Every association was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, but for the Experiential Designers & Producers Association, it was what Michael McMahon calls a “near-extinction event.”
EDPA members work on the design of face-to-face events like tradeshows and conferences, so the global shutdown hit its members especially hard. And it has a wide range of members, says McMahon, who chairs EDPA’s future workforce committee. “The members of EDPA are designers and producers, but there are also labor companies and other really specific providers, and it can all get very complex,” he says.
And the field’s workforce was drained from the experience, says EDPA Executive Director Dasher Lowe. “During the pandemic, we were the first industry affected and the last to recover, and we lost a lot of our workforce from that,” he says. “We realized coming out of it that we need more designers. We need skilled labor, we need project managers, salespeople. There were a lot of different roles to fill.”
We were the first industry affected and the last to recover, and we lost a lot of our workforce from that.
EDPA Executive Director Dasher Lowe
EDPA had some development efforts underway in the form of relationships with colleges, but in 2023 it began to approach workforce growth more intentionally, via a workforce development committee. A survey of membership helped the committee identify three main areas of focus: academic partnership and development, professional labor and trades, and content creation and management.
Katina Zipay, who heads the academic subcommittee, notes that the survey found that the best candidates for recruitment in the industry could differ from region to region, so she developed a plan to recruit volunteers to speak with school representatives on the ground. “It may be that there’s more design programs in one area of the country, or more labor in one area of the country,” she says. “I’m able to take the specific players in my committee and assign them to specific schools …. Sometimes we’ll hear about an interesting opportunity, but we ask, does it align with what is most needed in that area? And if it does, great, let’s pursue it, and I’ll assign someone to work with the faculty building that relationship. If it’s not, it might need to take a seat for the time being while we focus on really high-value, important needs.”
EDPA leads a similar effort on the labor side of employment. To bring those two main groups together, EDPA is developing a website where visitors can identify job opportunities at the state level. It’s also developed a toolkit to assist member companies in building connections at the schools that might provide future workers. (The survey said that roughly half of its member companies have no such relationship.)
It’s also expanded its visits to conferences and job fairs where likely candidates might attend. It’s too early for EDPA to put numbers around the success of the efforts, but Lowe says they have a strong message to deliver—a field with three million workers, and plenty of openings for decent-paying jobs.
“There’s a lot of skilled labor that goes into building and putting on tradeshow events, but it doesn’t necessarily require a four year degree,” Lowe says. “We’ve been working with the trade schools and high schools just to make people aware that you can have a successful career without having to go to college and that and use your ears, your hands to make a good living in the industry.”
Want more on workforce development? The latest set of Associations Now Deep Dives includes articles and resources around the theme, showing how other associations are addressing the challenge.
