers and supervisors, this new certificate program addresses workplace well-being through unique, innovative, and actionable methods.
Join our Transformational DEI Certificate! Our comprehensive learning & development offerings are designed to connect and grow strong leaders who lead both inside and out of the office.
Our Women’s Leadership Program enables you to take your leadership to the next level by arming you with the most in-demand leadership toolkit.
Our Boston’s Future Leaders (BFL) program provides emerging leaders with a socially conscious and civically engaged leadership toolkit, as well as the opportunity to apply their knowledge through experiential assignments.
City Awake empowers young professionals in a variety of ways that encourages these rising leaders to stay invested in the region’s future success.
We are developing an ecosystem of corporations and partners with the influence and buying power to transform economic inclusion for minority business enterprises (MBEs).
The Fierce Urgency of Now Festival brings Boston’s diverse young professionals together with business leaders, organizations and their peers to build connection, advance careers and ignite positive change.
09/12/2023 -
09/16/2023
Greater Boston
BIMA (the Boston Interactive Media Association) serves a vibrant community of like-minded professionals from agencies, brands, publishers, and ad-tech companies with business interests in the New England market.
For nearly 30 years, the Chamber’s Women’s Network has connected female professionals of all background and career levels. Today, our Women’s Network is the largest in New England, strengthening the professional networks of women each year.
The Massachusetts Apprentice Network convenes employers, training providers, and talent sources interested in developing and implementing apprenticeship programs in occupations across industries and statewide in fields such as tech, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, and more.
We support small business through public policy initiatives, events designed to connect small businesses in Greater Boston to their peers and established business leaders, professional development offerings, and free small business advising.
Explore our mission and values to better understand how we are leading the business community forward.
Our member directory is your resource to discover, connect, and engage with Boston’s businesses from every industry and sector.
The Chamber and Massachusetts Business Coalition on Skills urges the Future of Work Commission to recognize and include policy recommendations in its forthcoming report that will expand access for learners and jobseekers to earn industry recognized credentials in the future.
The MBCS is a coalition of 27 diverse business organizations from across the state that advocates for equitable skills development policies. Among member organizations, the Massachusetts Business Roundtable is represented on the Future of Work Commission as a member and the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education presented to the Commission in late 2021. As expressed by these groups and shared by MBCS in past testimony to the Legislature’s Labor & Workforce Development Committee, we see firsthand the challenges employers across the Commonwealth experience today in filling open positions with employees that possess the skillsets required for employers to run or expand their businesses successfully.
We must plan today to develop tomorrow’s future. That is why we recognize the significant potential we can unlock by investing in our students. Students today want and deserve access to career-connected study, yet our current high school system limits this educational experience. Thoughtful policy recommendations that can be implemented today to yield success for our future – including our future talent – is critical to maintain the Commonwealth’s competitiveness in the coming years.
The MBCS encourages the Future of Work Commission to incorporate in its policy recommendations legislation (H.691/S.351) focused on expanding high school access to earn industry recognized credentials. These bills will expand opportunities for high school students today and in the coming years to earn industry-recognized credentials tied to labor market demand and high-wage jobs of the future. Building on these bills in the Future of Work’s recommendations will integrate education and career, adopting strategies that will make industry-recognized credentials more accessible to high school students and build career aligned high school pathways to good jobs or higher education. This strategy helps to also close the skills gap, ensuring that the education our students receive align with the skills needed to be successful in the workforce.
Currently, Massachusetts has low alignment between the credentials earned by high school students and the credentials in demand among employers. This is troublesome because the state’s employers report that one of the clearest indicators of whether a high school graduate will be hirable in the future is if they possess an in-demand industry-recognized credential(s). The Future of Work Commission has heard from presenters and has discussed the important role employers must play in building our future talent, and public policy such as expanding access for high school students is a key strategy that will align labor market demands with improved skills in the future.
As the Commission considers public policy recommendations, we urge consideration of expanded industry-recognized credentials for high school students because it offers a dynamic solution to closing the skills gap by annually prioritizing industry-recognized credentials with high employment value that are recognized by higher education institutions and respond to changing regional labor market demands. In turn, the prioritized industry-recognized credentials can guide students toward high-wage and in-demand careers while also assisting employers in their efforts to identify job candidates that possess the skills needed to succeed.
Investing in and fostering the talent of our future workforce will keep Massachusetts a global competitor and create new opportunities for residents and businesses alike. We strongly encourage the Commission to consider data-driven efforts to expand access to industry-recognized credentials, like the one outlined in H.691/S.351, and other policy efforts that will work to close the skills gap, address labor market demands, and provide students with career pathways toward high-wage and in-demand jobs.
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