HCM pain points for Events & Stadiums organizations in the US — and tech solutions to remedy them

Events & Stadiums: An industry snapshot 

For spectators, it’s simple: arrive, enjoy the show, and head back home. 

But for the people behind-the-scenes, things are a whole lot more complex. The planning and organization of live events begins months in advance — and for things to go as smoothly as possible, all parts need to be well-oiled and moving in tandem. 

Two key components to consider are HR operations and workforce logistics. For any one of these events, there could be hundreds — or even thousands — of employees to manage, across different locations, departments and even organizations. Just consider the security, medical personnel, concession, janitorial and retail staff that are required for an NFL game or Taylor Swift concert.   

The global events industry was valued at USD438.8 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach USD819.1 billion in 2025. North America was the fastest-growing region worldwide — this doesn’t come as a surprise, considering how lucrative the US entertainment & sporting industries are. The numbers don’t lie; that same year, Live Nation reported an annual live music attendance figure of 145 million, while the Big Four sports leagues continue generating billions in revenue and healthy live attendance figures.  

It’s more important than ever for Events & Stadiums organizations to optimize their human capital management (HCM) processes for the best possible employee experience (EX) — and with a safe, comfortable, and clean stadium ranked as a core expectation for stadium-goers across the US, the customer experience (CX) becomes equally as important.

HCM issues faced by Events & Stadiums organizations  

Events & Stadiums face similar challenges to organizations in other frontline (‘deskless’) industries, but especially those seen by the Hospitality sector. That is, high rates of employee turnover, staffing challenges, and the impact of economic fluctuations, to name a few.  

Staffing is a major concern for these organizations. The ability to deliver exceptional service requires well allocated, skillfully scheduled and appropriately trained staff; for any given event, hundreds of employees, across a variety of departments, need to be managed and coordinated. If any zone or department is short-staffed, poorly allocated or inadequately trained, the venue risks inconveniencing fans with long queues, poor service and security risks.  

Throw in economic pressures, and employers in the Events & Stadiums industry have it tough. Revenue fluctuates through the peaks and troughs of the events season, depending on who’s playing or performing; there’s also competing venues to worry about, as well as the need for constant renovations and set installations. And to address the elephants in the room — inflation, and the rising cost of living. It has made the average household’s disposable budget unstable, and the decision to head to a Saturday night game isn’t as easy as it once was.  

Of course, these pressures combine to create different HCM pain points for organizations — and the best ways to remedy them lie in a reliable HR technology solution.

Pain Point #1: Complex multi-role / multi-department scheduling 

The service output for any event — whether it be sports, music and entertainment, or business-related — is the product of several different departments and organizations working together as a single unit. The challenge in this case is scheduling across multiple departments. This problem is magnified if staff are working in multiple roles or areas of the business. A failure to coordinate the schedules, shifts, and numbers across separate teams can lead to chaos on event day. 

This becomes even more frustrating for managers and employees relying on dated workforce management software. Mobile-based solutions allow the user to update availability, tailor work preferences, and bid for shifts — manually, and through an intuitive UI. Additionally, legacy systems don’t support the seamless attribution of multiple roles and payrates to a single employee. Whereas on a cloud-based system, delivered via a modern mobile app, doing this is a breeze. 

How Humanforce helps with complex scheduling 

Rostering & Scheduling (available via mobile app)

When considering the limitations of many of the legacy platforms used by many Events & Stadiums organizations across the US, Humanforce’s Rostering & Scheduling solution becomes even more non-negotiable. Operations or guest experience managers can auto-generate optimized, FSLA-compliant rosters with just a few clicks — even totally via smartphone. 

Employees can update their personal work preferences and availability, while the shift bidding and swapping features provides greater flexibility and work-life balance. Managers can then view these preferences, as well as switch to multi-view scheduling, to offer more predictable, stable work schedules and gain a wider view of their team’s preferences. 

Under this solution sits Event Rostering, a tool designed specifically for event managers to create complex, event-specific schedules spanning several days, locations, roles, and areas. Employees can also be split across multiple roles and locations over different days. When combined with Humanforce’s Awards & Compliance Solution, powered by a pay conditions engine, complex pay calculations are automated in accordance with relevant pay laws and industrial instruments (FLSA, CBAs) - see more in pain point #2 below.  

