Association Voice
Striking
a balance
Lou Kiwanuka, MD Event
Shaper and ESSA vice-chair,
on the age-old question of
juggling work and play
W
“I would like more
time to spend
with my family,
without having to
start work again
when they’ve gone
to bed”
44 — July
ith the juxtaposition of Spring Season
and Mental Health Awareness Week a few
weeks ago, I can’t be the only one giving a lot of
thought as to how much our industry is talking
about good work/life balance and positive mental
health, versus the reality of sustaining people and
their family life.
Speaking for myself and my business, trying
to strike a balance between managing a fulfilling
family life and meeting the needs of clients can be
really stressful. I am not the only one juggling the
school-run, making dinner and sorting bedtime
with the demands made on my time by work —
especially when more and more people expect
immediate responses, often out of hours.
In the short term, stress keeps us focused and
alert, but over time constant stress takes a heavy
toll on mental and physical health. There is no
doubt that we should be looking at how we can
diminish the negative impact of our jobs on our
home life — the problem is where do we start?
I know how tricky it is for me to manage my
family and work life, and I know that there
are others in the event industry who are really
suffering, especially after this year’s Spring
Season, and an untimely Easter, which has seen
many event companies working frantically to keep
up with demand.
We can’t change events - shows will still need to
be built and broken down late into the night, and
people will have to pull out all the stops as usual.
But can we change how we work and organise our
businesses to lessen the amount and impact of
workplace stress? After all, when is a good time to
not play our ‘A’ game?
Many individual businesses have taken
measures to help improve people’s work/
life balance – like flexible hours, work-
share, overlapping roles and home working
arrangements – and these are relatively
straightforward changes that have had great
benefit. Our industry might consider some of
these to be impossible in light of our unique
circumstances, but perhaps now is as good a time
as any to investigate ways we could operate in a
less traditional format. We do, after all, have some
issues around recruitment and retention.
Is there something we can change about our
whole culture and way of working that could
have a positive effect? Social contact is hugely
important, and I wonder if we haven’t all become
too isolated. It’s partly to do with how our
industry works today. With so many layers of
subcontracting and so many businesses involved
with a single project, it’s difficult to create a
collegiate atmosphere, but also the spaces that
were available for social contact at work have
evaporated.
Some of this desire for a conversation about
wellbeing and mental health in the event industry
is purely for selfish reasons – I would like more
time to spend with my family, without having to
start work again when they’ve gone to bed. I’d like
to know that my team can do the same and I know
I’m not alone in this!
But the other reason is more important. We
need to have this conversation, industry-wide,
if we want to attract a new generation of talent
to events. Few graduates and school leavers
will want a career in the industry if all they see
it stress, stress-related illness, ‘burn-out’ and
constant late nights. But an industry that seems
to have wellbeing built-in or ‘wellness’ by default
may be exactly what they are looking for.