Trevor Foley (pictured below) plays a soulful tune for the current job market, in which employees are the ones choosing the music.
I’m often asked how people are feeling in the industry and how ‘others’ are doing.
The reality right now, as expected, is a big demand from communities wanting to meet. It is fuelling some great ‘comeback’ success stories, most notably in rebook volumes. And, of course, human nature means that things quickly get back to ‘normal’ with little mask wearing and a lot of handshakes, hugs, and kisses...
This is not, however, the case for all shows, everywhere, notably large-scale international shows where there is a dependence on travel. For the global players, China remains a challenge where it is still not possible to run shows in much of the country.
That said, there is much positivity in almost all quarters with talent recruitment and a growth in infrastructure to match. While there is much positivity right now, the devil is in the detail and there are two key areas of concern. The first being the global economic climate. The level of rebook will give the usual lag effect meaning a delay on the ‘hit’ on our industry.
The other issue being widely discussed is that of getting teams back together in offices post-Covid. It certainly seems that smaller companies are not having the same problem as larger organisations in this regard, but it is an issue that is a cause for some concern.
I have largely seen leaders and other senior executives in their offices both throughout the pandemic and since. Yet, a common frustration among CEOs lies in the challenge of getting managers and their show teams back into their offices.
There is plenty of data and anecdotal evidence that people and businesses are more productive when teams are together – greater call rates, better outcomes, more creativity, and faster decision-making. In new post-Covid teams, individuals within the same team often don’t know each other because they are never in their offices on the same days. This doesn’t make for the best teamwork.
The mood music is certainly one of wanting to find a more equitable solution. I’m writing this piece having just come into London on a Thursday. Every tube train has been uncomfortably packed, validating, what I’m being told by business leaders, that Thursday is the busiest, in fact, often the only busy office day of the week.
Other days on the London tube network are much quieter. Many bosses feel that this is making their operations more clunky and less efficient.
If managers are not prepared to encourage their teams into the office on a more frequent basis, then this can have a detrimental effect on the pace of show development, launches, driving commerciality and marketing creativity. Not everyone feels this way, but it is a very interesting debate.
Of course, we are very much in a time of an employee market, giving jobseekers the upper hand in this debate. However, while the current mood music is positive, I suspect that we have a year before the next challenge that our industry will face. The global economic downturn will doubtless lead to another round of redundancies and maybe that will be the impetus for a re-balancing in the home versus office working issue.
For now, let’s hope that the Ukraine situation can be resolved sooner rather than later. I say this primarily from a humanitarian stance first and foremost and then from an economic standpoint. Also, a change in attitude in China could equally mitigate the current economic challenges.
As we go through the next twelve months, it is a case of ‘making hay whilst the sun shines’ and maybe getting teams closer together is an all-important aspect of that.
