Did you know that the position of event coordinator made the list for the top 5 most stressful jobs in 2014. Agree or Disagree?
If you think it’s stressful planning a meeting or any major corporate event, you are right. Meeting planning requires expertise in communications, preparation, management, logistics, marketing and crisis management too. Because, with events, last-minute problems and emergencies happen — all the time.
A study from job search site CareerCast revealed that jobs where employees are putting their lives on the line, such as military personnel and firefighters, are among the most stressful, while those that don’t pose imminent danger, such as audiologists and hair stylists, are the least stressful. Based on site’s rankings, the 10 most stressful jobs for 2014 and their median salaries were:
- Enlisted military personnel: $28,840
- Military general: $196,300
- Firefighter: $45,250
- Airline pilot: $114,200
- Event coordinator: $45,810
- Public relations executive: $54,170
- Corporate executive (senior): $168,140
- Newspaper reporter: $35,870
- Police officer: $55,270
- Taxi driver: $22,820
With a focus on event coordinator — also known as meeting planner — the key reason for their stress levels is the amount of accountability they have to create, organize and execute a smooth, successful event. The branding, marketing, reputation and future success of a business can many times rest on the shoulders of one very overworked and dedicated event coordinator.
Thankfully, although they carry stress, event coordinators are militantly organized professionals. They are masters of venue management. They are experts at booking entertainment. They know how to brand and market your event. They are pros at staging your event and ensuring your event’s decor is spectacularly reflective of its theme and mission. In short, professional event coordinators thrive in the stressful storm of event details and logistics.
Your Marketing Coordinator or Office Manager is Not So Lucky
Many times, small businesses will turn the responsibility of planning and orchestrating a conference, seminar, meeting or other major corporate event over to a member of its team — often a member of the marketing department.
While astute at online marketing, content management, email marketing, social media, graphic design and more, these professionals may not have the proper tools and abilities — or time — to handle the torrent of tasks that make up everyday life for today’s event coordinators. Still, over and over again, the duties of structuring, organizing and presenting a major event fall on their desks, like a ton of bricks. Other professionals often tasked with being “event coordinators” in SMB enterprises include office managers, receptionists and even sales professionals.
This is a colossal mistake. By bestowing the responsibilities of event coordination onto these other professionals, you are pulling their time, concentration and energy away from performing their own set of important tasks. Plus, you are creating a level of expectation and responsibility that, in all fairness, does not live under the scope of their job description. The result can be stressed out, burned out and resentful employees struggling to accomplish their regular duties in addition to making you proud by pulling off a flawless and successful business event.
Ever Consider Hiring an Event Coordinator — a Real One?
Don’t be swayed with worry and doubt that hiring an event coordinator is not cost effective or necessary. A professional event coordinator can benefit your planned event in many ways, not least of which is actually delivering the event you have in mind.
A professional event coordinator can handle all levels of event management: invitations, venue selection and management, menu details, decorations, attendee appreciation tokens, social media awareness, entertainment booking, event photography and even media relations.
So, go easy on your marketing director or office manager and consider these three reasons to hire an outside event coordinator.
They Know What To Do
Why would you leave your event in the hands of someone who is ‘winging it’ as opposed to turning your event planning over to someone with a proven track record in managing corporate events? Do you want to be embarrassed?
Events can define businesses and are a direct reflection on business leadership. A professional event coordinator can structure your ideal event — working autonomously in most respects based on your direction, vision, goals and budget. Best yet, they are devoted 100 percent to creating and managing your event. That is their only task.
They Know What NOT To Do
A reputable and established event coordinator knows the pitfalls in event planning. They know how to save dollars by negotiating with venue and catering vendors. They understand why events fail — and they avoid failure at all costs. Professional event coordinators are crisis experts, capable of handling everything from the last-minute decision to hire valet parking to securing backup entertainment in the event the planned entertainer comes down with the flu.
With event preparation, it’s just as important to know what to avoid as to know what to initiate. Professional event coordinators are masters of juggling details, people and priorities. They don’t get frazzled. They just go on with the show!
