All This Talk About Planner Stress is Stressing Us Out

There’s a term in psychology that sums up a phenomenon occurring in the meetings industry today: “stress bragging.”

Recent research from the University of Georgia published in the journal “Personnel Psychology” reveals that talking about work-related stress can actually induce stress in the recipients. “The contagious impact of bragging about stress is as true for the stress braggart as it is for others,” said lead author Jessica Rodell, PhD, William Harry Willson Distinguished Chaired Professor at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business.

“The more positive attention we pay to stress, the more we subtly suggest that it is a valuable quality – that it signals something of worth (for example, that an employee is important and trusted with difficult tasks),” she said. “To an extent, that may carry some truth. But the unintended consequence is that we accidently glorify the experience of stress.”

Could this be what’s happening in the meetings industry due to a never-ending stream of articles, posts, podcasts – and ‘bragging’ at industry events – about how meeting planning is one of the most stressful jobs?

What’s Going On Here? 

There is no shortage of lists that claim meeting planning is stressful.

For example, this article says event planning is the third-most stressful job in the world. It cites World Scholarship Vault, an organization that provides international scholarships. The organization’s website is defunct, and there have been no 2024 posts on its social media sites. 

Another example comes from the job search website Zippia, which ranked event planning #6 among the seven most stressful jobs, alongside paramedics, corrections officers and emergency room nurses. 

Also, a joint 2023 IBTM report with Culture Creators (an agency “hired by brands seeking a meaningful connection with their audience”) ranked the profession as the third most stressful, below military service and home health aides.

But are these claims valid? 

Josh Briley, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist and fellow of the American Institute of Stress, says a big issue is the lists themselves. “Lists that rank jobs according to stress level are best considered ‘infotainment,’” he said. “They seem to be educational, but due to lack of rigorous criteria for the rankings, apparent bias of the individuals behind the list, and a slew of other factors, they should not be considered as anything more than somewhat informational and entertaining. These rankings also do not seem to have a consistent definition of stress, making them very subjective at best, and misleading clickbait at worst.”

Ask an operating room nurse: Dylan Parker-Roach, who is on staff at Boston’s Faulkner Hospital and previously spent two years working as an EMT. “It’s hard to hear on face value that meeting planners have the highest stress. It seems disingenuous,” he said. “The worst day for an event planner looks a lot different than the worst day for a healthcare provider. Medical professionals have more objective goals than subjective ones, like making sure their patients get to leave the hospital healthy — and alive.”

Mental Health Awareness on the Rise

The good news is that all this talk about stress has spurred initiatives focused on attendees’ and planners’ mental health and wellbeing. Organizers have created quiet rooms at meetings, added wellness activities and opened up more free time in packed agendas. Planners freely discuss mental health issues and have built support networks for colleagues who are suffering from the impact of work-related stress.

One organization, Event Minds Matter, has grown to more than 3,000 followers on LinkedIn. Its goal is to ” build brave spaces to amplify the industry’s conversation on emotional health and well-being.”​​ Its founder, Janice Cardinale, is on a mission to make psychological safety training compulsory.

But as far as the stress bragging, many feel it’s time to put it to rest. “Our industry can, and must, do better….full stop,” said Aaron Kaufman, president of experience design firm Fifth Element Group. “It’s a job, and a role that has so many wonderful gifts. Perpetuating and promoting nonsense so publications get clicks is a travesty. We are lucky to have the opportunity to do what we do!”’