A Talent for People

How to develop a talent narrative to attract community builders to your organisation

Caitlin Read, Director of Operations, Arc Network

One of the skills our industry most prides itself on is adaptability, which is extremely useful for an industry that will always be in the midst of a pivot.

According to the most recent UFI Global Barometer, right now that looks like exploring the new paths being created as a result of artificial intelligence (AI) and meeting the changing expectations from our customers. It also means looking at macro-trends like climate and deglobalisation, among others. As an industry, we are adapting to internal and external forces all the time. 

Critically though, tomorrow, it will be something new that will be the catalyst for our next adaptations. This is why reports like the UFI Barometer show us time and again that people topics are constantly at the forefront of our mind. Talent is what enables adaptation, and then drives capitalisation, on change. This is why it’s of the utmost importance that the ‘people agenda’ is at the center of all our strategies. We need to be developing and attracting incredible and diverse talent to be ready for what’s next. 

Since 2016, UFI has been running its Next Generation Leadership (NGL) programme, a leading talent accelerator program for our industry. The purpose of this program is to help develop our high-potential talent. Today’s leaders are not going to solve tomorrow’s problems. Heck, we don’t even see them coming. This year’s, and last year’s, and next year’s, NGL talent will. So, we must do everything we can to set them up for success.

In 2022, the NGL class tackled the topic of talent attraction from the perspective of Gen-Z. They presented us with a new talent narrative for the industry which challenged us to take a hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves what we were doing to make a career in events an exceptional choice for new talent. How are we adapting to our industry’s long history of being people-oriented and putting talent first?

Over the course of their year-long programme, the NGLs distilled the essence of their abundant research to give us a clear purpose (an absolute must-have in attracting talent): community builders. Everything we do, whether we work in marketing or finance, operations, or content, comes back to that single purpose: building communities. If we can keep a relentless focus on that purpose, and be ready to adapt to the constantly changing environment, then all the other issues keeping us up at night … digital change, internal management, competition … simply become topics of focus that emerge, change, and then become normal. That is, if you have the right talent to focus on them.

I encourage everyone to download the “Attracting Community Builders” white paper today. This white paper on talent challenges follows and reflects on the work done by the 2022 class of the UFI Next Generation Leaders programme (NGL) and is a result of a collaboration of leading industry players around a new staffing narrative for the industry. It includes guidance on how to develop your own employee value proposition (EVP) and how to tap into the collective power of the industry by coming together around the ‘community builder’ talent narrative.

Let’s work together to introduce to our industry the community builders of tomorrow.

About the writer:

Caitlin Read is the Director of Operations for Arc, looking after ESG and corporate affairs, as well as supporting strategic initiatives and integrations. Prior to joining Arc, she worked in Paris as Group Communication Director for Comexposium, and before that, spent eight years with UBM (now Informa) in events, marketing, and group communications roles in the US and UK. Caitlin has also been a contributor to UFI, notably developing the content for its global and CEO events.