The new role of the meeting professional is helping organizations as a consultant and strategist truly understand how they can use meetings as a business tool to drive objectives to create organizational change and to drive change of behavior for attendees.
It’s a really exciting time for our industry to reimagine what the role of the meeting professional is for our businesses, our organizations and our governments, and how we can play a critical role in making business decisions that help our organizations move forward with this really incredible business tool that is meetings and events.
Every single event that an organization hosts has some kind of a business value. Take an event that doesn't seem to have a business value such as an annual holiday party for staff. Normally you might think, “Well, we’re just going to have fun. That’s our objective.”
But that’s not a business objective. That doesn’t make business sense. What are you trying to do? Identify why you want your employees to have fun. Maybe you’re trying to engender loyalty to ensure you have less turnover because that’s expensive for your company. Maybe you want a better work culture so they stick around. Or you want to break down barriers or silos among departments by creating trust in an after-hours social environment.
If you identify these objectives for your holiday party, then you can begin to think about how you can design that event through the lens of its purpose. You may change the content, format and networking activities, because now you have an overarching business purpose. Everyone can still have fun, but you can also achieve additional value for your business.
Regardless of the type of event, every event that a business holds has some kind of intrinsic business value. If we drill down that way we can begin to see how we as meeting professionals play a key role in helping our businesses create and deliver meetings and events that matter.
Then, too, we also play a critical role in ensuring that the business measures that value. Ask people before and after social events if they feel more loyal to your organization because of the events you’ve been hosting for them and by how much they might feel that way. Ask them if they are more likely to stay with your company and to what degree.
Your human resources department will know the costs associated with turnover, so you can begin to put an actual dollar amount against these social events that ordinarily you might think don’t even have a business value, but they do.
Begin critically thinking about the business value of all your events with MPI’s Meeting & Event Strategist Certificate class. Register today!
