In conversation with: Events Apprenticeships

We speak to board members of Event Apprenticeships, an industry initiative developing event-specific apprenticeships, about the impact of apprenticeships, more about getting into the industry and advice for event companies taking on apprentices.

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Christine: Hello and welcome to our podcast series created by us here at Broadsword, called Be Listening. Today we are joined by two guests, Lou Kiwanuka and Laura Cappel -Abra. Welcome to the podcast!

Lou and Laura: Thank you!

Christine: Just to start, can you please tell us more about yourselves and your businesses? Let's start with you Lou.

Lou: Sure. My name is Lou Kiwinuka. I've always been in , exhibition operations in one variety or another. I started in 1996 and never quite managed to get out of the industry ever since then. It's quite addictive and it's an industry that I've really benefited from learning as I kind of go along. I've run my own business, I've worked for big corporates, I've freelanced, had a bit of a dabble at various elements, whether that's venue contracting and organising. So a bit of an all rounder really.

Laura: I tried to get away from the industry. No, not really. I love the industry. I came through the event agency side of the industry. So organising events ranging from festivals to, gala dinners to conferences to exhibition stands, brand experience and lots of different parts of the industry. I have always generally worked in quite small businesses and I retrained a number of years ago to actually support working with people in the events industry rather than organising events. So I work on a slightly different side of the industry now, but very much focused on how we can create environments, that give the best opportunities for people in the industry and for more people to come into the industry as well.

Christine: Can you tell us what events apprenticeships are all about and how it could benefit the events industry?

Lou: Absolutely.

What the events industry is brilliant at is having variety. So, a variety of routes into the industry, most of them aren't very formal. So we do have event university degrees and masters but , there's not much in between that and kind of figuring it out as you go along. And the people that are most attracted to the industry are quite often people that might not necessarily follow that kind of more formal pathway through to higher and further education into universities for example.

So, in terms of what event apprenticeships can bring to the events industry, it offers a more diverse and better set of options for people to come into our industry and have a professional pathway of some kind and it bridges that gap in terms of what event apprenticeships can provide, can benefit to people.

A lot of what I do in this industry within my role as the founder of the Ops Nest is around learning and how we learn and how we go about learning in a really fast paced environment. And so event apprenticeships, for the people coming into the industry, they really benefit from enabling those people to be grounded into the industry in a safer learning environment than perhaps if they're just kind of thrown into a business and have to figure it out as they go along. So, one of the reasons why Laura and I spend our time on trying to pull together the various different event apprenticeships that exist is because there's this huge gap and we want to fill it. By filling it, we also end up with a much more diverse workforce. We're enabling people from lots of different backgrounds to come into our industry and making it accessible for more people and easier for employers to employ people.

Christine: How did you both get into events? And would you do an apprenticeship if you would go back in time?

Lou: Well, I got into events like a lot of people get into events, which is by somebody that I knew, which is a big problem in the events industry. It's kind of that who, you know. I certainly didn't go in at a higher level. I started at the assistant kind of space and it took me three years before I was handed any kind of form of event to actually organise myself. So I kind of served an apprenticeship within a business, but it wasn't formalised in that way. I'd been to university beforehand and I think one of the things, kind of going back to what I just said earlier, is that we draw from quite a narrow route from quite a narrow pool of people, people that know of people who come across somebody and then they kind of grabbed into this industry. So I think going back if I could go back now, I absolutely would do an apprenticeship because I think it provides that kind of boots on the ground approach that is so intoxicating in our industry. I don't think you can really get from any other route unless you spend kind of a year in placement, perhaps at university.

Laura: So I went to university, but the degree that I did was actually quite like an apprenticeship in the sense of rather than a more traditional sandwich placement year in between multiple years of study, I did one year full time at university and then it was two years working full time whilst also completing the degree. And so after three years, I finished university with a degree and two years worth of work experience. And that was one of the reasons why I've been so passionate about moving forward the idea of the event apprenticeship. The style of learning really suited me, that idea of really learning on the ground, doing a full time job at the same time as learning. And I think the fact that we can get more people in with a plan into the events industry is really positive.

As Lou said, so many people fall into the industry or historically have fallen into the industry or know somebody that's helped them get into the industry that it can be quite intimidating for those people that don't know anybody. In their network or don't have any friends or family that work in the industry and maybe, as we said, weren't looking at university as an option for them.

I really enjoyed the process of working and learning and it was hard work, it absolutely was hard work doing both things together. But I feel like it's made me who I am today and if people get to do that in the events industry, I think we'll have so many hardworking, really passionate people in this industry that maybe had never considered this industry before because they didn't understand the scale of it. So I would absolutely go back and do something like that again. I think it's a really worthwhile learning experience and I think it really suited me as a person.

