HRchat Podcast

Evolution of Business Events with Janet Dell, Freeman

• The HR Gazette • Season 1 • Episode 469

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In this episode of the HRchat podcast, we consider culture, innovation, insight, and business transformation in the context of event production and inspiring leaders. 

The guest today is Janet Dell, President and COO of Freeman, a global and award-winning leader in executive events production. 

Janet is no stranger to unifying teams while bringing together some of the most creative live events across the country for clients that include Dell, MTV, and Forbes. Her company has produced some of the biggest events around to elevate brand presence and to inspire consumers to act.

When the pandemic hit, Freeman took its company down to the studs and on a dime, transitioned completely to digital, and implemented a 5-year plan in just 5 months. Freeman rounded out last year producing over 800 events and activating 116,000 exhibits.

Under its leadership team, Freeman recently ranked #4 in the Forbes Best Employers for Women in the U.S. 

Questions For Janet Include: 

  • Your company has produced some of the best-known events around to lift brand presence and to inspire attendees to act. Talk about some of the work done at Freeman pre-pandemic
  • What did the pandemic do to in-person events and what was your experience back in early 2020? 
  • How did Freeman bounce back? 
  • Why is data key to transformational leadership?
  • Can you talk to me about internal employee engagement scores and why you believe they matter?
  • Changing the Way Business is Done – Why do you suggest a new operating model can help many organizations in a post-pandemic world?

About Freeman

Freeman is the global leader in events. Whether virtual, in-person, or hybrid, Janet and her team are on a mission to redefine live for a new era. With a data-driven approach and the world's largest network of experts, Freeman's insights are shaping exhibitions, exhibits, and events that drive audiences to action. Their integrated full-service solutions leverage a 100-year legacy

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the HR Chat podcast, bringing the best of the HR talent and leadership communities to you. For more episodes and the latest articles covering what's new in the world of work, visit hr gazette.com. Subscribe and follow us on social media.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. I'm your host today, bill Banham . And in this episode, we are gonna consider culture, innovation, insight , and business transformation in the context of event production and inspiring leaders. My guest today is Janet Dell, president and c o over at Freeman, a global and award-winning leader in executive events production. Janet is no stranger to unifying teams while bringing together some of the most creative live events across the US For clients that include Dell , MTV and Forbes, her company has produced some of the biggest events around to elevate brand presence and inspire consumers to act. When the pandemic hit, Freeman took its company down to the studs, and on a dime, transitioned completely to digital and implemented a five-year plan in just five months. Freeman rounded out last year producing over 800 events and activating 116,000 exhibits under its leadership team Freeman ranked number four in the Forbes Best employers for women in the us . Janet, it's my pleasure to welcome you to the HR Chat Show today.

Speaker 3:

Hi, bill. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2:

So Janet, your company has produced some of the best known events around to lift brand presence and to inspire attendees to act. Tell me about some of the work done at Freeman pre Pandemic.

Speaker 3:

Great. Um , well, Freeman is a global leader in events, and we've put on , um, huge city infrastructure events like the consumer electronic show. We work with hymns, we work with , uh, Dreamforce. We've even created a cornfield in the middle of our , uh, baseball field in the middle of a cornfield to create the field of dreams in last year. But basically, we will create any type of event that helps bring together people and connect them , um, and all our great events we know depend on a solid foundation of logistics, the right people, the right operations, and the infrastructure so that you can bring all of this to together to create something that's really incredible to connect people.

Speaker 2:

Tell me now, what did the pandemic do to in-person events and , and what was your experience back in early 2020 ? And before you start, I'll just share with you that , um, in addition to, to doing this , uh, one of the other things that, one of my other hats is I produce events for HR people and, and recruiters and so on. And you , you know, in , in early in early March, 2020, Janet. Yes . Uh , I, we had a whole bunch of contracts out with sponsors. They're all good to go, and we had a whole bunch of events lined up all around the US and Canada and elsewhere. And then within a space of a few days that stopped really , and people were like , uh, you know, there's a pandemic here. Now what , what , you know, what , what are we gonna do? I , I'd love to get your take on on what your experiences were.