Humanforce Mobile App

In larger venues such as stadiums, employees are often required to work across several physical locations. The Humanforce Mobile App enables geo-fenced clocking, synchronized to certain events and departments, so employees can clock on and off from their designated zone.   

Humanforce also offers clocking solutions to suit the diverse operational and security needs of different venues, including finger vein scanning, facial recognition (such as Wicket), or QR code features — available via the Humanforce Work App or via on-site kiosks. 

Time & Attendance  

Employees working in these larger venues with multiple entry points may need to walk some distance before reaching their designated zone. At times, employees may clock on before reaching these zones, resulting in unnecessary labor costs for the organization. Employers who are conscious of this may still want to confirm their employee is at the venue, but ensure they clock on only once they arrive at the correct area.  

Humanforce’s Time & Attendance solution enables more accurate clocking through dedicated features, such as wristbands that can be printed at check-in.

Pain point #2: Complex labor laws and pay conditions 

Events & Stadiums organizations often hire contingent staff through third-party staffing partners or agencies, especially when it comes to hospitality, concession, security, janitorial, and ground staff. In doing so, managers are tasked with managing a complex roster of employees, each with FLSA and CBA requirements that need to be considered for accurate payroll and compliance.  

Labor unions have a major influence on pay rates across the country, with unionized workers enjoying 16% higher weekly pay on average. Events & Stadiums need to recognize the collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) that their employees fall under. For example, food workers would be protected by the UFCW, retail workers under RWDSU, and stage workers under the IATSE, This is in addition to the vast, state-specific legislation that employees fall under when sourcing staff from across the nation. 

As a result, managers are required to approve multiple timesheets, calculate different payroll amounts, while considering a smorgasbord of legal requirements — all through archaic, manual software. Without a modern tool fit with automation capabilities, this critical process becomes both risky and time-consuming.

How Humanforce helps with complex labor laws and pay conditions 

Awards & Compliance 

The software traditionally used by Events & Stadiums organizations in the US often lacks the cloud-based infrastructure, integration capability, and auto-calculation functionality required for labor law compliance. 

Humanforce’s Awards & Compliance solution changes things. It allows for accurate interpretation of complex CBAs and labor laws, track changes as they happen, and apply them with ease.  

The sophisticated pay conditions engine ensures that all obligations included in employment agreements, such as pay, benefits and entitlements, are met, providing instant calculations to indicate exactly how much employees should receive. It quickly and accurately calculates wages, penalties, overtime and allowances in accordance with the relevant industrial instrument(s). 

Humanforce’s Time & Attendance solution produces a digital timesheet, which then feeds that data through to our pay conditions engine to ensure pay calculations are done correctly. Humanforce can then seamlessly integrate with payroll solutions, such as ADP other providers.

Pain point #3: Transient staff (high proportion of casuals) 

Work in the Events & Stadiums industry is highly seasonal, meaning employment patterns are often correlated to the amount, size, and importance of scheduled events. As a result, many workers are hired on an ‘as needed’ casual basis. The use of third-party labor hire agencies is commonplace, as large volumes of casual hires are often required. Generally, the types of staff hired through third-party labor agencies include: 

• Concession: catering, food service, bar staff, and waitstaff 

• Customer service: ushers, stewards, car park attendants, logistical staff 

• Presentation: cleaners, maintenance, and janitorial staff 

• Security: guards, crowd control 

• Retail: sales assistants 

While attractive for younger adults, foreign workers, or those looking for a second income, it can become stressful for Events & Stadiums operations managers to retain consistent, reliable workers. Long, undesirable work hours and high-stress environments continue to drive these workers away, resulting in a transient workforce with high turnover. 

Given this, employers need to offer extra benefits to keep the EX as positive as possible for transient workers. 

How Humanforce helps you manage transient staff 

Onboarding & Offboarding 

With casual employees constantly coming and going, it’s essential to simplify the arrival and departure process. 

