Why Welcome? A Business Case for Expansive Belonging

Most of us feel the value of welcoming. Maybe it’s morally or spiritually essential to us to welcome the stranger. Maybe connecting with others across difference fuels us creatively. Or maybe new food, new art, new music, and new stories light us up because they’re fun, part of the gift and adventure of being alive.?

Every year, we celebrate that compassion, curiosity, and joy during Welcoming Week NWA! Nothing makes us happier at EngageNWA than witnessing how well our community knows and cares for each other, how eager people are to meet each other and team up.?

We also know that the more we all feel that we authentically belong here, the more our region prospers. Welcoming isn’t just a good feeling– it’s good business too.?

A Rising Tide Lifts All Ships

The emphasis on recruiting and retaining diverse talent to the region’s workforce doesn’t always make sense to people. Why does it matter that we have a diverse workforce? Isn’t having a large workforce enough??

First, the reality is that the workforce in Northwest Arkansas is increasingly diverse, and a central goal in all communities is full employment. Whether you’re a newcomer or have made Northwest Arkansas home for generations, your presence contributes to the region’s vibrant culture and thriving economy, and you deserve to benefit from the wealth and opportunity pouring into our communities.?

And shared access to the region’s prosperity improves everyone's quality of life. The adage about a rising tide lifting all ships is a smart one, says Margot Lemaster, Executive Director of EngageNWA. We all prefer a harbor where all the boats float to one littered with shipwrecks.

But how does diversity benefit work teams? Why is our diverse workforce an asset to our region's employers??

Diversity Improves Problem Solving

Most of us know intuitively that people aren’t interchangeable: your boss’s personality affects your quality of life, and when you go out to dinner your server can have a big impact on whether you enjoy your evening. Our experiences shape us, and who we are affects everyone we meet.

The same holds true on work teams. Diversity strengthens teams because employees bring their lived experiences to problem solving. More diverse experience invites richer and more varied ideas into the room. Teams can then synthesize members’ ideas in creative, innovative ways.

Our Fortune 100 businesses compete on a global stage, as do the vendors and contractors connected to them. They rely on a diverse workforce to clear the world’s high bar for freshness and innovation, and create products and tailor services that work in diverse global markets.

And a diverse workforce isn’t just beneficial for our biggest businesses, says Margot Lemaster, Executive Director of EngageNWA. It’s critical for businesses of all sizes. Refugee talent is helping to fill the area’s significant workforce needs -- we typically have about 10k jobs open in the region -- and local businesses are interested in developing these pipelines. Community organizations support employers’ recruitment efforts by offering easy, practical solutions, like making sure applications allow space for international phone numbers.

Regional Reputation and Talent Recruitment

“A vibrant, thriving community attracts talent,” Lemaster explains. “The better we know each other and the more diverse voices contribute to shaping our programs and systems, the more we thrive.”

Schools’ ability to know and welcome students illustrates the impact of belonging on recruitment. Educators who understand students’ home cultures are better able to present content in ways that engage students. Engaged students perform better on tests, and when test scores improve, so do our region’s school quality rankings.?

Top talent looks at those rankings before deciding to move to Northwest Arkansas. People are more likely to choose to work in our region when they feel confident that their children will receive a world class education here.

The same is true for our smallest local businesses. Understanding consumers’ home cultures helps small businesses market products and services effectively. The better Main Street (or Dickson, Emma, Walnut, and 8th Street Market) gets at developing spaces, sales strategies, and advertising that welcome a wide variety of consumers, the more they expand their customer base. Top talent is attracted to prosperous communities where they’re confident they’ll have easy access to experiences, goods, and services that spark their curiosity and feel like home.

Our Shared Responsibility for Retention

Creating communities where all employees experience belonging is part of our region’s responsibility to employers. The Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) tells us that the average cost to hire a new employee is $4,683.?

However, while this cost depends on the job and the company, many employers estimate the true cost of a new hire at 3-4 times the new hire’s salary. When we include factors like time – training time, time company leadership spends on the hiring process – it can cost a company between $150k and $200k to hire an employee who makes $50k per year.?

Investing in our region’s social infrastructure helps prevent that loss.?

The Retention Shot Clock

Aron Shelton of Finding NWA describes retention of employees as a shot clock set to three years. People who become meaningfully embedded in the Northwest Arkansas community within those three years stay here. Finding a community where we can put down roots, where they and their children can thrive, is a relief and a joy for them. It also saves their employers the financial loss and disruption that come with replacing them.?

Throughout 2024, EngageNWA has helped regional leaders connect with each other and dig deep on the factors that contribute to belonging. We have also piloted the Belonging Barometer, which allows us to measure how successful we are at making everyone feel at home here.

Through Welcoming Week, EngageNWA uplifts organizations, institutions, and businesses that are already doing this work. They help ensure that we all have a voice in community systems and programs, and meaningful opportunities to contribute our talents. They help us all find friends, fun, service providers we trust, food we like, and faith communities where we can celebrate, grieve, and grow.?

Our Children Belong in NWA

Both Shelton and Lemaster grew up here in Northwest Arkansas, and emphasize that retention isn’t just about newcomers. It’s about ensuring that people who grow up here know that the region values their voices, families, and expertise, and that they’re able to access the benefits of Northwest Arkansas’s growth and prosperity.

Businesses aren’t alone in investing in new participants in the region’s workforce. Every resource directed towards children growing up in Northwest Arkansas communities– from schools to outdoor recreation to youth groups to art initiatives to pediatric healthcare– impacts our children’s sense of belonging and desire to make a home here as adults.

We were thrilled to launch this year’s Welcoming Week at Springdale High School. The band and spirit squads greeted attendees, embodying the enthusiastic welcome we want all people to experience in Northwest Arkansas. Student leaders spoke, student groups performed, and nearly 3,000 students heard from regional business and civic leaders about how essential young people are to our communities’ purpose and success.?

The day concluded with a resource fair where students interacted with businesses and organizations who have become experts in welcoming. Students were able to find internships and work, as well as opportunities to fulfill Arkansas’s new requirement that every public and charter school student complete 75 volunteer hours before graduation.?

Facilitating meaningful connection between students and the larger community improves their sense of belonging and creates opportunities for them to experience the many joys of welcoming others.?

Belonging Boomerangs & Tethers

While short term success at recruitment and retention is important, Lemaster and Shelton encourage us to see it in terms of long relationships too.

When people experience belonging in our communities, it strengthens the boomerang effect, where people leave the area for a while but ultimately return. It also strengthens what Shelton calls tethering: Northwest Arkansas becomes an emotional center for people, and they return as visitors or their children choose to come here for college.?

Welcoming Week 2024 highlighted our region’s success at managing enormous, rapid change. There is so much to celebrate in how we have adapted to serve both newcomers and the families for whom Northwest Arkansas has long been home. Our shared desire for prosperity and our intuitive commitment to care for our neighbors makes this a vibrant, culturally rich community, and allows us to sustain our leadership in the global economy.