Speaker 3:

Well, it was , um, it was almost surreal. Uh , it , it absolutely fell off and what felt like a matter of days. And we have operations over in apac, and we started to see some early signs. Um , but because of our experience with SARS several years before that, we didn't, no one could have predicted it would be on this level. And then when it really did start to hit in about mid early March , um, late Feb, early March, we started to see a number of events start to cancel and quickly had clients calling to say, you know, are other events canceling? Everyone trying to get information, because there was a lot of confusion. Um, so, you know, we saw, we really saw it fall off a cliff pretty rapidly and a lot of revenue going out the door, and then trying to keep things calm and , uh, refund exhibitors and work with event organizers and such to , to plan and try to try to peg when events would come back. But of course, there was not a lot of information at the time. And, and that was a global situation. Um, we had to really pivot when we looked at it. First, we had to look at, well, how do we make sure we preserve the , the financial structure of the company and make sure that we're there when , uh, events do return? And we also had to look hard at our business , um, to say, well, how are we going to be able to help people connect when in-person live events aren't an option? Because that was something that people were quickly scrambling to try to figure out. And so we sat down as a team, and our clients always are coming to us for solutions on events. And what we see , since we're doing thousands and thousands of events and , and serving millions of exhibitors every year, we had to look at, well, what does the virtual event look like? And not only train ourselves, but teach our customers and learn together, frankly , um, how that was gonna work going forward and bring events online. So that was kind of , um, job one when the pandemic hit.

Speaker 2:

And what was that experience like then? You know, what , what, what were <laugh> what , what , what were the , what were the , uh, the , the , the , the , the steep , uh, learning curves associated with that? You know , what, what, what kind of skill sets did you need to, to make that happen? Moving from in-person to online?

Speaker 3:

It was , uh, traumatizing in a lot of ways. We , we've always had an organization with very low attrition, and because it's so important for teams to work closely together. So , uh, because we had to shutter the company basically down to, we had to remove at least 87% of our work workforce. We had to first kind of deal with that trauma within the workplace. And then really, Freeman did what Freeman does best, which is they switch gears, and they, they're always in a learner's mindset, but they had to say, okay, we're gonna try some things. I'm sure we're gonna make mistakes, but we've gotta give , um, we've gotta give this our best shot because we know our customers are depending on us. And, and Freeman as a company is depending on us. So we started to shift to digital. We had to streamline , um, all of our operations, and we had to look at what are the right operating models to ensure success, both within the pandemic and then what we, we always felt and believed that live would be back. Um, how do you prepare for that? And it's pretty significant. Like, I wouldn't say we were a digital first company, but I do think now today and throughout the pandemic, a lot of people learn things and skillsets that maybe they hadn't anticipated they would need to learn to this extent , um, while also preserving what makes a great event , great events and, and strong event planning work. Well.

Speaker 2:

Okay. Thank you very much . Uh , I , I wanna switch, switch focus a little bit now and, and , uh, ask you why is data key to transformational leadership?

Speaker 3:

Oh , I'm a huge fan of data, and anyone will tell you that at Freeman , um, when you're managing lots of people in a distributed , um, workforce, data can give you insights early on what is working well and what isn't working well, so that you can make a good judgment call or a less risky decision, mitigate the risk of a decision based off of what, what the information is telling you. So whether that's like an internal process where you're looking at, well, why, where are we having success hiring? Or where are we having greater attrition? And why? You can cut through a lot of the noise and start to find out, you know, what are the right questions to ask versus every manager's frustration with the , the one-off anecdote or the the squeaky wheel who will yell. But I tend to look at, well, is this truly a pattern or a trend? And what are, where are we having the most struggles so we can zero in on those things first and hopefully eliminate pain from our own internal processes, but also make it easier on our clients. I'll tell you, in the beginning of the pandemic data really helped guide us on where were events canceling , uh, in which counties, in which states and countries, et cetera . We, we tracked , um, what the rules were in each of them so that we could advise clients on what was possible. Could they do a live, could they do a small gathering with an online portion, et cetera . And internally, it helped us when you had a distributed remote workforce figure out how to connect the teams better, how to , um, make the processes more streamlined, taking out some of the noise and the pain. Uh, and so we really used it and learned at Freeman why it's so important for us to see it. And then obviously, I think information's key to unlocking the potential of any organization so they can make every individual all the way down to the front line can make the best decision if they're given the right context. And I think data's key to that.

