Business representatives in the Heber Valley will meet to talk about ideas and issues in the local economy Monday.
All local businesses are invited to the Monday morning business forum. It’s at the Wasatch County Senior Citizen Center at 465 East 1200 South. It’s also open to the public.
Heber Valley Chamber of Commerce Director Dallin Koecher says his office organized the event to get feedback directly from businesses.
“We’re looking at this to be a listening opportunity for the chamber to hear what’s going on, and there are opportunities to glean from other people’s knowledge and implement some of those things more across the valley.”
He says the chamber will bring up topics but encourage attendees to lead the discussion.
An ongoing worker shortage is one topic he expects to address. Businesses in the valley have reported difficulty staffing employees and filling shifts. These include restaurants and retail stores, among others, and businesses in the Park City area have described similar problems recently.
He says the meeting can help the chamber get a sense for how widely it’s affecting businesses.
“We really want to hear more about the employee shortage: how to help people, what are people doing to cover shifts that aren’t being covered, what are they doing to survive. And secondly, we want to listen so that we can help and encourage and have positive messages back to our community and say, ‘Hey, these businesses know that they are struggling and things are happening, and some of their services may be delayed or take a little longer, so we all need to just be kind as we all work through this together.”
Koecher says he hopes as many as 50 or 60 businesses will be represented. The chamber sent email invitations to its members, but anyone is welcome to show up.