Your Employees Want To Do Their Jobs — Not Plan Your Event
Even the most compassionate, devoted employee in the world doesn’t really want to take on the added responsibility of performing their daily tasks and managing a major event for your business. It really is a case of asking too much of an employee. You want your employees to be productive. You want your employees to like their jobs. Do them — and you — a favor and strongly consider bringing in an event coordinator to manage your seminars, conferences, customer appreciation or corporate holiday events.
While it’s true event coordinator is one of the most stressful jobs around, at least the professional event coordinators know how to handle the stress — and deliver great events. Lumping that degree of stress onto an individual not equipped to handle it with grace under fire is simply bad for your event — and for your business.
Business event photo via Shutterstock
Aira Bongco
I agree. An event coordinator is absolutely essential for formal events. Without them, you usually give the job to your staff who usually don’t know a thing about organizing events. An event coordinator will actually save you a lot of headaches especially if you are entertaining some really important guests.
Nice article. You’re maybe familiar with planning and organising but trade fairs or any kind of bigger events are going to be much more complex. How do you handle guest management? Word? Excel? Do you need a register form with hotel occupancy? How do you keep track of the whole project phase? etc…..
In conclusion, you’d better hire an expert – an event coordinator for handling all these questions. By the way, colada from switzerland provides software to handle all those challenges in one place.
Great article, especially the piece about employees wanting to do their jobs. Many companies don’t realize the FTE effort required to pull together even smaller-scale internal events. This additional cost isn’t factored into the budget!
Rockford Johnson
I learned a lot about the benefits of working with an event coordinator by reading this article. Thank you for explaining that “A professional event coordinator can handle all levels of event management: invitations, venue selection and management, menu details, decorations, attendee appreciation tokens, social media awareness, entertainment booking, event photography and even media relations.” My sister hired an event planner for her wedding and she helped to make the whole wedding a stress-free experience since the planner took care of literally everything.
I think it’s really important to hire an external expert to organise an event. They have more contacts, no the perfect venues, entertainment and especially for luxury parties and events – they know how to market the event correctly.
Elsa Anderson
As my husband reminds me daily, I’m not very good at sticking to a schedule. I have an event that I’m planning for our neighborhood, and I want it to be perfect. To have it at that level of perfect, I should probably hire an event planner because, you pointed out, a professional event coordinator can structure your ideal event.
Hiring a party planner sounds like a good idea. Like you said, a professional coordinator could definitely actually deliver the event I have planned! That’s the hard part, is having the plan in my head come through.
Raisa Delima
You made a great point; it’s not fair to ask your employees to do their normal tasks and take on the responsibility of planning an event. I’ve heard that outsourcing the planning of a corporate event can even increase a company’s efficiency by 20%, which is pretty substantial. I think the reason for that is that employees get rewarded for doing their regular tasks without having to do anything more. If that’s the case, I’d much rather outsource the event planning if I was in a company owner’s position.
Shubham Kumar
Thank you for sharing this article, I learned a lot of benefits of working with an event coordinator by reading this blog. you are nicely explaining that “A professional event coordinator can handle all levels of event management: venue selection and management, menu details, invitations, etc. Thank you for sharing!
Taylor Bishop
Thanks for explaining why an event coordinator can be really helpful. I hadn’t considered that the coordinator can help structure your ideal event. It seems important to discuss in depth about what you want the event to accomplish so they know what needs to be implemented.
I’m glad you pointed out that an event coordinator will be able to handle all the aspects of management, such as the menu and entertainment. My sister is engaged to be married next spring but doesn’t have a lot of time on her hands due to her busy job. I’ll have to show her your article so she can see why hiring event consulting services would be a good idea!
You made a good point that hiring an event coordinator can ensure me that I’m hiring someone who knows the ins and out of preparing an event. I’m planning to become a freelance machinist someday so I would like to join a machining exhibition in order to put my name out there. Perhaps having an even coordinator will help me have an idea on how I should market my services in an event like that.
Article is Good and Useful Information.