Meeting planners are seeing more Open Jobs badges on LinkedIn and hearing from colleagues who quit their in-house jobs to start their own companies.
Outsourcing is on the rise, and some experts say the trend is here to stay. For many companies, the biggest need is help completing specific tasks in the short term.
“There’s been a significant increase in what we call variable or on-demand planner contracts with third-party planning organizations,” said Todd Taranto, president of event industry freelance placement firm Cadre.
“After COVID-19, the planner’s employee base has changed forever,” he continued. “The company is rebuilding 80% of its full-time workforce and adding 20% of its variable workforce to allow it to scale up or down as needed.”
As remaining unemployment planners hang out their signs as independents, this model becomes the norm, allowing risk-averse companies to add “just in time” or “on-demand” help based on specific events.
Over the past 18 to 24 months, Taranto has seen companies hire contractors to do onsite inspections or hotel contracting work as small as 2 to 4 weeks, as well as more standard single event gigs of 3 to 9 months.
Experienced planners reduce
Finance and Insurance Conference Professional Studiesionals (FICP) shows that the financial and insurance sectors have always relied on outsourcing to complete task-based projects. The Winter 2023 edition of the FICP Dynamics Survey shows that half of member meeting professionals use contractors on a regular basis (29%) or on an ad hoc/very limited basis (23%) to supplement their in-house meetings and events teams. The most common outsourced tasks are procurement, registration, and gifting.
The association is also losing more experienced members. “As with most other industries, some long-standing FICP members with over 20 years of experience have recently exited the industry for a variety of reasons, including entering their own businesses as independent contractors or starting their own consulting firms,” Steve said Watts, executive director.
“FICP saw this trend several years ago and has spent the past several years focusing on what we call emerging professionals—those with 10 years or less of industry experience. This focused effort demonstrates that emerging professionals are future industry leaders who will have the opportunity to learn, grow and demonstrate their value within the company.
Bova said there are pros and cons to outsourcing what used to be full-time positions. “Companies need to evaluate what they will gain and what they will sacrifice. In some cases, you gain specific expertise, but when someone is not in-house, you almost always lose a level of control. Each It’s different. When someone leaves, especially someone who’s been with the company for 20 or 30 years, there’s always a loss of company knowledge.
an extension of the team
Carlin Putnam, a financial events specialist with Fortune 100 companies for 24 years, is one of those planners. After leaving her job, she turned to her own company, Page-One Meetings and Events, which she had previously owned as an LLC, to do charity work. She now finds herself contracting with FICP members.
Jen Squeglia, who founded her own company, RLC Events, in 2007 after working at Fidelity and John Hancock, says the ideal contracting scenario is for outsourced meeting planners to function less like a foreman and more like part of a team. “When you’re firmly under contract, you understand the culture, the systems, and the team so you can move in and out of projects seamlessly.”
Taranto said the hiring of contract meeting planners will continue even as concerns about a coming recession have eased. “Now we’re seeing customers starting to lay off employees again. Essentially, companies are using on-demand planning resources to handle growth, but also to prepare for possible contraction in the future.
