Photo by Allegra Boverman. At the 10th Rising Stars Awards ceremony hosted by Stay Work Play and New Hampshire Public Radio on Oct. 17, 2019, at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, N.H.

MANCHESTER – For an energetic, nonprofit company like the statewide StayWorkPlay, the “play” part of their name is easy, living in New Hampshire offers so much to so many. But few stop to recognize the advantages of working here as well.

The idea is direct: attract and retain a young workforce in the Granite State.

And like many companies, COVID-19 has forced the innovative StayWorkPlay to rethink its strategies as it has shifted from in-person to virtual events.

SWP executive director Will Stewart said the pandemic forced the firm to reevaluate its directives and think outside the box, or rather think inside the virtual box: our computers.

“We were definitely impacted,” he said. “Like every other organization, company for profit or nonprofit, we definitely had to pivot.”

“But our mission has not changed as a result of this; our mission is to attract and retain more young people here in New Hampshire.”

The reasons for that include the fact that New Hampshire is the second oldest state in the country, and we have one of the lowest unemployment rates.

“We’re still the number one exporter of graduating high school seniors who want a four year degree out of state,” Stewart said. “The need hasn’t changed, but how we address the mission has had to change.”

Many of SWP’s initiatives have shifted to online, which included hosting its signature annual event, “Rising Star Awards” in a virtual setting.

“Usually it’s 250 – 300 people all together,” Stewart said. “It’s a great, in-person statewide gathering. The other night we were still at the Currier Museum in Manchester, but there might have been 30 people there. We were all socially distanced.”

The flipside of that, Stewart explained, is that SWP can’t do the in-person networking it’s accustomed to doing.

“We do have the potential to reach more people through our virtual events as well,” he stated. “We reach new audiences and maybe new parts of the state that don’t always have the ability to make it to our events.”

Having events centered in and around Manchester and Concord can limit SWP’s physical exposure since those areas are still a distance from the North Country or even the Monadnock region.

“Particularly if we do nighttime events,” Stewart said. “But there is a silver living. And we see that not just with our ‘Rising Stars,’ but some of the other virtual events that we’ve been able to do. We’re really looking to help our respective audiences weather the COVID storm.”

Stewart stressed the word “audiences,” in the plural, because SWP looks at the under-40 crowd that they serve, to attract and retain, but also looks to the employers that want to employ them.

“We’re working to serve both of those audiences,” he said. “For COVID, that’s been things like on the young people’s side, with working to help them navigate the COVID landscape when it comes to searching for jobs and careers.”

Proper protocol for a Zoom job interview is one of the facets that SWP hopes to extend to the young workforce looking for employment here in New Hampshire.

“It’s the same thing for employers,” Stewart added. “‘How do you interview a person for a job with Zoom?'” And we’re looking at how an employer onboards a new employee with Zoom. We want to give our respective audiences some assistance in that regard.”

SWP has also been able to expand on much of the work that they’ve done, now conducted in a virtual setting.

“For example, we have been able to expand on our diversity, equity, and inclusion work through a number of panel discussions and presentations,” Stewart said. “Again, being able to expand this conversation beyond who can sit in a conference room in Manchester and Concord, to all across the state and get all these voices from the various corners. That’s been a positive, too.”

Much of SWP’s mantra builds around its energy and momentum, which Stewart said, has been equally enhanced by virtue of going viral.

“The in-person events do have a lot of energy and buzz,” he said. “You can feel it there and it’s replicate elsewhere- online in particular. But I will say that what we’ve seen online is a different kind of energy.”

Stewart said that back in early May, as part of their “New Hampshire Next: The Summit for Young Change Makers,” that event would normally be a half-day event.

“This was our second year doing it,” he said. “Last year there was incredible energy. People were just really psyched and really feeling like ‘let’s take over the world.’ But this year we had to pivot and made it a week-long event.”

SWP’s “Diversity Matters” event in April set a record for a panel discussion, in-person or not.

“We gathered young people of color from across the state,” he said. “And that event set a record for us. We had maybe 200 people who signed up and took part in that.”

In July, SWP held a virtual discussion with young leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement in New Hampshire. Stewart said 250 signed up for that.

“You look at the comment section down in these Zooms,” he said, “And you can feel the energy. You’re not experiencing it surrounding you, but you can tell that it’s there just based on what people are saying and the expressions they’re using and the number of exclamation points.”

As people have been in lockdown or unable to re-engage during the pandemic, it’s safe to say that many individuals miss the socialization, and SWP has seen the positive effects on its virtual discussions and seminars.

“I think the subject matter of the discussion can add to that,” he said. “I think it all kind of comes together. Some events generate more enthusiasm than others. Some are low key and some are more visible, as it were. But it is a confluence of reasons as to why you see that.”

Stewart is also familiar to folks in the Granite State who might have attended any of the “Politics: Unplugged” political events that were held in partnership with Saint Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics. The public policy series was hosted and sometimes moderated by Stewart.

Being that it’s an election year, Stewart said young people are looking at this election with eyes wide open.

“I think beyond the pandemic and other factors, young people seem, like a lot of people, seem very much more engaged this time, versus previous presidential election cycles,” he said. “Again, for a number of reasons. We’re doing a thing presently, our ‘New Hampshire Rocks the Vote’ initiative.”

The goal is get young people registered to vote, and to get them to actually go out and vote. Everything that SWP does in the political arena is bipartisan.

“We just want to get more young people taking an active role in elections here in New Hampshire,” Stewart said. “Given that we are the second oldest state, the more young people who are out there voting, for whatever they believe in, from our perspective, we’ll have young people this year being taken more seriously by policy makers.”

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