I don’t know about you, but as I look at all the changes around me, the thing I am missing most are the faces of those who've decided to pull the escape parachute on our industry. I guess there’s nothing quite like prolonged grief and isolation to give the world an existential shakeup, huh? The pandemic has given us a lot of gifts we didn’t ask for (my tongue is firmly planted in cheek, here), but time to reflect and take stock seems like it’ll be the gift with the longest tale of destruction for the arts industry. And frankly for all industries. Or is it actually a gift? How many times, while in lock down, did you think, “What am I doing with my life?” or, “When this is over, I’ll have a different approach to work/life balance.” I thought about those things a lot.
Americans have been quitting their jobs at a higher rate than they have in decades and honestly, I thought it wouldn’t affect the arts and entertainment industry because we all love what we do. We love to lock arms and make that show go on, together. We take it on the chin regularly from producers and agents, we smile empathetically while taking customer complaints, we eat big problems for breakfast. And after it all, we love to smile knowingly at each other, having crossed through hell to get that show on that stage and those butts in those seats, taking a collective sigh while patting each other on the back with a collegial, “We did it!!”
A couple months back, I spoke on a panel for the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia, about reopening. When asked, “Is your industry affected by the struggles in the labor market?”, I proudly boasted that “NO, it isn’t”, and repeated the stuff about people not leaving because we love what we do. But I’m a liar because within weeks we had five employees pull their chute for greener pastures - all outside the arts and entertainment industry.
At first, the Gen X in me immediately thought this mass exodus was an entitled millennial thing and I began my internal rhetoric rant. But then it hit me: Millennials are brilliant. Millennials care deeply about what they spend their time doing, they want their life to make an impact, they boldly prioritize mental health, their dreams, and their time - all before going through hell with you. Even if it is to get a butt in a seat.
While we are stereotyping generations, let’s talk about those who are of retirement age. Let’s face it, how could the pandemic not have a profound impact on retirement? Let’s say you are a Boomer (and I use this term with the highest respect) and you are within arms’ reach of your gold watch. Perhaps you thought to yourself, I’ll stay just to help guide my company through this pandemic. Then 60+ hour work weeks, late nights, hard decisions that affect livelihoods, and hours on Zoom become the norm. And it feels like you’re at war every day as you fight your way back to a “normal” no one wants and a workforce that desperately yearns for an overhaul. Honestly, more Boomers retired in 2020 than the historical average and it is ever-present in our industry. Several of my own mentors have cited that the experience of the last year gave them the clarity they needed to decide it was time to hand the baton to someone with new energy and ideas.
A recent NYT article has a name for what we are seeing. It’s a “life-is-short” attitude and man, I am jealous. With our more senior employees retiring, and our young/entry-level employees having the confidence and gumption to follow their dreams, it can feel like Gen X is holding down the fort in many companies. A recent Forbes article cites that 26% of working Americans intend to switch jobs once the pandemic officially ends. In February alone, 3.4 million workers in the United States quit their jobs - and that’s the shortest month! Holy moly! That is some serious taking stock, America. I am both proud and terrified for all of us.
So, what are we doing? Besides contemplating my own work-life balance, I am realizing that the boundaries between work and life- which were already pretty thin in our industry, have altogether blurred. Of course this has led to a rise in burnout. We weren’t trained for this and, for many leaders, the transition to this new environment wasn’t handled gracefully, leading to lower job satisfaction. God knows, I’ve made mistakes along the way as I’ve tried to lead a team through it, but my mantra has been that we have to give each other grace and some air to experiment and figure this out. I’m honestly still adapting, changing up my approach to help our team culture and to retain my own sanity.
I’ve been reading a lot about leadership lately, and the common thread, particularly for our current workforce, is trust and fun.
Trust: No one wants a backseat driver, so I’m trying to give the keys away more. These days, the work is just too copious to have time for backseat driving, anyway. This team eats problems for breakfast after all - surely they can be trusted! And while I can’t stop giving periodic driving advice just yet, I have begun to hold it back (font sizes and RGB/CMYK matches be damned!) and I’ve encouraged the team I’ve worked so hard to build to just trust their instincts and the process we’ve built together.
Fun: Well, fun is where I excel. Building a team with fun at the center is an art itself. Over and over I’ve heard arts and entertainment workers say that they are motivated by the people around them. And if our industry continues to ask its employees to go through hell to get a butt in a seat, well...we better like our colleagues a lot. How do you get colleagues to like each other, you ask? I’ve found some success in encouraging us to let our human sides show. For example, we try to do something together every year that is totally unrelated to our industry. We celebrate every human feat, silly holiday, and milestone we can find in very personalized ways, and we recently added a human component to our auto signatures that allows staff to share elements of their lives (I’m a self-proclaimed teenage daughter survivor, if you were wondering).
Another area where I’ve tapped into something valuable is encouraging the pursuit of learning. We work in a highly specialized field that shifts violently with the trends of media and the arts. As well, today’s workforce values travel and learning more than any generation in the history of our country. For these reasons, encouraging conference attendance is a no-brainer - people learn, they bond with their co-workers, they get to travel, and pass on the knowledge they gained to their colleagues. This one hits all the right notes.
To quote my friend and colleague, Jesse Cute, “We aren’t saving lives here, but we are impacting them”. If we can’t have fun while we impact lives, I’m not sure it’s all worth it. This pandemic has made me a better leader- a tired leader - but, in the end, I think better. I am not always right and I would never claim to be mistake free, but I do know what this industry needs right now, and it’s people. At the end of the day, we have quite a recovery ahead of us in the live event industry. It’s been devastating to watch my friends and the people I respect dearly struggle to stay employed and struggle with the decision to remain in our industry. As things begin to open up, I foresee continued change, and my hope is that for every person our industry loses because they are following their dream, we gain someone whose dream we are a part of. It’s our job to attract and retain these creative and amazing employees.
コメント