'The world has changed a lot:' Business community reflects on past 4 years

“We are higher in our membership than we’ve ever been in my tenure,” Gifford said. The chamber’s membership is up by about 4% over the past couple of years, with the growth driven by new businesses. There are three new restaurants currently building out their spaces, Gifford said, and pointed to new entrepreneurial activity in the downtowns of Franklin, Tilton, Laconia and Meredith.

That new activity is building upon a base of businesses that largely survived the pandemic — though they might not be using the same playbook they did in 2019.

“The ones that we thought we might lose have become smarter in their operations,” Gifford said. “They aren’t the same as they were, but they’re better than before.”

“I see this whole central part of New Hampshire just really growing,” she added.

Shelter from the storm

Why did the Lakes Region fare so well during such a challenging period? Gifford said local businesses benefit from having good local school systems and tax-free shopping, as well as geographical advantages. Central New Hampshire is a serviceable distance to Manchester-Logan Airport, and is a couple-hour drive from Boston, yet offers a rural lifestyle and a variety of outdoor recreation.

“It’s a combination of things,” she said, which added up to a compelling proposition to entice urbanites to relocate during the pandemic. People who had vacation homes in the Lakes Region started spending much more time here, and people who could suddenly work remotely decided to make their lake home their primary residence.

Those new residents brought their spending capabilities with them, and local businesses were happy to provide whatever they needed to set up their home office — or to outfit them for weekend adventures.

Remote work, emphasis on service, and efficiency

Moulton Farm grows fruits and vegetables, and sells baked goods, but during the pandemic, said general manager Jeff Mills, they learned the value of the service they provide.

Agriculture is an act of optimism — seeds are planted in faith that, months later, a customer base will be willing to pay for them. The farm was able to sell all of its produce, even during the scariest of the pandemic times, because their customers trusted them to provide curbside pickup, even if they didn’t feel as comfortable going to other grocery retailers.

Now, said Mills, service quality is “at the top of the list” during every staff meeting.

Sandi Grace, a mortgage loan officer at Bank of New Hampshire, said her line of work was largely performed in face-to-face meetings with clients and other mortgage professionals, but that has flipped since the pandemic. Now, she said, the majority of the mortgage process is performed fully or partially remotely, and it’s the exception that a client requests in-person service. The result is an operation that is much more efficient, she said.

Remote operations were something that made managers uncomfortable prior to the pandemic, but something they had to come to terms with during mandatory stay-at-home measures in 2020. Bill Bald, president of Melcher & Prescott Insurance, said he was one of those managers, who had to admit that they “didn’t miss a beat” when his workforce had to make the switch to remote work.

“It was eye-opening for me,” Bald said, to see that his workers were just as productive at home as they were when they were working out of the company’s Laconia office.

Melcher & Prescott, which dates back to 1862, is one of the oldest companies in the city. With many local businesses among their portfolio of clients, Bald said he has seen remote work go from something supervisors feared to something they’ve embraced.

“We always prefer in-office, it’s hard for remote employees to be indoctrinated into your corporate cultures and values,” Bald said. However, he said the manager’s preference is often outweighed by their need to hire someone — and the labor market is currently empowering the prospective employee during negotiations.

“It’s sort of a given, if the job is [done by] computer and phone, they want to do it from where they want to do it, not where you want them to do it,” Bald said.

He has heard that from many clients, some of whom have had to look far and wide to find the services necessary for their growing business.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people who have had to outsource some positions because they weren’t able to find them" locally, Bald said. One local office has hired administrative support from Argentina, another is considering similar services out of the Philippines. “Employers have had to get more creative,” Bald said. “The continuing theme is that we would prefer to hire locally, but if you can’t get the people, you’ve still got to get the job done.”

In the current market, Bald said, hiring managers can’t be too choosy. If the right candidate insists on working remotely, that’s often up for negotiation, he said. So, too, are some of the other trimmings of a job description.

Bald said that hiring negotiations used to begin and end with salary. Now, that’s just the starting point.

“Employers that didn’t traditionally offer benefits, health care plans, they’ve had to add that because it’s become an expectation,” Bald said. As the costs of those plans have increased, many employers have decided to absorb those cost increases on their side, rather than pass them on to employees, which Bald characterized as an “investment toward employee longevity.”

Other benefits on the table include retirement savings plans and vacation time.

“There’s a lot more negotiations around benefits now, whereas before it was a take-it-or-leave-it situation,” Bald said.

Once the employee comes on board, how they conduct their business is now much more likely to be virtually, Bald added. In the insurance business, it used to be standard for policy renewals, particularly for the larger commercial clients, to be conducted in-person, usually with a visit to their place of business.

“Now, our clients appreciate a virtual meeting,” Bald said. With that change has come an increase in efficiency. An employee used to be able to do up to three renewals in a day, with a lot of driving, or what Bald called “windshield time,” in between. Now, he said that same employee could get through seven renewals in a work day.

“I enjoy in-person meetings,” Bald said. Earlier in the week, he had given an in-person class at the Taylor Community, in which there were 20 people in attendance. But — another sign of the times — there was also a virtual option, and 60 more people watched the presentation from wherever they were at the time.

“It’s nice to get in-person, but with peoples’ time being constrained, if you can avoid two hours in the car, it really adds to your productivity,” Bald said. “The world has changed a lot. The majority of it is for the better, but it’s certainly different.”