How Co-working Grows Our Local Talent

Last week we saw over 11,000 people come Downtown for the largest free community led conference of the year -- Techstars Detroit Startup Week. Year over year, we’ve helped as a partner to grow the event into the largest startup week nationwide. This free event brings in top talent and exposes them to the opportunities in our city.

At Bamboo, we recently celebrated a Bamboo member breaking a national fundraising record who had to leave to grow their company outside of Detroit. The challenge we see is keeping local talent here, while also exposing new talent to a constantly changing city. Events like Detroit Startup Week help play an important role. Co-working spaces and business hubs like Bamboo can play ongoing role cultivating and engaging our local talent, and helping new talent land and expand into Detroit.

Here are three ways you can use spaces for talent engagement.

1. Partner on Events to Expose Talent to Your Company

Co-working spaces often serve as hubs of community. They become networks of people, not just places to work. These means there are always people hiring or seeking jobs coming through our doors. We hear these comments like these almost weekly:

• I found a job at a Bamboo event and have been there over two years.
• I found my partner at a Bamboo event.
• I found my first hire at a Bamboo event.
• I got laid off and while figuring out what to do next, came to a Bamboo event.

Hosting an event can connect your company to talent and founders to one another. It’s important that an event creates value for your audience. We often serve as a partner, brainstorming speaker ideas and topics interesting and of value to the Detroit community. We host events almost daily in our community space. Ask yourself, who on my company wants to engage the community? How can we share information or resources that add value to the talent you want to attract? Whether it’s a technical meetup, a young professional mixer, or an educational workshop there’s a way to use programming for attracting and engaging your talent pool.

2. Think of Programming as Personal Growth

What does a talented individual get out of events at spaces like Bamboo? Professional and personal growth. They join as members of Bamboo to stay connected to an inspiring community and networking opportunities. They get to learn and grow. That’s why you’ll often see educational workshops and series or accelerator programs. At Bamboo, we even have a leadership coach on site to help people learn and grow as a leader themselves.

We have over a hundred companies who have started registering for our community membership level ($50 a month) just to stay connected to events and resources for personal growth.

3. Use Space as a Creative Off Site Perk for Your Talent  

Not downtown or not able to make a move to invest in a larger Detroit presence? We see more and more companies becoming members just to access creative space as an additional perk for their teams. They get to be ingrained in an innovative and startup like culture, and use flex space Downtown. Companies will now event purchase a desk or small offices as a perk for their team to have a spot to land and network in Downtown Detroit, away from their usual corporate or suburban atmosphere.

Perhaps you don’t need to be in the city full time, but wouldn’t it be nice to offer your sales team for coming down to a Tiger's game this summer? It can be a great balance or perk for a team to have access to creative space.

We'd love to hear other ways space and community help you attract and retain talent to your organization. At Bamboo, we're always open to partnering with you on an event or resource for the Detroit community.