A roomful of human resources professionals learned firsthand Tuesday how the Tulsa Regional Chamber’s workforce and talent strategies team operates. 

At the Chamber’s inaugural HR Forum of 2026, Rue Ramsey, vice president of workforce and talent strategies, led an overview of her department and talked about how the Chamber is improving its collaboration with employers. 

Foremost among those efforts is streamlining the building, retaining and recruitment of workers. 

The Chamber has launched an initiative designed to retain and attract talent in high-demand occupational clusters, focusing on the following: engineers, industrial machinery mechanics, accountants, avionics technicians and electrical and electronic repairers. 

The nonprofit targeted an advertising campaign in cities with a high concentration of engineers, and in just one month, the ads were seen 2.6 million times.   

“It’s been very, very successful and we’re excited about it,” Ramsey said. 

She also spoke of the importance of companies and organizations instituting workplace learning programs such as internships. 

“I want to normalize promoting from within because from an economic development standpoint, when you promote from within, you create an opening at the bottom,” Ramsey said. “So, in turn, that early career talent would be able to come in and fill those roles.” 

Ramsey closed the program by having attendees interact with Mentimeter, a cloud-based, interactive presentation tool designed to boost audience engagement through real-time polls, quizzes and word clouds. 

The audience’s most popular response to top workplace challenges was “compensation competitiveness.” 

Three times a year, the Chamber’s HR Forums convene talent professionals from member companies to learn best practices, increase collaboration and discuss strategies to recruit, hire and retain employees. The next HR Forum is scheduled June 12.