There is so much information, misinformation, speculation and rumour surrounding coronavirus right now. We want to provide some light through the darkness, and help guide our fantastic clients back to the inevitable path of success.
Here at Liveforce – in all our remote working corners! – we are staying focused and positive. We aim to deliver some pragmatic, useful advice during these complex times.
In this blog we are going to focus on your event staff (who will be feeling pretty worried right now), how you can retain them and raise morale.
Why it’s important to maintain loyalty and motivation
These uneasy times are not going to last forever. When the industry bounces back – and it will – you will want to be ready. Any event staffing agency knows that quality staff are their best ROI. They are your representatives on the front line of your campaigns. Now is the time to think about how best to retain and motivate them. Don’t lose them when it comes to the up-turn in a few months! Your agency will want to position itself in the best place possible, and be ready to hit the ground running.
Alleviate Event Staff anxiety – keep communicating
Timely, empathetic communication is more critical than ever in times of crisis. Send regular notifications to your Crew to keep them up to date with your business plan and changing situation, especially if you have campaigns, events or projects that may or may not yet go ahead. Even if you have no new work, your Crew will feel more at ease, if you stay in touch.
Just before Covid-19 broke, Liveforce updated the way our clients can communicate with their Crew. We made it easier and quicker to send messages to staff booked on a job, across a whole board, or to your entire workforce. We are still operating our support service so get in touch to find out how to best use this feature, or take a look at our online help centre guides.
Communication is a two way street
You will also want your event staff or Crew to contact you. Reach out and give them clear instructions of how contact you or your company. This is especially important if they are feeling unwell and are due to work, or have developed symptoms shortly after working on an event. There are a number of dedicated ways you can do this:
- Specific webpage with contact form with tools like Google Forms
- Share dedicated mobile phone number for SMS
- Create a Private Facebook group
- Create a WhatsApp group
Utilise Online platforms to let your Event Staff know you care
Showing solidarity and demonstrating you care will make a big difference to your event staff, and that will reap its rewards with loyal, dedicated, motivated staff. There has been a big movement to online since coronavirus hit, utilise this to get keep up communication and get the best from your staff. You could hold online Q&A sessions to allow Crew to ask questions or feedback their experiences during this time with tools like Mentimeter or Poll Everywhere.
Up-skill your Workforce ready for the Up-lift
You can also use a variety of online tools and courses to polish skills or re-train before the bounce back. Encourage peer to peer training is great for your agency’s culture. You can also host Webinar’s for your event staff. There are lots of platforms out there, we like:
WebEx
More than a webinar platform, WebEx combines a wide range of features for holding online meetings, events, training sessions, interactive presentations and team collaboration. Features include
- Webinars and video conferencing: So you can host a wide range of live events, meetings and training sessions.
- Chat and brainstorming tools: Interactive whiteboard and other tools for collaboration.
- File sharing: The ability to share files and apps for a better workflow.
Free or low cost Webinar tools we like are Zoom (a general purpose video conferencing tool that caters for business meetings, collaboration and dedicated webinar solutions) and good old Google Hangouts.
You can also create your own online training courses. We will be looking at this in more depth in our next article, but here are some useful references for best practices:
- Litmus Gig Worker training .SAP Litmos Training provides everything you need to train gig workers in any industry and in any capacity
- Talent LMS Step-by Step Guide for creating employee training
Fun ways to keep your Workforce engaged and motivated
There has been an explosion of online collaboration and community spirit. Musicians are streaming concerts, fitness professionals are offering online workouts and Netflix Party means you can still have shared movie experience even when isolating.
Video parties have become wildly popular, use them to inject some fun into your isolation! Find opportunities to celebrate the small things. This week one of Liveforce’s beloved team was celebrating his birthday, so we created a video call from 3 different countries and 6 separate locations to sing happy birthday to him. Another member of our team even made him a cake so he could virtually blowout the candles! In hindsight we should have recorded it to share with you, as it really captured the sense of collaboration, fun and togetherness we all need right now.
Other ideas around this are to make a list of key staff birthdays and anniversaries (eg. 1 year working together). Write emails to celebrate or host a similar video celebration. Does your team normally gather for a weekly or monthly social? Do it anyway, but do it online! Houseparty is a good tool for this.
Stay Positive for yourself and your event staffing workforce
Stay positive and use this time to get your business in the best shape possible. When these strange times pass your company will need to be ready for a positive and busy end to the year.
