Following last week’s revised government guidance regarding Covid-19 restrictions the meetings and business events industry has been thrown into confusion again. We had been told that as of 1st October business events could resume, providing they stuck to social distancing guidelines and venues were made Covid-safe. The PM’s statement last week clarified what is and isn’t allowed with regards to social gatherings but his throwaway comment that “the spread of the virus is now affecting our ability to reopen business conferences, exhibitions and large sporting events” left many in the business events industry confused. It looks like we’ll just have to wait for further guidance on this one.

The rules around day-to-day working are clearer. We’re being encouraged to work from home where possible. After 6 months of working from home most of us are now familiar with Zoom, Teams and Google Meet. “You’re on mute Mark!” (it’s always Mark) has become a staple of most online meetings, and we’re resigned to staying on these platforms for the foreseeable future. But for some of us, including coaches and trainers, face-to-face meetings simply have to resume in order for their businesses to survive.
So how do we approach face-to-face meetings in a Covid-safe way?

In the last 10 weeks the world of work has changed beyond recognition for most of us. Remote working, up until now something that only a handful of us did regularly, has become the norm, with tools such as Zoom, Teams and Google Meet replacing face-to-face contact. It’s a reasonable assumption that we won’t ever return to the old normal and that in the future flexible working patterns will increase, with more people working from home on a regular basis and teams continuing to communicate via video conference.
This is all well and good and while I’m obviously a champion of remote working (what VA isn’t?) there is one area where it really can’t compete with face-to-face contact and that’s when it comes to team-building. Zoom, Teams and all those other online tools work to maintain the connections that have already been built in the office at people’s desks, bumping into each other while getting a cup of tea, those ‘water-cooler’ moments where chance snatches of conversation enable colleagues to get to know each other and build relationships. And if we’re going to see increased flexible working then the humble team-building day will be ever more important.

The events industry is in limbo. With current government restrictions having forced the closure of venues, both large and small, mass gatherings banned, and no guidance given as to when these constraints will be lifted, the events world as we know it has all but disappeared. Conferences, exhibitions, workshops, even the humble team-building day: the physical versions of these have all been cancelled or postponed for the foreseeable future.

The Business Visits and Events Partnership (BVEP) has briefed DCMS that business events should be classed differently from mass-gatherings (https://bit.ly/2Wpi1eh) to aid recovery of the industry when lockdown restrictions are eased; in the meantime many business events continue to be transferred to a virtual setting or have been postponed for the time being.

Against this backdrop it may seem counter-intuitive to be considering hiring an events manager to plan your next event – surely we should be waiting to see how things pan out? However now may be the perfect time to get all your ducks in a row and be ready to proceed when we come out of the other side.