The impact of wellbeing in event industry and how to improve it

Anh Do December 20, 2023

The impact of wellbeing in event industry and how to improve it

Taking care of wellbeing

In these recent years, wellbeing is a topic that lots of people care about, especially in workplace. In 3/2023, Deloite and Workplace Intelligence has carried out a survey of over 3000 people. It is said that 84% of participants are interested in achieving wellbeing. Furthermore, 74% of them also said that wellbeing is even more necessary than promotion or salary increase. It is evident from those figures that many people are concerned about mental health and wellness recently. In my opinion, event industry is one of the industries where mental health is a serious concern. This is because planning, coordinating and organizing events can be extremely stressful and challenging. The event managers and staffs have to work for long hours or even during weekends, deal with several problems and have to meet the tight deadlines under much pressure (Agorify, 2023). According to a recent poll by EventWell, one in three event workers annually suffer from poor mental health, including stress, anxiety, despair, and burnout. In addition, do you know that stress is more common in younger event workers than in older ones? As a result of it, 42% of event professionals has changed their careers, which is not a small number (Lenhart, 2021). From the above information, we can agree that people with event profession, including employers and employees, should give their wellbeing more attention.

Wellbeing definition

How can we define “wellbeing”? Feeling happy and performing well can be seen as wellbeing. Positive mental health is also linked with subjective well-being. A condition in which each person reaches their full potential, is able to handle daily stressors, and is capable of doing quality work is how WHO defines positive mental health. Success in the professional, personal, and interpersonal spheres has been associated with well-being, with highly well-being individuals being more productive at work. In an article on Forbes, workers that include health practices into their work have a 21 percent higher profitability than those who don't. However, from a Deloitte survey, it seems that low pay, long hours, and a lack of opportunities for growth or advancement are the most common factors that lead to stress and lower wellbeing and productivity at work. More than two in five workers reported experiencing negative consequences of work-related stress in the preceding month, as indicated by a poll conducted by the American Psychological Association. These impacts included low interest or energy, trouble focusing, and low effort at work. Another issue that has impacted on the wellbeing recently is the Covid 19. The pandemic has significantly affected the world on many aspects. During the first year of the epidemic, there was a notable rise in mental health issues among the general public (WHO,2022). As for the event industry, due to event cancellations worldwide, As of April, the event industry had lost $666 million overall, endangering 85.9 million employment (Madray, 2020). The event professionals may feel anxious or depressed about job losses, unclear future plan or changes in event industry and financial hardship. Furthermore, many event workers experienced extreme environmental compression as a result of the epidemic, which prompted employees to adopt coping mechanisms. Workers frequently do this when they are faced with a dynamic and mental detachment from their surroundings (Rashid, 2022). However, Covid 19 affect positively on event industry to care more about wellbeing. In particular, 44% of employers think that long-term mental health is the most vital healthcare problem following the pandemic.

Employers' responsibility to employees' wellbeing

Employers are responsible for maintaining and improving the wellness of their workforce, and event companies are no exception. What can managers and leaders do in particularly? The first solution is communication. Employers should help their workers to realize that talking about mental health issues is normal and common at work. Superiors should initiate sharing about their mental health stories to set as example for their employees, which can make them feel comfortable when sharing theirs. It is reported that 88% of workers value it when leaders talk about their personal matter. Additionally, managers can encourage staff to take care of their wellbeing be suggest some yoga classes, places with good foods, or simply a short break during work. Providing an employee assistance program (EAP) can be another solution. EPA can help the employees to deal work-related problems and offer counseling or even therapy sessions. Moreover, work-life balance can be improved with the support from EPA (Marschall, 2023). I also recommend that managers can consider giving their employees more flexibility in order to improve their wellbeing. This can help workers to have more control and autonomy about their way of working, which may reduce stress and anxiety. Some interesting facts are 34% of employees shared that their wellbeing is enhanced with flexible working hours, or in the pandemic, 37% of them said they want to work remotely full time. Event managers can refer to the relax place of BrightHR in Manchester. The co-founder of the company, Paul Harris also emphasize the importance of having space for employees to relax in.

BrightHR's relax place in Manchester

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