From the CEO: I'm a bit Green Day about the skills shortage topic

What I’ve got to say this week challenges what I’m led to believe is popular opinion. But its where I stand so please read this with an open mind and read to the end. Hear me out in full before you decide whether I have a point or don’t get it. You might want to grab a cuppa first too. It’s a bit longer than usual.

I participate in a number of fora to represent the interests and needs of MEA members. It’s not unusual for the concept of a ‘skills shortage’ across the sector to be discussed in those meetings. There seems to be an absoluteness of its existence by some. I respectfully disagree that its categorical.

Up front I concede that the number of people who were employed in the sector before the pandemic doesn’t equate to the number who are today. No reasonable person could expect a laid off or stood down workforce to sit idle until sector businesses were ready to re-engage it. These people have lives to live, bills to pay, selves and families to provide for. They needed incomes to survive and went and sought that out. They’ve used their transferrable skills to secure work. Good on them.

However just because former sector workers have obtained employment in other industries is not to say they won’t look to return to the sector once job opportunities begin to reappear. There has been no excommunication or irreconcilable-difference based divorce. It could very well just be a point in time situation where they’ve sought interim means to an end.

The absence of the international workforce is often articulated as a fundamental issue for the sector. I’m unable to form the view that our domestic population is at full employment level. Having myself been through periods without work, but unable to qualify for income support, I was never counted by unemployment statistics because I was literally ‘off the books’. There would be many people today who want and are applying for jobs but like me are neither counted as employed or unemployed. The point: there’s far more people looking for work than unemployment numbers indicate.

Insofar as a perceived skills shortage for our sector, I don’t subscribe to the belief. I believe that whilst there initially may be a reduced number of people with skills already acquired in the events industry applying for jobs, this will be offset by a response from people with both a capacity and desire to acquire skills in the events industry. If skills developed in our industry have proven transferrable to jobs in others, logic suggests that the reverse applies. The jobs require a capability. By default, people trained in other industries who previously held these vacated jobs have the same skills and are therefore transferrable to ours. Stay with me.

I’m speaking from a somewhat informed perspective. It’s widely agreed that the events sector will be one of the later industries to recover from the impact of COVID. I worked in the finance industry at the time of the global financial crisis, and in the private tertiary education industry when the federal and various state governments restructured their funding programs and a media maelstrom delivered major detrimental consequences for such providers. In both cases of industry trauma, I sadly saw many people be put out of work and businesses go to the wall. The bottom line is that there is no guarantee of employment stability for any industry. We’re not the first industry to experience a workforce shake up. Both of those industries survived. They may have evolved to survive, but change has made them stronger. It may be hard to see it now, but our sector will in time be better for what it has endured and continues to endure.

I think in employment situations people too often weight the applicant suitability for interview evaluation too heavily on what’s in the person’s CV. For me, this lacks lateral and critical thinking. It’s a decision based on what they’ve done before. But what about what they’re capable of? Just because someone hasn’t done something before doesn’t mean they can’t be a superstar. They just need the opportunity to prove that. It’s a bit abstract but this approach is effectively employers basing their recruitment decision on decisions previous employers of the applicant have made. But the applicant may have had to accept these jobs because they couldn’t get a break when applying for the jobs they really want. A CV doesn’t tell the full story. They may have great capacity and willingness to acquire sought skills, and what’s more to do so quickly

Take a moment and consider your own career. For all the jobs you’ve had, you got them because someone gave you an opportunity. Reality check: You didn’t know how to do those jobs until someone taught you how to. Can you now be the difference in someone else’s life by being a dream granter and pay back what was paid forward to you – even if that means stepping outside the box and needing to teach them?

The chances are there have been times that you weren’t even shortlisted for an interview for a job that you just knew you’d be good at. All you needed was the opportunity to prove that. But the truth is people can’t prove their value in a given capacity unless someone else deems them worthy of it. It’s a vicious circle. Now is a time where the cycle can be broken.

I suggest most people would view the Virgin brand positively. Their messaging strategy – both overt and non-verbal/subliminal – is a positive one. I base that view heavily of some of Richard Branson’s own statements. In the context of this article I want to reference a quote attributable to him which may not be verbatim but loosely equates to ‘Recruit for attitude. Train for experience’.

Basically he’s saying to build a good brand, bring the right people into your business. You can teach your employees the skills they need, but you can’t teach them attitude that’s required. That’s innate and comes as part of the package.

So what I’m encouraging here is to look for the attitude in the cover letter or explore that in the interview. Someone who really wants the job but has never yet been given the chance might actually be better for your business than someone whose done it before. It would be unusual – but to my recent surprise not impossible – for a job advertisement to attract no applicants. People apply for jobs because they want them, not for every advertised job. There’s more to an employee’s value than their already developed skill set. Its human nature that we put more effort into what we want and what matters to us. Hire the desire. Make your business a beneficiary of it.

I’m not suggesting for a moment to overlook or not hire people with industry experience. If they’re the applicant who’s got the skills and the right attitude you’d be silly to not snap them up. What I am suggesting is to invest the time and energy to scrutinise ­all applicants to identify whether they communicate the behaviours and mindset that match your brand identity and business culture. That onus is on them. But don’t just look at employer history and bring through to interview those who’ve done the same job with one of your competitors on that basis only, or equally quickly dismiss those that haven’t. That will lead to industry groupthink. Businesses endeavour to differentiate themselves in the market through a unique value proposition. The breadth of insight provided by a diversely experienced team can bring this to life. But both your business and the greater industry will be the better for its workforce possessing both skills and good attitude.

I’d be remiss to not reinforce that MEA can support the skilling of those junior in, or new to, the industry. To complement on the job learning provided by sector businesses, studying our Diploma of Event Management equips sector workers with a practical education that has been developed for the industry, by the industry. The content has been produced and is assessed by event industry practitioners who have themselves professionally walked the talk, as opposed to by people who’ve observed others doing it or career academics. It’s learning that the student, ie: your team member, can apply in your business as they study. There’s an immediate return on investment.

So to loop in the Green Day reference, the lyrics of ‘Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)’ include:
Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time
It's something unpredictable
But in the end is right

The song writer Billie Joe Armstrong told Rolling Stone that the song was about people coming and going in life, and the different directions they go in when they go. The synergy I see is that the sector has reached a fork in the road where it will need to decide between recruiting a ‘skill capable’ new workforce or await the return of its already skilled ‘prodigal sons’ and international workers. Time however might force its hand, requiring it to recruit outside the box in the ‘skill capable’ direction. And one day when current events are looked at in retrospect for lessons learned, just maybe Armstrong’s wish in the next lyric might ring true for how we went about it:

I hope you had the time of your life

Source:

Song – “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)”
Album – “Nimrod”