Speaker 2:

Okay. I bet you were seeing some pretty strong trends there in, in, in March, as , as , as do the number of events were being canceled. You know , I , I I'm , I I'd guess that, you know , you're fairly clear with the data that you were looking at back then in the

Speaker 3:

Yes . Yeah. You know, and but then when we, we had to recover, we also could see heading into , um, the summer last year, prior I had a Delta variant. You could see what Delta variant's impact was gonna be. And, and instead of the, the extreme pullback of March of 2020 , um, it was more of a hybrid approach. And we were noticing that certain verticals were willing to meet in person with under safe conditions and what those conditions were that made people want to attend an event. So whether it was your audience was one that felt strongly about vaccination plus mass plus testing on site , or you still had good , um, attendance numbers with vaccination plus masking or testing plus mass , et cetera , those types of insights. And that helped us to plan our workforce because of course, bringing headcount on , uh, can cost a lot of money, but in our business, we have to bring those people on well in advance of the event to do the planning to pull it off. And it helped us manage our , uh, cash burn throughout the pandemic and then understand which roles we needed to bring in sooner versus later , uh, to pull off successful events.

Speaker 2:

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Maybe you can now talk to me a bit about internal employee engagement scores and, and why you believe that they matter.

Speaker 3:

Oh , well, they're , I mean, obviously you're in our business, if you don't have a team that can work together and is , is engaged, you can blow an event. It really just takes one person not pulling , um, they're part of the event planning process , uh, to, to kind of take something from mediocre , um, to great if , if they do pull that off. So for me, we have to retain talent in , in our organization, and we've got to, we, we understood, especially going through the pandemic, what , no matter where you worked, what industry you were in, a lot of people are going through a lot having to adjust to major shifts in the world and in marketplaces and certainly within our industry. So looking at engagement scores, watching attrition numbers, seeing where things are working well and where you've got high engagement versus low engagement, and then the impact on the work. It's all critical and it's, it's been a game changer for our company to, to look at that. It's also key to improving the quality of work and the , the happiness of the employee. If you can find out what is working well and then make sure that that's being applied in different parts of the business and really listen to your employee base , um, you're on a much better track, especially when there is, you know, a war on talent going on and a great resignation. We've really tried to work hard to, to meet the needs of our employees so that we can continue to deliver strong business results.

Speaker 2:

Let's talk a little bit about changing the way that business is done then. Why , why do you suggest that , uh, new operating model can help many organizations in a post pandemic world?

Speaker 3:

The big shift that was happening during the pandemic, or at least what we, we were experiencing firsthand and, and most organizations, is that this, we have a multi-generational workforce coming up. So we saw a lot of our baby boomer population deciding this was the time to retire and to move on. And then we were seeing , um, our millennial population grow very rapidly and Gen Z coming in , uh, pretty quickly. And so we have, you know , e the needs of each of these generations, their wants and desires, and what motivates 'em can be different. I, and I know these are generalizations, but we, we do have to look at , um, the younger generations who have grown up in a digital first versus , uh, older generations that are digital hybrid and have different expectations on what is good customer service and how should you interact. We wanna make sure we meet the needs of a multi-generational , uh, workforce, both so we can attract talent, retain talent, and then serve our customers who are also multi-generational, obviously. Um, so we, we've looked at the operating model, and I'll give you an example where we need to make a change. There are some people that want to stand in a exhibitor services line and work with a human being to resolve an issue. And then there's others that want to self-serve and do it all from their phone in moments, and they want information pushed to them. And so we had to make sure we looked at are we meeting the needs of our different customer , um, d customers and our employees frankly, so that we can deliver according to what they need and, and drive engagement, drive better results, et cetera . I also, I , I don't think it's anything new to be looking at your operating models. I mean, everybody, all businesses must continue to evolve to meet the needs of the market and , um, adapt. And so everyone should always be looking at it. The , the, the beauty or what was really painful about the pandemic is it forced a rapid review of an operating model in all industries, as you saw everyone having to move into a highly digital world , uh, pretty rapidly. And then you saw massive , um, gains frankly, in people's adoption of digital tools and what it could mean within different industries. So I think that's been exciting, but it's also been , uh, not without its challenges as we're learning to continue to adapt.

Speaker 2:

Oh, it's been a rollercoaster for sure, <laugh> definitely . But you know , we've , we've , we've accelerated our learning, you know , over what should have been a five or six year period because what's happened was inevitable. I think in terms of, for me ,

Speaker 3:

What was exciting at , um, Friedman bill was that a lot of people thought that could never be done. And we've tried that. I can't, I , if I had a dollar for every time we said that we wouldn't have the same issues that we had during the pandemic, but it actually proved to them that yes, in fact you can learn all of these different types of technology, we can integrate 'em , we can use this as a way to enable , um, and empower our workforce. It doesn't mean their job's going away. It means their job should fun , they can focus on, I think the more value creating , um, areas of their work. So that was exciting to watch that trans that pivot happen at Freeman across the broad employee base.

