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By John Gorton
The event industry is one of the most dynamic, fast-paced and high-pressure sectors in the world. We celebrate creativity, innovation, and human connection, yet when it comes to investing in the humans who power our businesses, we often fall short.
In recent years, one trend has become impossible to ignore: new hires across many (but not all) event organisations are being set up to fail. Not because they are lacking ambition, talent or drive. But because we are not onboarding them properly.
This is not a small oversight. This is a systemic issue, and one that is costing event businesses dearly.
In this article, I’ll break down why onboarding is failing, why it matters more than ever, and what event leaders can do today to fix it. At TES Recruitment, we’ve seen the consequences play out across hundreds of event businesses, and we’ve made it our mission to help companies stop losing great people before they’ve truly begun.
The Harsh Reality: Too Many New Hires Are Set Up to Fail
Let’s be honest. The way onboarding is handled in many event companies, especially for sales roles, is closer to sink or swim.
A new starter walks through the door (or logs in remotely) with enthusiasm, ideas, and high expectations. But within days, they are bombarded with targets, pressured to produce immediate results, and left trying to navigate complex processes, systems, and customer profiles on their own.
It’s not a lack of talent. It’s a lack of direction, structure, context and support.
The data is clear:
Effective onboarding increases retention by more than 80%.
Poor onboarding is one of the top reasons employees leave within the first 12 months.
Replacing a salesperson can cost anywhere from 60% to 200% of their salary.
Still, many event organisations treat onboarding as a quick admin checklist instead of a strategic business function.
And the consequences ripple far deeper than short-term frustration.
The Middle Management Gap: A Silent Crisis in the Events Sector
Across the event industry, we’ve witnessed a dramatic reduction in the number of middle management roles. On paper, this was meant to streamline operations and cut costs. In practice, it has created a critical gap in onboarding capability.
Middle managers have historically been the people who:
passed on company culture
explained the unwritten rules
coached new hires through their first deals
shared industry-specific knowledge
ensured expectations were clear and achievable
acted as the bridge between leadership and new employees
With fewer of these roles, and with many businesses promoting first-time managers to fill the gap, the flow of knowledge transfer has slowed to a trickle.
Sales managers in events today are often:
newly appointed and still learning the ropes
responsible for generating their own revenue
spread thin across large teams
lacking formal training in coaching or onboarding
under pressure to deliver immediate results
without a clear framework for developing new hires
It’s no wonder so many new employees struggle to find their footing.
The support structure that once existed simply isn’t there anymore.
The Cost of Neglect: High Turnover, Low Morale, Missed Potential
When onboarding is weak, the symptoms show up fast.
1. High Turnover
Employees leave within months, often before they’ve delivered a single meaningful result. This creates a revolving door of recruitment that drains budgets and disrupts customer relationships.
2. Low Morale
Those who stay often feel overwhelmed, confused, or undervalued, a mindset that quickly impacts performance.
3. Missed Potential
Some of the most capable people in our industry never get the chance to fully contribute. Their strengths are never unlocked, their creativity never seen, their impact never realised.
It’s heartbreaking to see passionate people burn out in their first few months, not because they were wrong for the job, but because the job wasn’t set up right for them.
Onboarding is Not Admin. Onboarding is Strategy.
This is the heart of the issue.
Onboarding is not:
❌ filling out forms
❌ IT login setup
❌ a quick welcome meeting
❌ a few product decks
❌ “shadow someone for a week and you’ll be fine”
Onboarding is:
✅ the foundation of performance
✅ the engine of retention
✅ the start of culture building
✅ a core revenue strategy
✅ the difference between mediocrity and excellence
If event businesses invested as much time planning onboarding as they do planning exhibitions and conferences, our industry would look radically different.
Think about it:
You wouldn’t run a major event without a schedule, a budget, contingency plans, a production timeline, and a team who knows exactly what they’re doing.
So why would we let our most expensive resource, people, start without the same level of structure?
The First 90 Days: The Most Critical Window
The first three months of any role set the tone for everything that follows.
In those early weeks, new hires decide:
Do I feel supported?
Do I understand my goals?
Do I believe I can succeed here?
Do I feel part of something?
Does this organisation communicate clearly?
Is this somewhere I want to commit long-term?
If the answer is no, they start looking elsewhere.
If the answer is yes, they become loyal, engaged, high-performing contributors.
The choice lies with us, the employers.
Why Event Sales Roles Need More Onboarding Than Ever
Event sales is uniquely demanding. It requires:
deep product knowledge
an understanding of market dynamics
navigating complex decision-maker hierarchies
excellent communication skills
the confidence to handle high-value negotiation
understanding previous show performance
learning legacy processes and CRM history
managing long lead cycles and relationship-based selling
That’s a lot to learn, and yet many new sales recruits are handed a target on day one with little more than a list of accounts and a CRM login.
When onboarding fails, it’s not the new hire’s fault.
It’s the fault of the business.
Why Event Businesses Are Struggling to Fix This Alone
Even though most leaders agree that onboarding is essential, many organisations still struggle to develop or maintain a robust process.
Common challenges include:
* lack of time
* lack of ownership
* inconsistent practices across teams
* poor documentation
* manager inexperience
* pressure to fill roles quickly
* limited training resources
That’s exactly why TES Recruitment exists. Recruitment doesn’t end at “you’re hired” and we believe deeply that the first 90 days determine your return on hire.
How TES Recruitment Helps Event Businesses Build Strong Starts
At TES Recruitment, we support event businesses not only in finding talent, but in ensuring that talent thrives.
We help organisations:
build structured onboarding frameworks
coach managers on leading new hires effectively
create sales-specific onboarding journeys
develop knowledge libraries and playbooks
implement interview-to-onboarding pipelines
ensure candidates don’t just join, they integrate and succeed
Our philosophy is simple:
If you don’t invest in the first 90 days, you will invest far more later, in recruitment, replacement, and repair.
A Final Thought: Onboard, Don’t Offboard
We talk a lot about talent shortages in the event industry. About how hard it is to find good salespeople. About how competitive the market has become.
And yet…
we’re losing brilliant people because we’re not giving them the foundation they need.
Hiring great talent is only the beginning.
Keeping them, developing them, empowering them, that’s where the real magic happens.
If we want stronger teams, better performance, and a healthier industry, we must stop treating onboarding as a tick-box exercise and start treating it as a strategic advantage.
Because the difference between a salesperson who becomes a top performer and one who quietly leaves within six months is rarely talent.
It’s onboarding.
Let’s give people the start they deserve.
And let’s build an event industry where new hires don’t just survive, they thrive.
