Employees Struggle to Justify Attending Conferences as Colleagues are Being Laid Off

Companies are placing conference attendance under a microscope, sending fewer employees than in previous years —  or choosing not to send anyone at all.

More than half of the respondents to a recent survey by the Global Business Travel Association (56%) said their organization has changed its meetings or events strategy in the past three months, with 24% saying they are reducing employee event attendance. 

Rather than viewing industry conferences as an expectation of the job or a professional development perk, companies tightening their belts are expecting employees to explain how the event supports business objectives.

“People are feeling a lot of pressure these days because there’s so much fluctuation happening at work, including layoffs,” said Lesly Simmons, XPLand Council of Advisors. “It's hard to justify attending a conference when colleagues are being laid off.”

She is also seeing attendees having to justify attending conferences they’ve gone to for several years in a row.

“They’re coming to me and saying, ‘I need to know what’s going to be new and better about this this year.’” 

Government meetings have been hit especially hard, with federal agencies and grant recipients having to submit written justifications to attend meetings, even those they have attended for years.  

One meeting manager whose attendees are largely state government employees said the severity of the approval process depends on the state. “Several states aren't authorizing travel at all (even funded travel), while others are making people jump through more hoops to get approval.”

Within the past year, she has seen people being told by their companies that if they take funding to attend a meeting, they have to use their personal time off. “Fortunately, this hasn't resulted in a decrease in attendance for those particular meetings.”

Next-Level Justification

Conferences have long provided justification letters to help make the case for attendance, and now they are adding information on what’s new on their registration portals for attendees to present to their management.

Most employees focus their efforts to get approval on the up-front details about the event. Justification letter templates typically include things like the agenda, the speakers, whether they will receive CEUs, who will be attending, and the costs. 

Some speakers, such as Kristen Brown, offer their own justification letters that employees can add to the mix.  "I want both the meeting planner and the attendee and their approving leader to clearly see the business value of the experience, whether that’s stronger leadership, greater accountability, productive communication, or other practical strategies," she said.

Repeat attendees are being asked to take this to the next level. They’re searching for additional benefits than in previous years, such as offering to do a campus tour of a company facility located near where the meeting is being held, then sharing the highlights.

Simmons suggests they offer to share the learnings from the educational sessions after the meeting ends, by preparing a presentation of the key takeaways for other staff members, or organizing lunch and learns or workshops for colleagues. 

“If you can distribute the information effectively, the professional development benefits can outweigh the cost of registration,” she said. “That’s a strong selling point for repeat attendance.”