What we want to do is offer opportunities for different people to learn in different ways. And it's still encouraging people to take degrees if they want to or take the more hands on know somebody if you can approach as well, but giving that alternative option for those other people that might want to learn in a different way. So I think it's brilliant if we can give people options, but also people like me that learn much more from doing rather than the theory, it would absolutely suit me.

Christine: What would you say to events companies who are thinking about hiring an apprentice?

Laura: My short answer is totally do it. I think the slightly longer answer is the companies that, uh, do really well by their apprentices are the companies that genuinely care about their team's development. And they put the apprentice with a manager, for example, that understands the pressures and the priorities and the different way of working that an apprentice might have to tackle their day job. I think where I have worked with businesses where they've just kind of thought it was cheap labor or thought that it was just another pair of hands, it's not been successful for either side. So I think events companies that can, see it as a long term strategy for their team development and they can see it as a long term strategy for their resourcing and succession planning and they put the effort into creating a good working environment and to train the managers to work well with the apprentices. Absolutely do it. I think it needs to be done as part of a strategy. It needs to be well considered. But once it's been well considered for one apprentice, there's absolutely no reason why you can't then take on multiple apprentices across the different parts of the industry. So we've been looking at the different apprenticeships across the events industry. And I think there's loads of opportunity once you've got that grounding and culture in the business to actually, um, really diversify your workforce.

Christine: Lou, you are the founder of a learning community for those working in events operations. Can you tell us more about the Operations side as uh, a career path and what are the different apprenticeships that could be taken to get into events?

Lou: Yeah, sure. So first of all, in terms of operations as a career path, I think sometimes we don't define ourselves in some of the kind of categories as the outer world would probably look at us. Ultimately we're project managers but we're very agile. So actually in terms of our skill set, you probably couldn't get a more agile project manager than by becoming an ops manager within the event space, so those are the kind of things to be looking out for in terms of apprenticeships. There are event specific, there is an event, assistant specific apprenticeship which covers operations and a whole other host of event learning. So that's probably the most aligned route.

But other routes are things like business administration because a lot of event operations is quite administrative and definitely process and system based and then project management qualifications as well really add into the mix. On top of that though, falling slightly outside of event operations, there are so many other event related apprenticeships that sit in the supply chain. Things like security, first line manager, kind of logistics management, warehousing management that kind of offer up other opportunities as well. And, if any of your listeners are wanting to kind of look at the breadth of those, then head to the events apprenticeships website because we're signposting a lot of different things on there.

Kind of going back to operations as a career pathway, I guess what I've really loved about operations as my career is that you touch many different industries doing operations and you get to travel the world in some situations and circumstances. You get to work with such a broad variety of people. It really opens your mind up to the outer world and to different ways of people working, different methods of how things are achieved. If you have an open mindset quite naturally, then operations is an incredible path to take because you need that open mindset and the world, as I like to say, is your lobster from there on out.

Christine: Laura, as a founder of a workplace well being organisation, can you tell us what support there is for apprentices in the industry and um, what it's like working in the events industry as well?

Laura: So working in the industry can be completely exhilarating. It can be huge amounts of fun. It can be a place where you make lifelong friends and I absolutely have friends that I met years ago when I first started working in the industry. It is an intense industry. There's a lot going on. The fact that we're just talking about how agile people need to be in the industry, there's always things changing and that's a really exciting opportunity for some people to be able to bounce new ideas, make things happen really, really fast. What can happen, of course though is when there's any kind of level of pressure and changes. Some people can find that a bit more uncomfortable, some people can find that pressure quite overwhelming. So it absolutely can be quite a stressful job to do.

However, there's lots of support out there and I think the industry has very much changed for the better around its attitude towards supporting people with their mental health and with their stress. It historically has been an industry where you might have to work very, very long hours consistently now absolutely we have to work long hours to make these amazing events happen. But there's a much better understanding in the industry now with how to work more effectively and how to support people in the industry. So there's lots of opportunities for people to be able to learn in a completely safe and exciting environment. The reason I set up the Workplace Wellbeing organisation was very much to support people in the industry and to create that space.

And I think with apprenticeship, one of the things that I really applaud there are many of the training providers will provide a coach alongside the kind of the learning process. So an apprenticeship, you will work with the learning provider who will do the training side of the program, of course your employer who you will be working with on that day to day basis. And many training providers will also provide a coach who will guide you through that journey. So they will make sure that you are delivering what you need to deliver, uh, on the actual learning side, that you are doing everything you need to do in the kind of more business work based side. But that also they'll look after your well being and they'll check in and make sure that you are okay with how to balance those priorities. Of course quite often we have people coming into the industry as an apprentice that maybe have never worked anywhere before and so everything can feel very overwhelming and very new, whatever job they were doing. And so it's a case of trying to support people on that journey now. Absolutely through the apprenticeship we hope to be bringing more and more people into the industry that maybe isn't their first job, maybe they're actually doing a career change and so they'll have a little bit more of an understanding of what to expect in a working environment. But historically there's been people coming into the industry that maybe this is their first or second job. And so we've been trying to support them from that side as well to make sure that they know how to manage their time in the best way for them possible. But also they know how to deal with different situations, deal with different types of people and really thrive in this working environment.

