The downsizing trend that has cut a swath through corporate America does not appear to have bypassed in-house meeting departments. One indicator that companies are employing fewer full-time planners these days is that hotel sales managers say they are increasingly working with third parties or people whose primarily job is not meeting planning.
Job placement expert Sheryl Sookman Schelter, principal, The MeetingConnection in Novato, Calif., has noticed the trend as well, although she adds that the situation varies greatly according to company or industry.
"It’s very industry segmented as to what’s going on," she says, adding that at a recent trade show she encountered two planners who had just lost their jobs with pharmaceutical companies. On the flip side, she also met a planner with a more diversified company whose department had grown during the past year.
"For those planners who are in areas like financial services where there is a still a lot of volatility in the market, there are a lot of concerns," she says. "Pharma also has some volatility to it because of company mergers and the new pharma guidelines for meetings—some pharma companies are doing meetings with a lot less budget and staff."
Sookman also notes that when companies downsize their meetings staff, they often turn planning responsibilities back to individual departments and into the hands of people who are not full-time planners.
"Companies think they are saving money, but if past history is any example, they end up seeing that the quality of the meeting is no longer there," she says. "Unfortunately, some companies are going backwards this way—going for short-term gain while heading for long-term loss."
Case Cote, president of Atlanta-based Meetings Consultants, which provides meetings management technology and services to corporations, says last year’s economic conditions have accelerated an outsourcing trend that was already in place. .
"Some companies have cut back significantly on their events, so their staffs have been decimated—they didn’t keep their planners around," he says. "More outsourcing is going on. That was already the trend in 2008 and 2009 just increased it. We’re still seeing this going into 2010."
At the same time, Sookman notes that some companies are in an expansion mode, in some cases looking to build up meetings departments that had been downsized.
"There are companies who are repositioning themselves in terms of their staffing needs," she says. "For the most part, it’s a staggered process where they bring in contractors and then rebuild the staff from there. So there are opportunities on that side. For people who are accustomed to going from full-time to part-time, it may require a new perspective. Contract work may be the best way to get back in."
