Mental health is not a KPI

Psychological safety isn’t a soft skill, it’s the fuel for innovation. It is not about making everyone comfortable. It’s not a ‘feelings’ exercise, or an initiative for HR to manage. Psychological safety is the fuel that determines whether your organisation can move forward. Without it, you’re running on empty. 

The success of the events industry depends on building brave spaces for conversations to happen without judgement.  Do that, and we will enjoy better productivity, better recruitment, better retention, and the reward of increased shared profits.

We know ignoring employee mental health costs millions of dollars every day. So, why the lack of urgency in building a more empathetic workforce?

Professor Amy Edmondson from Harvard University coined the phrase ‘psychological safety’ and writes that ‘learning is a team sport’. 

For Edmondson, fostering a culture that encourages psychological safety and social intelligence involves changing systemic conditions, rather than simply encouraging individuals to voice their thoughts when they are already overwhelmed with work. It's about building a culture where everyone feels safe and supported, paving the way for genuine collaboration and innovation.

Being seen and heard are not the same thing.  Being invited and being valued are not the same thing, either. Ask event professionals what they think about this and you will find a disconnect larger than the population of the industry.  The reality of mental health is that it remains a ‘behind the scenes’ issue, which is where many leaders want it to stay.

Why? It is a question that many are still perplexed by.

A recent study of 600 event professionals, supported by the Events Industry Council and SITE, and carried out by Dr Anna Sverdlick, founder of Melioscope and professor of psychology at McGill University in Montreal, revealed the following:

1.  Psychological safety: a gender and hierarchy divide

There is a glaringly uneven distribution of psychological safety. Despite women composing over 80 per cent of the industry workforce, they reported significantly lower psychological safety than men, meaning women feel less comfortable speaking up, admitting mistakes, or raising concerns without fear of negative consequences.​

2.  Belonging reduces burnout

Events professionals who feel a strong sense of belonging to their industry or an affiliated organisation report significantly lower stress and burnout.

Those who feel integrated into the profession through mentorship, networking, certifications, and shared values report higher job satisfaction and lower emotional exhaustion.​

This finding reinforces the importance of building robust professional communities. Belonging does not just connect individuals, it protects them.

3.  Turning insight into action

Belonging protects, balance sustains, and safety empowers.

Instituting organisational belonging programmes, improving workload alignment, and embedding psychological safety and social intelligence in training at all leadership levels and downwards are no longer optional, they’re essential to the business (and humanity) of the events and meetings industry.

The results don’t lie: If fostering psychological safety and social intelligence are not part of team training, the next generation will think twice about whether the industry aligns with their purpose and values.

Psychological safety is 'mission critical in today’s work environment,' says Edmondson.

“You no longer have the option of leading through fear or managing through fear. In an uncertain, interdependent world, it doesn’t work—either as a motivator or as an enabler of high performance,” she says.

Everyone deserves to feel safe to speak up in their workplaces, educational institutions, communities and broader lives regardless of their background, role, or status.

Psychological safety has many advantages that benefit teams and organisations, but neither depends on the other. We don’t need to choose between doing right by people and doing right by the organisation, because psychological safety serves both. Performance, which is a KPI, is seen as both morally and psychologically complementary.

What we can practice is preventable failures. How do we engineer teams to bring ideas in an industry that forever says they don’t have time?  Structure is our friend even though we are known for agility.

So why would a new generation of thought-provoking younger professionals want to educate themselves in an industry void of what matters to them?  The current formula is attempting to feed a younger generation who don’t think, behave or agree with the elder generation.  Is this because industry leaders find comfort in what they know has worked in the past?  Or is it the fear of prioritising people and governing with empathy rather than ego?

According to Carl Wilson, founding director of the L. Robert Payne School of Hospitality & Tourism Management at San Diego State University, enrolment in the industry’s universities and colleges is down between 20-50 per cent. We must, therefore, create an action plan that will move the dial on building workplaces for everyone. This will require the industry to join forces for a global mental health standard that supports the next generation.

May is Mental Health Awareness month, and yet it feels as though the struggles that people face in the events industry have become deeply engrained in the system.

It’s time for change.