Beaufort County Community College is joining a statewide initiative to better understand the challenges and successes business and industry faces in finding and retaining high-quality employees.

With local efforts led by BCCC Customized Training Director Lauren Dudley and Region Q Workforce Development Director Walter Dorsey, who are co-chairing the project, BCCC is part of a team of workforce development partners that are leading the effort in the county, Dudley said. As part of Gov. Pat McRory’s “1,000 in 100” initiative announced last spring as part of NC Works, the team began visiting local businesses this month to reach out, conduct interviews and find how the county can better serve their needs as businesses, Dudley said.

“It came right out of the governor’s office,” Dudley said. “He wanted us to reach out to all the businesses, meet with them, talk about their needs and how we can serve them better in the future.”

The intiative, “1,000 in 100,” refers to the governor’s call to have local teams visit 1,000 businesses of all types in all 100 counties in the last 100 days of the year, according to a BCCC press release. The Beaufort County team includes representatives from BCCC, NC Works, Washington-Beaufort Chamber of Commerce, Mid-East Commission and Region Q Workforce Development, Dudley said. Since early August, the team has been meeting and has chosen the companies for each visit as well as which teams will conduct the visits.

Dudley said though the initiative will end by the end of the year, the information gathered will be compiled in a database with other research data and McRory will formulate solutions on state levels. The Beaufort County team will look at regional and local data to implement strategies in the community, Dudley said.

“If we want to know what is working and what isn’t with our businesses, we have to talk to them directly,” McRory said in the release. “Our goal is to better understand how to meet their workforce needs and how to more effectively connect North Carolinians to great careers. I appreciate all of our agencies and industry working together to make this a success. NCWorks covers all 100 counties so we need to listen in all 100 counties. This initiative is critical so we better understand what we need to do differently.”

Dudley, who has been tasked with forming teams for each county of the college’s four-county service area, is in charge of reaching out to 40 businesses, she said. So far, they have visited 14 businesses in Beaufort County, three in Tyrell, two in Hyde County and three in Washington County.

“I was tasked with being the chairperson for those four counties,” Dudley said. “I basically looked to those organizations to form my team of people who could actually go out to each of these organizations and conduct these interviews. I would say a lot of times it’s more coordination on our part — working together, sharing our ideas — so we’re all on the same page. We can all work together to find one solution, and we can reach out more, keeping in contact with companies and hearing how we can help them. Any company out there that wants to share their opinions, I’m more than happy to talk to them — whoever wants to be involved.”

For more information or to participate, contact Lauren Dudley at 252-940-6311 or laurend@beaufortccc.edu or Walter Dorsey at 252-974-1815 or wdorsey@mideast.com.org.