Christine: What are the key things an employer should know about taking on an apprentice and where can they go to find out more?

Lou: So as an employer of previous college leavers apprentices and graduates, I would say, kind of going along the lines of what Laura's just said, that kind of entry into the workplace is a tough jump. Especially when you go into events because of the speed at which we often operate. The kind of cyclical nature of events means that almost at whatever point you come into the industry, it's not going to look the same three months later because you're part of something that you don't yet see and until you kind those cycles you can't learn everything. So having that kind of program of learning that underpins that and having someone else in the mix, a training provider and a mentor, usually of some kind within the apprenticeship training program, adds some kind of stability into that situation.

Often what I have found is college leavers that have no experience in the workplace do require a lot of intense time at the very beginning, handling some of those basic elements of learning how to work rather than be at school or college. And then on the other side of it, sometimes the graduate students that we've taken on have an inflated view of where they sit within the industry without kind of going back then to do some of the more basic tasks that we as ops people do as part of our day to day job. So I think if you're employing then through the apprenticeship route, it kind of gives that middle ground. But alongside that, as an employer, you do also need to understand that this is an investment. But it's an investment in retention and it's an alternative, a positive alternative to internship.

So I'm just going to say a little note which is a bit of one of my bugbears about our industry is there's parts of our industry that still are expecting people to work for free for their experience which is very excluding of people that can't afford to work for free. And therefore we attract certain types of people into the industry. As an employer, I think an apprenticeship is a brilliant solution to kind of nudge us beyond that desire or need to be asking people to work for free. It requires employers to invest in people. but the outcome of that is that retention is huge. On top of that, I think in terms of employers, we've got level three apprenticeships that are already existing. So anyone can go and pop some of their team, whether they're currently employed or new employees, into an apprenticeship programme.

But if Laura and I do our jobs correctly in the event apprenticeship programme, we over time, will be developing kind of further pathways that will even further help with retention as well. So for me as an employer, if I was employing a new starter now, I wouldn't hesitate, but to go straight down the apprenticeship route, it just ticks so many boxes.

Christine: As we have come to the end of our episode, is there anything you'd like to share with our listeners and where can people find you?

Laura: I think everybody that works in the industry already and in a management resource opportunity position would do well to kind of think about their route into the industry and to think about how they found their place in the industry. And as we've talked about earlier in this recording, that so many of us were fortunate to have somebody that could help us into the industry or frankly, we might have fallen into the industry that I know so many people have as well. And I think if we can all reflect at that more manager based level about how it might have been so much easier for us, it might give us a little bit more incentive to think about the fact that we could maybe pass on that opportunity to somebody in a more effective, more sustainable way and create an environment in our industry where we are recruiting and retaining this amazing talent that's out there to fulfil what is such a broad base of roles in this industry.

Really, there is in essential role for every single person in our industry and I think us, as slightly more experienced, more manager-based people in this industry. I think we have this kind of duty to encourage people and to give those opportunities to others, to just ensure that we have this amazing industry that will continue to get better and better and won't disappear over time because we don't have these amazing people joining us.

Lou: I think everything that Laura just said is 100%. She put it better than I could ever but I would say one of the things that I'm really excited for in terms of building on apprenticeships is that our industry is going to need to change so much over the next few years as a result of a lot of changes to society that have happened. Whether that's pandemic, the strive to net zero, travel implications, lots of different elements such as immersive technology is going to have an impact. And I really do see that our future workforce which can come through apprenticeships will be a lot more on the button than our current workforce is and I think it's going to be essential that we bring in fresh blood from a very much more diverse set of parts of our society in order to sure that we're creating events that are fit for the future and are worth coming to. I think that's it in terms of additional points. The only other thing I would say is that we're a work in progress, so we're constantly, there's a big working group involved, with Laura and I on kind of scoping out future apprenticeships, trying to ensure that apprenticeships, that are coming through are, um, fit for purpose and include, um, things such as sustainability because the previous one needs a bit of a freshen up. But as part of that, we've got a website called Eventsapprenticeships.org. So head there if you are an employer, an educator, or a potential apprentice.Head there for all the information that you'll need. And of course, reach out to Laura and I on LinkedIn as well, if you've got any questions.

Christine: Thank you so much to you both for coming onto our podcast today and sharing your thoughts with us today.

B. Listening

In conversation with: Events Apprenticeships

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