Project Fuse is designed to define and execute a telework employment strategy for the Lonesome Pine Regional Industrial Facilities Authority (LPRIFA), which is comprised of the City of Norton and the Counties of Dickenson, Lee, Scott and Wise. These localities now have a playbook for making Virginia's Southwest a destination of choice for companies defining the new American hybrid workplace.
Click HERE to download The LPRIFA Fuse Playbook
While companies are inventing new workplace and management templates, rural areas like Virginia's Southwest Region can develop a new type of workforce at ease in a more diverse economic model — and form a new live-work environment that suits a new type of worker and an equally new breed of employer.
At the same time the region addresses shifts in energy, agriculture and manufacturing — it is inviting technology companies to start or expand in the region. Its leaders seek private sector partners who have a desire to shape a new economy that includes knowledge work and workers.
Companies may now include telework jobs held by Virginia residents, in complying with incentive performance agreements, so business leaders can explore locations new to them – like Virginia's Southwest – in packaging employment agreements that help them prevail in a highly competitive talent market.
The strengths of the LPRIFA localities and their alignment with the priorities of employers and workers are important: affordability, arts and heritage-based entertainment, variety in outdoor recreation, close access to small cities, small primary and secondary class sizes, higher education institutions, minimal traffic, continuing professional education, growing housing options, aggressive broadband installation and a robust industrial and agricultural mindset.