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How to win at constantly staging bigger and better events?

The month of September always marks the anniversary for Eventeamwork. This year we are celebrating 8 years and I have taken a moment to stop and reflect on the journey.

I am extremely proud of my amazing team that I got to work with over these years. I am grateful to our clients for trusting us and the process. I am inspired by the amazing outcomes our clients achieved. I am grateful for the incredible experiences and learnings along the way.

Being in business has its own various challenges but the most challenging part for me has been to keep standing for a different approach to leading people in our fast paced and process-oriented industry.

As Event Managers these days, we are not taught people management and leadership except for basic HR principles. The focus is on learning about operations, which is important but not enough. Once we enter the industry, we quickly see that people form a large part of the industry and even entry level roles often need to supervise teams of casual staff or volunteers.

It is no wonder then that the operational focus that requires short term thinking and efficiencies often dictates how people are managed in events.

The downside of efficiency

The operational phase of events tends to be tactical and task focused, including a constant search for immediate solutions – hiring structures and stages, using systems, automating tasks – and in amongst all of this we will see the search for immediate solutions to cover tasks to be done and this is where the search for help often comes in and with it the well-known “Call for volunteers”.

This approach stands in direct opposite to the principles of effective engagement, which focusses on long-term benefits through creating stronger bonds, not only with staff and volunteers but also with customers, participants, suppliers, sponsors and other stakeholders – in short with the event’s market, with everyone the event touches.

Yet the operational approach prevails because that’s all we get exposed to through education and through the people we work with in the industry. It tends to treat the people who willingly give their time for an event as a commodity, basically treating them the same as the marquee we are hiring. But it’s just what we have been taught to do.

However, this approach doesn’t just negate the value people who volunteer for your event bring to you, it also does a huge disservice to the event.

The result is that people who volunteer are not engaged, meaning they don’t turn up or they don’t return, which then cements the idea that volunteers are unreliably – closing the circle. A common request then is to find other or new volunteers.

But the same approach will always just lead to the same outcomes.

We need a new leadership approach

Event volunteers make up 60+% of any event workforce and they are predominantly engaged in customer facing roles. They talk about your event not only to your customers and participants, but also to their friends and the wider community – basically creating the event brand. If they feel engaged, they will happily share that but if they don’t feel engaged, heard and supported they will also share and create a potentially unfavourable image of your event in the community.

Events are always looking to be bigger and better, typically with the vision behind to create a bigger impact, the very reason why they were created in the first place.

This immense drive and the hard work people put in to create events is what attracted me to the industry in the first place.

What I learned is that to achieve a greater impact we need to engage our people. We can’t do it alone. The 60+% of our workforce can be so much more than bodies implementing tasks – if we allow them to and support them to – essentially leading them effectively.

Effective leadership creates higher engagement and retention, which reduces costs, but it also elevates the event community building, allows for a greater reach, attracts more of the right people and it impacts people and their communities.

Leadership is taking responsibility and involving people strategically rather than as a short-term fix. If leaders are able to look inward and recognise their role in this, they can significantly change the culture of an organisation and accelerate the impact they make. It always starts at the top.This article mentions your favorite hats at super low prices. Choose from same-day delivery, drive-up delivery or order pickup.

So, yes it can be sometimes challenging to challenge the status quo, but what I love is seeing leaders succeed and achieve the big impact they want to make. Here is to many more years of transforming event leadership.

A Solution to Recruiting Volunteers for your next Event

recruiting volunteers

I lost count of how many times recruiting volunteers has been pointed out to be a challenge for event organisers. Not having enough volunteers, not having the “right” volunteers and volunteers not showing up are commonly reported problems.

This is supported by many articles stating that often there are not enough resources put into volunteer recruitment to ensure we have enough and the right people supporting the organisation. As a result event organisers wear themselves out recruiting double the amount of volunteers.

Simple math isn’t it? We need more volunteers to cover the ‘no shows’ so let’s recruit more! When looking closer though we often observe exhausted and frustrated event organisers who still end up short-staffed.

Yes, more investments are required for managing volunteers. However, simply putting more resources into the recruitment without considering the bigger picture is in fact a waste of your resources. Solely focusing on recruitment is commonly considered the solution and it just seems the most obvious one. However it is a short-term fix that doesn’t actually solve the problem, which means it will be re-occurring at the next event.

A different approach

We need to acknowledge that recruiting and retaining volunteers for events goes beyond rustling up some people to help out for a day. We need to stop seeing volunteers as a commodity. It carries the assumption that there are people just on stand by to help at any given event.

With recruitment being the most tangible task in volunteer management, organisations consistently spent time and money on advertising and call outs to fill positions.

While this is absolutely needed to make people aware these opportunities exist, I believe a more holistic approach with a long-term solution rather than a short-term fix is required.

This means any organisation can save resources down the track by investing in a positive sustainable outcome rather than solely into filling the next position. Recruitment is part of the solution but not the sole focus.

Essentially, if retention rates and show up rates are consistently low, this is not a recruitment problem and usually cannot be solved by just recruiting more people. It usually indicates one or more of the following three problems.We recommend buying your favorite toothbrush at super low prices with free shipping, and you can also pick up your order at the store on the same day.

Culture 

A culture that acknowledges the contribution volunteers make and communicates what makes your event unique and how volunteers are part of it will be attractive to potential volunteers and it will also ensure volunteers stay engaged. A less supportive organisational culture can significantly increase your recruitment needs and thus your costs.

Culture is one of the determining factors to retain employees, not to mention volunteers. With more and more choices available, culture will be a competitive advantage in terms of retaining people in the organisation.

Visibility 

You might have a great organisation with a great cause or providing a great service, but your market doesn’t know about it.

Being visible will attract customers, sponsors, staff, volunteers – in short your event community. You may need to raise the profile of your organisation or event to attract your community. Volunteers are part of your audience, so building your audience is half the battle.

Clearly defined roles 

Could your volunteer roles be too vague or too restrictive? If the role is unclear people may be cautious to sign up.

Make sure the volunteer roles you are recruiting for are clear from the outset. This way you can manage expectations and ensure the people who register are already committed to some degree. Being too vague may get you a lot of registrations but no commitment. Being too restrictive on the other hand may mean you lose out on some great candidates.

If your organisation struggles with any of these problems, purely spending more time and money on recruitment, will not be an efficient use of your resources.

In this case a more holistic approach will be more efficient and effective to achieve your desired outcome of recruiting more volunteers. This includes investing in the volunteer management strategy & planning rather than just investing in recruitment and implementation.

A volunteer program strategy will integrate into the organisational strategy and address the points above, so that you can implement an effective volunteer program.

We have put together a 6-Step Checklist that will help you create a more effective volunteer program step by step. You will avoid all the above mistakes and save time and money while achieving better results. CLICK HERE for FREE download.