The Humanforce Onboarding & Offboarding solution encourages this seamless transition. It’s designed to enhance compliance and cost efficiency, eliminating time and resource intensive tasks such as information gathering, policy signoffs, and qualification updates.  

Even better, the onboarding workflows can be customized for each new hire’s specific role, team, and location. For Events & Stadiums, this can be shortened to require only the most essential documentation (Form I-9 verification, tax and social security, bank details) for the swiftest possible start. At the end of tenure, offboarding workflows can also be customized to the needs of each role, the tenure of each employee, or their employment type (full-time, casual, contractor). 

Employee Engagement  

Despite experiencing high employee turnover on average, employers in the Events & Stadiums industry should continue to prioritize the EX – because one of the outcomes of a great EX is more engaged workers, who in turn can offer a great CX (or fan experience). 

The Humanforce Employee Engagement solution keeps managers and employees connected as the go-to function for surveys, feedback and reviews. Host 1:1 check-ins, track happiness and wellbeing over the entire employee lifecycle, and align wider teams around goals for better collaboration.

Pain point #4: Labor shortages 

Events & Stadiums employers experience labor shortages, much the same as any other frontline industry. The industry is no stranger to poor employee retention, generally caused by burnout, poor workplace culture, and low pay.  

Consequently, stadiums & events venues are often heavily reliant on third-party staffing agencies to fill gaps in their workforce. With ever-changing events & crowd sizes, forecasting the optimal number of contingent workers is an ongoing challenge. As Events & Stadiums employers sail the peaks and troughs of events season, labor forecasting, streamlined recruitment, and effective scheduling become increasingly essential.  

How Humanforce helps with labor shortages 

Humanforce’s Talent Suite 

The Talent Suite provides organizations with a candidate-centric, holistic approach to workforce planning by pooling pre-qualified candidates, contractors, internal staff and alumni into a single talent community. This solution aims to reduce reliance on third-party labor hire, putting venues & stadiums in control of the hiring process.  

Using the Talent Suite, event and operations managers can tap into the power of volume-based recruitment and onboarding. With a community of workers at hand, managers can mass contact suitable candidates to fill urgent gaps, leverage AI for more effective matching of candidate skills to jobs available, and reduce time to hire for both contingent and permanent staff.

Pain point #5: Communication 

When dispersed across large venues and multiple different departments, communication between employees and managers can become muddled or disjointed without a unified communication platform. 

Using basic methods of communication like calls and text messages to coordinate shift swaps seems simple — but ultimately, creates more work for all parties. Managers are left needing to piece together the puzzle, while employees risk confusing their shift times.  

This emphasizes the need for a unified, dedicated communication platform that can be accessed by all parties, regardless of their individual location or department.  

How Humanforce helps you improve communication 

Humanforce Work App 

For Events & Stadiums employers, the Humanforce Work App is the glue that turns traditional, ragtag messaging into a unified and organized communication hub. 

It’s a tool built to foster open communication and promote greater worker connection to their organization, their manager, and their colleagues. For managers and employees, it acts as a hub to access important information and the tools they need to do their jobs on the fly, saving time and granting flexibility. 

Managers can access schedules and organize future shifts, manage leave requests, complete timesheets and offer shifts in an instant — anytime, anywhere. Employees benefit from being kept in the loop with instant communication between managers and peers.

Conclusion 

Events & Stadiums employees face several daunting HCM challenges — from fluctuating revenue to high employee turnover and scheduling complications. Luckily, there are plenty of tech tools to help organizations confront and mitigate the negative effects of these pain points.  

Get in touch below to find out how Humanforce can help.  

About Humanforce 

Humanforce is the best-in-one platform for frontline and flexible workforces, offering a truly employee centred, intelligent and compliant human capital management (HCM) suite – without compromise. Founded in 2002, Humanforce has a 2300+ customer base and over half a million users worldwide. Today, we have offices across the Australia, New Zealand, the US and the UK.

Our vision is to make work easier and life better by focusing on the needs and fulfilment of frontline workers, and the efficiency and optimisation of businesses. 

To learn more about how Humanforce’s solution can help automate people processes in your business, please contact us.