Delays , postponements and understaffing are piling the pressure on teams , says Emma Dengate , global health and safety manager at RX .
Through her role as group chair of the cross-association health & safety working group ( AEO / AEV / ESSA ) she has seen how the immense workloads organisers are dealing with are not letting up as events get back in business . In fact the contraction of events into short time periods , supply chain issues and recruitment crisis are all presenting new risks for teams .
The pandemic also presented a new dawn for health and safety teams – who were transformed from the “ no department ” to the forefront of getting events up and running again .
“ The single biggest issue in terms of health and safety is welfare ,” she tells EN .
“ This issue has been exacerbated by the talent drain out of the industry and with many teams working with less resource . “ The compression of all the events after postponements and the contraction of suppliers availabilities adds a lot of pressure . I think we ’ re now past now , the will it be cancelled ? Will it not be cancelled situation , but we definitely had that for a while and that inevitably added even more stress for everyone .
“ The need to get new people recruited can also add additional stress and concern . When you don ’ t have the time and space to recruit , and then do the induction process and train them up and teach them all what to do . It ’ s almost like an extra job to have a new person on your team . But this is such an important element of making sure we retain anyone new to the industry in the longer term .”
Post-pandemic positivity The AEO , AEV and ESSA ’ s crossassociation working groups started meeting more regularly , through the pandemic , and opened up more honesty about struggling to cope , Dengate says .
“ One of the big positives that came out of the pandemic is we switched the cross association working group meetings
Working well together
Staff wellbeing is the top priority for global health and safety manager at RX Emma Dengate . As chair of the crossassociation working group for health and safety , she has seen that two years of postponements has added huge pressure onto staff , but she tells Emily Wallin that by working together we can keep teams happy and safe and exhibitions up and running
to monthly and online . We really did build up a community where we were all supporting each other , we were all sharing , it became a lot more normal to talk about the concerns , the anxieties , the stress , mental health .
The AEV HR Working Group lead led to the creation of a mental health tool kit called Heads Up with resources to help teams with their mental and physical health .
Dengate continues ; “ I think that ’ s so important so people are hopefully more willing to put their hands up and say , ‘ I ’ m
20 — October