Highlands Young Professional Series Resumes

The Highlands Economic Partnership is preparing to resume its Young Professional Series.

Kaitlin Salyer is the Director for Workforce Development and Education for the Highlands Economic Partnership. She said the workshops will relaunch in a virtual environment.

“If there’s one kind of silver lining to all the craziness we’re going through right now with the pandemic, it’s been turning things virtual,” Salyer said. “That’s where the conversation started regarding our ‘On the Menu’, which is what we call our professional development sessions, launching those virtually.”

YP Highlands began last year. Salyer said that for the time being, participation will be open to people of all ages.

“With these sessions, what we plan to do is launch registration and market these sessions,” Salyer said. “It will be open to anyone who wants to register. I’m not sure yet if we will put a cap on that. We’re going to want to be able to moderate and be answering questions as they filter in.”

YP Highlands is geared for young professionals in the region. It offers opportunities for people to engage with each other through networking, community outreach, and professional development.

Salyer said she believes the workshops are important right now as businesses begin to recover from the pandemic.

“It really addresses what we are facing right now in light of a lot of different things,” Salyer said. “A lot of topics we actually selected, and we talked about quite a few, is about managing teams remotely. A lot of us are working from home or managing people from home. How do you remain engaged and continue to be productive. We want to touch on work-life balance and mental health. We’ve had quite a few people even on our leadership team on YP to say that it’s hard when you are home all day and there’s really no change in scenery.”

Another topic Salyer said YP will address include virtual meetings. They want to discuss different platforms available and meeting etiquette.

Salyer said YP Highlands will begin session registration soon. For more information go to yphighlands.org.