Tell us a little about The Projects Studio
The Projects Studio is a specialist B2B events and project management company based in Newcastle which delivers services to corporates, trade associations, local / national government and publicly funded organisations and agencies.
The company creates, develops and delivers business support projects and events, including marketing campaigns, full-service event management and business development consultancy.
The company began operations in 2018 and is owned and run by myself and Andrew Wilson. We both have over 20 years’ experience in event and project management. The longer-term strategy has been to invest in our own brands and build audiences for our commercial events, rather than delivering events for third parties. In spite of the pandemic, we have been able to establish two major business events in the North East: People Power and EQ Connects. We also own and deliver the annual North East Contact Centre Awards (NECCA), which welcomes 400 guests to its Gala Dinner.
How have you managed to survive and thrive during the pandemic?
Initially it was definitely survive rather than thrive! After enabling our team to work from home, and making the switch to online events , we realised towards the end of 2020 that many people were beginning to look to the post pandemic future, and crave a return to life as we knew it, both in their personal and professional lives.
We started to include the main lessons from the pandemic within our own business – but also fed them into the agenda and content for “People Power” – a conference and exhibition we had initially created in 2018. These lessons were; the importance of staff engagement and showing understanding / empathy at work, creating a “hybrid” flexible working environment, and embracing new technology and innovation – particularly with internal and external communication.
We combined these themes with the fundamentals of People Power – i.e. organisations maximise their success when they recognise their people are their most important asset, and enable them to be the best they can be.
After running the event online in 2020, we were super excited to bring people back together again at a live event in November 2021. This gave all our delegates an opportunity to connect and re-connect, to share stories of the challenges that we have faced over the past two years, explore fresh-thinking and plan for future success.
We pushed ourselves as an events business to add some new strings to our bow, with the 2021 People Power conference delivered as a ‘hybrid’ event, with the option to join the event virtually.
An important development for our business in 2021 was joining the FSB to gain specific support on our growth plans. We have since been able to network and share best practise with other small employers, and to benefit from the legal advice available. Coming out of the pandemic was an ideal moment for the company to join – as we realised more face-to-face networking would return, along with live event opportunities for us to organise.
What do you think are the key topics for employers, post-pandemic?
Employers are having to adapt quickly to the changing world of work. Whilst curating this year’s conference, we reflected on the past year and really thought about how we can retain the lessons learned and how we can help to make this a time of positive and sustainable change for both employers and employees.
The themes of this year’s conference are Talent, Behaviour, Culture and Innovation. Talent because of the huge shift and movement of the workforce – so addressing topics such as upskilling, reskilling, talent attraction and retention, onboarding, offboarding, reboarding. Behaviour - well, there’s a lot in there isn’t there! Everything from meta-skills such as self-awareness, empathy, communication and leadership, to how you then use those skills to manage change, build high performing teams and improve performance and productivity. Culture – with a focus on employee experience, engagement, diversity & inclusion and the changing working environment and last but certainly not least – Innovation. We are keen for People Power to look towards a bright and productive future – to thinking about skills of the future, the new workplace, digitalisation and tech.
Another vital consideration for employers is around psychological safety, health & wellbeing – again linking to the above focus around how employees are actually feeling. It is super important that managers and business leaders are equipped with the knowledge and skills to ensure their workforce is both safe and happy.
The keynote address at this year’s People Power Conference (taking place at Northumbria University on 23 June) is by bestselling author and uncertainty expert Sam Conniff. Described as a "brain-expanding experience" by Netflix, his presentation will demonstrate that someone's tolerance (and enthusiasm) for uncertainty is key to their success.
Other highlights this year include “Mindset Matters” by resilience experts Alison Burgess and Cathy Lawson, and “Manhealth - Blokes, Brains, Balls and Brawn” by mental health pioneer Emily Pearson of Our Minds Work.