While the Covid-19 crisis has left numerous industries fighting an uphill battle, few have been left more stricken by the pandemic than the culture, leisure and hospitality sectors which have been blighted by the longest periods of intermittent closure.
To better understand the scale of the challenge facing these industries, The Leaders Council of Great Britain & Northern Ireland spoke exclusively with Julian Russell, CEO at HQ Theatres and Hospitality, a commercial organisation which operates 12 principal cultural assets across the UK on behalf of local authorities.
Russell has been in charge of the company since 2014, having been appointed to assess the business and respond to what he discovered. He oversaw an overhaul of systems and processes to enhance commercial performance and provide a strategic vision going forward. As has been the case with other operators, however, the Covid-19 pandemic has left the organisation with a need to pivot as it fights to survive.
Sharing his experiences on The Leaders Council podcast, Russell explained that the pandemic had had a significant impact which had left him, and his senior leadership team, concerned for the wellbeing not solely of the business entity, but also its workforce.
Russell said: “Covid has had a seismic impact on our sectors. Theatres, culture, and leisure have been widely hit because businesses have been closed for long periods. We closed our venues in March and back then we anticipated that it would only be a matter of weeks until we resumed. Fast-forward several months and we remain closed under the tiered restrictions system in active hibernation, and it has been an extraordinary period for us all. My prime concern is and has always been the welfare of our workforce. The uncertainty of all of this weighs heavily on people’s careers and livelihoods and we have tried more than anything to offer some reassurances.”
Opening up on the measures that his business opted to implement to protect its workers, Russell continued: “We have made use of the government’s furlough scheme to protect the financial wellbeing of our workforce and ease those pressures on them. As of October, no redundancies had been made and we have also secured a grant and with that formulated a plan to protect core skills and employment within our company until we can open again. We want to make sure our workforce is confident that they will be able to return to employment once this is over, and as well as financial reassurances, we have also introduced a number of initiatives to safeguard their mental health during this time, which has been understandably fragile.”
Key to maintaining positive morale and mental wellbeing was ensuring that the sense of community within the culture sector was not lost, and keeping everyone connected via technological means and communicating with the workforce regularly was a vital element of this, as Russell explained.
“We are inherently a creative and entrepreneurial sector so stimulation and working together closely is what we do daily. When that is taken away it has a staggering impact. We have made sure while closed that we have kept regular contact, maintained a community remote platform where we have kept connected and shared information on how to maintain mental wellbeing.
“The role of technology in keeping us connected and maintaining a sense of community has been massive, and we have made sure we have held regular communications updates with everyone in our workforce, so they are kept in the know about where we are and what courses of action we are taking. These platforms also provide a space where people can reach out if they are feeling the effects of stress and anxiety, and this is a way we can support our people until we can all be together physically again.”
With a UK vaccination programme now in place to protect the vulnerable from Covid-19, it is easy to assume that culture, leisure and hospitality will not have longer to wait before they can resume operations. However, key to any return is consumer confidence, and Russell warned that within some age groups it may take longer to come back in earnest.
He said: “I believe that we will experience various different age groups returning at different stages when we can open again. We will not see a wholesale return of consumer confidence straight away in numerous sectors, but what we are seeing is a real want to return to our spaces among younger demographics, so certain parts of our industries which appeal to those age groups may recover more quickly than others, and others will spend longer in the doldrums.”
When consumers do eventually return to venues, Russell anticipates that the experience will be much changed compared to what was seen before the pandemic struck, but stressed that the sector is ready to embrace the impending changes.
“We expect our customers to behave differently when coming into our venues in future and they will expect us to do so. Even if the virus is no longer an immediate danger one day, we will need to invest in new technology and procedures to ensure people feel safe and there is no lingering anxiety. It will all look and feel different, but we are ready for that change because some of it is good and will improve customer experiences and render us more efficient, effective and resilient in what we do.
“It is impossible to really put a timeframe on all of this, but the indications are that consumer confidence will return around the spring of 2021, but this remains fluid. It is also contingent on people’s financial security and whether they have the income to be able to visit and spend money in our venues, but in times of economic strife in the past, the experience economy which we are in has stood up well in support of its communities and I have no doubt we will do the same again when we are given the opportunity to open.”
Russell added that the long periods of closure have also made those both inside and outside the industry more aware of how important cultural assets are to their local communities, and why their preservation throughout this time has been paramount.
He said: “People are realising just how important cultural assets are to their communities both economically and socially. During this time, we have been looking to direct our effort and resources to make sure that community assets are delivering the support that local people need. When it comes to reopening, to ensure we can continue to provide that support we need to focus our minds on our business models and know what we are good at. I am lucky in that I have a talented team of extraordinary people behind me who will make sure we can do this to the best of our ability.”
Despite the immense strain that the health crisis has put on the industry, a defiant Russell believes that culture, leisure and hospitality will emerge stronger and more resilient than ever before.
“As a team, we have become so much closer in dealing with some incredible challenges as a collective. These last few months have reinforced the value of trust, honesty and transparency and we can take those moral and ethical lessons forward, as well as the commercial and business lessons that this experience has taught us.
“The commercial impact of Covid means that our income streams have frozen while costs remain, so it is undeniably a real battle for survival. But we are confident that organisations like us will return. We do not know when this will be, but I believe we will be more resilient and robust than ever before having learnt much about each other and our businesses. We will put the lessons of this year to good use in the wake of the ongoing uncertainty and remain optimistic that we will find our way to a more positive position. We just have to make sure that the collateral damage is kept to a minimum.”
Photo by Felix Mooneeram on Unsplash
