“ Coming out of the pandemic people assumed that the thousands of people who had left would come flooding back but that hasn ’ t happened ,” he says .
“ The bit we missed was whilst events were paralysed , there was no money and no employment , so people went off and did other things . The tech sector was booming . There was plenty going on elsewhere and we were sleepwalking into a situation where when we were ready to reemploy them they weren ’ t around .”
Foley has no difficulty finding people for top and mid-level roles but says there is a serious problem in the lower ranks of the exhibitions industry .
He says there are four main factors contributing to the current talent shortage
He says : “ Brexit had already happened , lots of people left the country . There was a huge amount of Europeans saying ‘ were not welcome in your country , we ’ re going home ’.
“ That was probably half a million or a million people and a lot of those worked in our industry , because when you run global events you need people who speak the language of exhibitors .
“ The second thing was there was a million people who left the labour force , retired early or reassessed their lives to do other things .
“ Thirdly not only did people go off – if you ’ re a marketer or a sales person you don ’ t need the events industry – the best way to describe it is people found the grass was greener elsewhere . People hadn ’ t ever thought about leaving the events industry until there wasn ’ t one and they went off and realised they didn ’ t have the pressure , long hours and weekends . That was huge .
“ These three things took out the lower levels . People who hadn ’ t been working in the industry for years or decades , found it was easy to change .
The fourth problem is culturally Gen Z are very different and they want a work like balance that there isn ’ t in our industry . That is always going to be a struggle .
Trevor Foley
“ Working from home half the week doesn ’ t work in events . Ops people need to be in the office or at a show five , six , seven days a week .
“ The problem isn ’ t going to change until we decide to sex up our industry and make it more apparent that its there , provide career opportunities , progression and training .
“ Whilst that ’ s a problem at the lower level at mid and higher level there ’ s people who have been in the industry 10 , 20 , 30 years , they do not want to leave the industry , all their friends are in it . It ’ s what they know , what they are good at .
“ When people approach me about MD roles , I have the opposite problem I have 15 people who are all really good for the job .”
“ It ’ s a massive problem at the lower levels because where ’ s the sustainability ? Who will be the event directors of the future ?”
Foley thinks the key to attracting people into careers in events comes down to personality .
“ I started as an accountant and was bored on my first day . When I found events , and media , publishing , I though ‘ this is brilliant . It ’ s work hard , play hard . Everyone wants to have fun .’
“ The people I have grown up in this industry with are my really good friends .” “ It ’ s very much personality based .” He refuses to speculate on the possible doomsday scenarios of what happens if we do not take action
“ If you expect to stop at 5 o ’ clock , go work in a shop , because our industry is not like that , but our industry is much more rewarding ...”
because he ’ s a “ glass half full ” kind of person . But says it ’ s imperative to attract new young people into the industry . For that we need to target the diminishing high street and tell the wider world that the exhibitions industry is fun .
“ Despite the problems were all facing shows are still opening ,” he says , which shows hope for the future of the industry .
Buyers ’ market When it comes to what the very best and worst employers in our industry are doing – Foley describes one company changing the salary for a position between the interview and offer letter . When a middle way was found with the candidate agreeing to the lower salary with a three month review – the company downgraded the job title with the word ‘ junior ’. Foley says employers need to be award of these sort of tactics in a buyers ’ market – as prospective employees will not wait .
The best the industry has to offer is Clarion ’ s graduate recruitment scheme [ see p25 ] he says – giving staff an overview of different areas of the business and real prospects for progression .
Profiling Whilst individual companies need to be top of their game , Foley says the wider industry solution could be in personality profiling .
“ We need to catch people at school
November — 21