For more than 50 years, Americans for the Arts has been dedicated to building broad public support, strong leadership, and increased resources for arts and arts education. The pARTnership Movement, which was launched in 2012 by Americans for the Arts’ Business Committee for the Arts, bridges the gap between the businesses world and the arts world, and helps businesses understand that partnering with the arts can have real strategic value.

For any business interested in recruiting and retaining top talent, fostering innovation, or engaging employees, the power of the arts should not be ignored. Our new pARTnership Movement essay series documents some of the powerful ways that the arts help businesses to meet their objectives and gain a competitive edge. In the first essay of this new series, Recruit and Retain Talent, we explore how the arts can help businesses find talented employees and build a community where employees want to live and work.

RECRUT AND RETAIN TALENT: THE PROBLEM

• In 2011, 18 percent of the U.S. workforce voluntarily quit their jobs, according to the Center for American Progress.
• One year later, the Center for American Progress determined that turnover typically costs an employer more than 20 percent of an employee's salary. (For highly paid jobs, the report found those turnover costs can skyrocket up to 213 percent!)
• Also in 2012, Microsoft announced that it simply could not find suitable candidates to fill thousands of open engineering, research, and development jobs. Microsoft General Counsel and Executive Vice President Brad Smith was quoted in Computerworld as saying, “Our nation faces the paradox of a crisis in unemployment at the same time that many companies cannot fill the jobs they have to offer.”
• In 2014, a survey by ManpowerGroup showed that 40 percent of U.S. employers have difficulty filling jobs. 56 percent of U.S. employers believe that a talent shortage has a medium-to-high impact on their ability to meet client needs.

THE SOLUTION

Professional development programs, work-life balance issues, and many other factors can all contribute to employee recruitment and retention. One factor many businesses often overlook is the role of art.

For example, the city of Des Moines historically faced huge setbacks as young professionals left the city for more vibrant communities like Chicago and Minneapolis. To counteract this serious threat, the business community helped fund organizations like the Des Moines Social Club, which develops and hosts thousands of artistic events each year, and created new public art spaces such as the Pappajohn Sculpture Park and The Principal Riverwalk. Thanks to the collaborative efforts of businesses and arts organizations in Des Moines, Fortune named Des Moines the #1 City with an Up-and-Coming Downtown in 2014, and Forbes named Des Moines the #1 Best City for Young Professionals. In 2015, Forbes called Des Moines the #2 Best City for Jobs. Read more about how businesses in Des Moines helped transform the city through the arts.

Over the next eight months, The pARTnership Movement essay series will explore and illustrate the different types of benefits that arts partnerships can bring to businesses. Stay tuned for our next essay, Put Your Company in the Spotlight, featuring examples from companies including Portland General Electric and Payless ShoeSource, which will be released later this month on www.pARTnershipMovement.org.

Do you know of a business in your community that has partnered with the arts to recruit and retain talent? We want to hear from you! Share your story with us on email at [email protected] or on Twitter using #ArtsandBiz and tagging @Americans4Arts.