Head first
Are event planners and delegates mentally ready
for the return of business events?
“People’s mental health is absolutely battered right now,” says Leigh Cowlishaw, managing partner at Black Box Partnerships and vice chair of EventWell. A Mental Health First Aider, Cowlishaw has long worked to highlight the issue of mental health and wellbeing among event professionals.
“There are no winners,” she says. “If you’ve lost your job or if you’ve worked every day, whoever you are and whatever your situation, your mental health will have been affected and this continues to be in some cases, the forgotten consideration.
“Our people continue to be our biggest asset and as we work through the recovery and planning for business futures, our teams need to feel supported, and even prior to this pandemic, our people were feeling stresses and strains; this has just been accentuated.”
Getting the green light for meetings and events to take place is one thing. Persuading delegates to attend these events is quite another. So what’s the answer?
“I think what event organisers have to do is build in a mental health checklist into their running orders,” says Cowlishaw. “They need to pre-empt people’s anxieties. They need to say ‘We appreciate you may be feeling anxious, but this is what we’ve done to make it safe and this is what you can expect.’ Otherwise people will think ‘Oh my god, I’m not going to do it’.
“Give people the information they need. They may be 80 or 85 per cent there. Give them the 15 or 20 per cent they need to get them over the line. They need to know what social distancing will be in place, that you’ve made them the safest they can be.”
However, it’s not just delegates who need that assistance, says Cowlishaw; it’s everyone.
“People are coming back to work and no one’s unscathed. It might be now, it could be two years down the line, but it’s got to come out at some stage. Your mind and body can only take so much, regardless of your position.
“We have all been through a relentless journey and this journey does not yet have an ending yet, therefore our mental health needs to considered, supported, respected and most of all, not ignored.”
And the issue isn’t being ignored, with a number of initatives out there aimed squarely at event professionals.
In April, Stress Matters founder Laura Capell-Abra set up a mental health support line for event professionals. Initially meant to last three months, the volunteer-staffed service was extended to five months due to demand, receiving up to 18 calls a day at its peak. The support line has now evolved into a new free and confidential Support Circle service, the idea of which is to create a space each where people can join together, share, listen and support each other.
Capell-Abra says, “We have always been clear that we want the industry to look after each other and build it into the cultural thread of this industry, this will be a major step in the right direction.”
“We’ve been talking about how comfortable people feel about going back into the office and going to an event. Some people are super-excited, a very large group of people is still nervous about the idea.
“Planners need to be thinking about mental confidence. If someone on site doesn’t feel mentally well, what’s your plan at that moment? Have you got a room that someone having a panic attack can go into? If you have someone that’s anxious about walking into a room of 500 people, how are you helping that person?
“Plus, if people are going to events on public transport, that could put people into a poor state of anxiety before the event has even started. There are people who are still not going to pubs and restaurants, how can we expect these people to go on site?
“Do you know how to put on a mentally-safe event? I don’t think people are thinking about the level of impact it’s going to have. Your delegates might be there in person, but be having an awful time. They might feel like they have no choice, that their anxiety isn’t being considered – that can add up to that person being unwell.”
Capell-Abra points out that the physical risk assessments currently being carried out ahead of the return to meetings and events present an opportunity to look at mental health as well.
“If you want to evaluate the mental risk, this is the time to do it,” she says. “We can make people feel safe.”
Support Circles is being run in conjunction with James Hitchen, (I Am James…) and Sam Wilson, (Syntiro Associates), with a core group of volunteers on a Zoom call for anyone to join every Wednesday evening.
Hitchen says, “No-one should feel alone. I’ve had experience of how tough this industry can be on your mental health and I’ve also had experience of how having a support network can be an actual life saver.”
EventWell, a charitable social enterprise which educates and campaigns for better mental health and wellbeing among event professionals, has been running its Event Wellbeing Week every September since 2017. This year, the added stresses of Covid-19 led its founders to extend the idea to the whole month.
Helen Moon, CEO of EventWell says, “2020 has been an extremely challenging year for our industry and so it was felt that our yearly September campaign week would just not be long enough, hence switching it to a month long.”
This year’s #EventWell20 campaign saw a series of events, podcasts, activities and blogs dedicated to getting a better night's sleep, highlighting the importance of exercise, ensuring healthy diets and showing businesses and individuals how they can take action to tackle poor mental health among event professionals.
Louise Warren, chief operating officer of EventWell, adds, “The challenges that we are facing right now mean that there has never been a more important time to be talking about mental health and wellbeing. Many of our industry professionals are currently facing trauma and real challenges and difficulties, due to redundancy, closure of businesses and venues.”
Richard John, chief operating officer at training agency Realise, agrees: “We’ve seen the figures generally; this is an industry that’s been hit hardest, being one of the first to close and last to open up. Not having any work can be challenging, not just financially but for your self-esteem, confidence and positivity.”
The restart of business events will bring unique challenges, says John.
“There is still a nervousness about travel, both locally on public transport or internationally by air”, he says. “This could be good news for venues out of London or the other big cities but a challenge that event planners need to take into account.”
Realise held its first face to face workshop post-lockdown in August at Ashridge Management College in Hertfordshire, a venue selected to avoid delegates using public transport. However, there were still a couple of employers reticent about letting their staff travel to events, says John – but there is action that event professionals can take.
“We need to share accurate information and effective case studies,” he adds. “We need to stamp out ‘fake news’ about Covid and pressure government (and other stakeholders) that business meetings and ‘raves,’ whilst both events, are not the same.
“We also encourage our clients to understand that being an event manager means they have a huge range of generic and transferable skills for which any employer should be grateful. With the Meetings Industry Association (mia) reporting 126,000 event job losses it may mean that some people will have to look at other roles and more specifically learn new skills to positions themselves differently.
“But it’s not forever,” he adds. “Two quotes that we are fond of: Churchill, who wrote, ‘When you’re going through hell, keep going,’ and the famous Persian saying ‘This, too, shall pass’.”
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