Speaker 2:

Now then I'd like to take a few minutes with you. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> and ex explore some concepts around business transformation, which your team were pretty keen for us to discuss today. And there are , there are four key con concept . I'm gonna , uh, read those out and then I'm gonna turn it over to you to, to go on a monologue for two or three minutes and , and tell us a bit about each of these and why they, why they matter, basically. So , uh, they are as follows, the, the renewed purpose and power in reorganization, leveraging your female leaders and how that can transform your business pliability as a business asset if one allows it to be so, and embracing the freedom to fail. Okay , go

Speaker 3:

<laugh>. Alright . Renewed purpose and power and reorganization. Um, I think that helped open up people's mind. Like, the worst thing that could have happened to this company happened . We were still standing, so we had to look at, which gives you, it kind of , um, took away a lot of the concerns and it kind of hits on all four of these really, but people were, we were a very, we have always been a very successful company, but once you , uh, it was hard to enact a lot of change because you didn't wanna disrupt what was something that was already successful, even though they knew there were some, some issues that needed to be addressed. So I think when you took it down to the studs and you had to rebuild basically the business from the ground up, it did remind people and, and there was still such a demand for virtual events and live events. You could see , um, that renewed purpose across our long-term veterans. And then also the people brave enough to come into the live events industry in the midst of this and say, what can it be and how can we continue to connect people in meaningful ways and what are some of the things we might have been afraid to try before, but we're going to try now to meet the moment leveraging our female leaders. Uh , Freeman has been working on building out its , uh, female leadership across the ranks for over a decade, well before I got here. Obviously I'm, I'm getting to benefit from that, but our female leaders , uh, have always worked closely with one another, but I think we saw a lot of people rise to the occasion and we had a lot of allies and supporters in our male leadership that were working to help people see things in a different way , um, deliver the business. Um , but we watched and made sure that we continued to bring in , uh, plenty of females throughout and retain females in the organization and then try to adjust, because in many cases, I'll take one segment of our female leaders is , uh, the working mom. And we had to adjust and say , all right , how are we gonna make this? If you're gonna have to teach children during the day while we're also having to transform a company and bring it back up, what can we do about that? And we try to give each other a lot of grace, a lot of flexibility so that people could work around both of these things and feel both effective at home and at work. That doesn't always work. And, and I can say as a working mom myself, it was, it was very hard throughout the pandemic, but I think we really try to listen and learn and , and luckily we have very vocal female leaders and male leaders, frankly, that are looking out for the entire employee base. Pliability as a business asset, you, you've gotta be agile. Um, throughout these processes, we tried a lot of things that maybe theoretically made a lot of sense, but then when we saw it wasn't working , um, and this gets into failing fast, we would pivot and our employees luckily would tell us, and if not, if I thought I saw a pattern in them voting with their feet, we would try to adjust. And I think we've done that throughout and made that be the guiding light. We also made sure in , um, in terms of embracing the freedom to fail, we empowered our leaders and let them know that we knew there were going to be mistakes made. And that's okay. It's how you handle the mistake and how you pivot and move forward so that people weren't living in any more fear than they already were with the pandemic going on, because that, that was a reality. Uh , especially working in live events. Um, so I think all those things together and then a strong, strong culture across the , uh, Freeman family and the organization over its entire tenure meet all four of these really come alive. And that's why we've had been able to successfully navigate and now come through most of the recovery, even though we still see a lot of growth in our future in the next 12 months.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm not surprised because you guys are pretty pr pretty dynamic. You , you get stuff done, you , you , you don't let, you don't let anything stop you . You're not , not even a pandemic. Look at up <laugh> . Um , uh, hey, hey Janet, before we do wrap up for today, and I'm sad that we're about to wrap up cause I've enjoyed this. Uh , but before we do, how can, how can our listeners connect with you? So maybe that's through LinkedIn, maybe you wanna share your email address, maybe you're all over TikTok. Uh , yeah . And how, how can they learn more about Freeman?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. I , you can reach me on LinkedIn and also I , um, I can be reached directly on email@janet.dell freeman.com. You can always learn more about Freeman on our website, www.freeman.com. Um , we always have good case studies out there and, and lots of good information that I think is helpful to any event professional.

Speaker 2:

Perfect. Well that just leads me to say for today, Janet Dell , thank you very much for being my guest on this episode of the HR Chat Show.

Speaker 3:

Thanks, Phil . I really enjoyed it.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat podcast. There are hundreds of conversations with business experts available for free on the HR Gazette website, apple, Spotify, and all the main platforms. And remember to like, subscribe and follow us on social media.

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