Springfield Business Journal_2020-04-06

SPRINGFIELD BUSINESS JOURNAL · 7 APRIL 6-12, 2020 NEWS PEOPLE & PURPOSE SERVING SPRINGFIELD SINCE 1977 D E S I G N I N G P U R P O S E F U L S E T T I N G S A R O U N D T H E W AY P E O P L E W O R K No matter how big the project or how small the request, our team works to develop spaces with our knowledge of the leading commercial furniture products and design. M O R E T H A N O F F I C E F U R N I T U R E Better workplace interiors starts with understanding what people need from their space. Furniture does not redefine your job or the tasks that work involves. But it can create a better place for you to work. Focused on real people doing real work in real buildings it’s time to align our needs with the settings around us. Pray Love Your Family Love Your Neighbors For God’s Blessing on Our Country Rich Kramer Construction Proud to support our community try to understand how they see the entire COVID-19 impacting their businesses go- ing forward,” Renner said. “Not just today but any kind of changes they fore- see happening way into the future. Employers can then help people fill those needs.” The timing of the initial growth survey this year was fortuitous for data gathering purposes, Renner said, as it was com- pleted before the virus’ impact. The first survey received 492 respons- es, which is over the 383 minimum need- ed to provide a 5% margin of error – the standard in the research industry, said H2R analyst Ashley Garoutte. “We know what people were thinking right before and can compare those re- sults,” Renner said of the new surveys. Participant outlook Gary Rogers, owner of Springfield- based business brokerage firm The King- sley Group, participated in the growth survey in 2019 and again this year. He has every intention of filling out the new sur- vey, too.  COVID-19 has made such a significant impact on the stock market and business community, Rogers said, adding the $2 trillion federal stimulus package signed into law March 27 will provide some re- lief. “But there’s going to be some long-term pain that some businesses won’t be able to recover from as fast as others,” he said.  Rogers said he believes the new survey will have high participation. “There’s no way to predict what it’s going to look like,” he said of the survey results. “That’s what’s going to make it so valuable.” The goal is for the second and third surveys to be almost identical in content, Jackson said, adding they are set to have 25-30 questions and take around 12 min- utes to complete.  “They will be directly related to CO- VID-19 changes businesses are making in terms of work environment, the technolo- gies they are investing in, the work sched- ules they’ve adopted, whether employee counts have changed or are anticipated to change,” she said, noting there’s also an intention to capture some data of how people were personally impacted. Jackson said she’s writing a letter to accompany the second survey to encour- age participation and explain the ratio- nale. “My hope is that people will take the time to respond, given the increased im- portance of gathering this information,” she said. “Because we’re in a time of volatility, taking measurements at these various points will allow us to see and know what we have ahead of us to fully recover.” Survey: New economic polls will gauge the impact of COVID-19 on local businesses Continued from page 3 Jill Renner: Survey response time is set at one week to get the freshest data possible. 600 Target baseline responses for SBJ’s 2020 economic growth survey SBJ FILE From left, Rob Haik of H Design Group LLC, Jason Gage of the city of Springfield and Springfield Business Journal’s Mar’Ellen Felin participate in an Economic Growth Survey forum panel last summer.