Margo Dunnigan Of AAE Speakers Bureau On 5 Ways That Businesses Can Help Promote The Mental Wellness Of Their Employees

An Interview With David Liu

… Equip your leaders with tools — Working for a small company gives our leadership a lot of options for fun ways to recognize our team’s morale. I already mentioned that our company will award Wellness Days over our existing PTO schedule, which employees really like. We plan fun activities outside of working hours, either as individual teams or as company-wide events. We use a fun tool called Bonus.ly that allows everyone in the company to give any other employee bonus points for a job well done. Points can be redeemed for cash, gift cards, charitable donations, and so on. A lot of what helps keep our employees positive at work are the little moments when we can recognize and thank each other for excellent work.

As a part of my series about the “5 Ways That Businesses Can Help Promote The Mental Wellness Of Their Employees” I had the pleasure of interviewing Margo Dunnigan.

Margo Dunnigan brings over a decade of talent booking experience to her role as Chief Operating Officer at AAE Speakers Bureau. Since joining the AAE team in 2011, Dunnigan has been an instrumental part of the growth of the organization to well over 30 employees. She is also credited with being responsible for establishing the company’s collaborative and fun workplace culture, and as a result, AAE Speakers Bureau has repeatedly received workplace awards from Inc.,Triangle Business Journal, and Best Workplaces.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive into our discussion, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

After graduating from the University of Florida, I started with a company called Burns Entertainment and discovered that I greatly enjoyed booking talent, celebrities, and speakers for events. After several years, an opportunity came up to relocate to North Carolina and take on a pivotal role growing a different talent booking company, All American Entertainment. After relocating for the position, I started in sales and worked just about every job within the company. As we grew, so did my role here. I’m now the Chief Operating Officer and love what I do. I get to focus on scaling the business, developing new processes and expanding product offerings, and shaping the future direction of the company.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Years ago, I had the honor of booking and meeting Aretha Franklin for a corporate event. I was pretty star-struck and, admittedly, also a bit stressed out during the on-site event since I wanted everything to go well for the client. Aretha, after recognizing my need to have the event performance run perfectly, turned to me and said, “Aren’t you a diva!” I will never, ever forget it.

I’ve been fortunate in my career to have met and spoken with a number of celebrities over the years, and at the end of the day, they are all human. Many are successful and inspiring, but they are still susceptible to the same mental health struggles as everyone else.

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

The event industry, like a lot of others, has been through huge swings during the pandemic. We have seen months where our industry experienced a 90% drop in business, and we’ve also seen business more than double month over month.

One idea that has worked well for us is giving Employee Wellness Days (additional paid time off work) to all employees following extremely busy periods in our business. This allows them the time to recharge and also builds loyalty to our company.

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

Always prioritize your people first. We have made it a consistent practice to hire people first on cultural fit with the team and organization. My other advice is to infuse fun into the culture and create opportunities for your team to build relationships internally. Sometimes, taking a moment to celebrate a life milestone like a new baby or house is all it takes to help employees feel like family. This can also mean offsite happy hours, trivia games, and hosting virtual guest speakers. Keeping our work environment fun helps our employees remain positive and better serve our clients.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

I try to find balance in life. These days, it is definitely challenging. I am blessed with a family including two small and energetic children and one very spoiled dog, Buster, who regularly comes to work with me. My job can be fairly demanding at times, and it is important for me to try and give my undivided attention to everyone who needs me in a given moment. Some days, that’s easier said than done. I do try to balance all of my responsibilities in a way that makes me feel good at the end of each day, like I’ve done the best I can do.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. As you know, the collective mental health of our country is facing extreme pressure. In recent years many companies have begun offering mental health programs for their employees. For the sake of inspiring others, we would love to hear about five steps or initiatives that companies have taken to help improve or optimize their employees’ mental wellness. Can you please share a story or example for each?

1. Assess the situation — When we all get very busy in the day-to-day work of our jobs, it can be hard to take a step back and look at the collective mental health of the company. This is very important for senior company leaders to do. Many of my team leads do recurring team and individual meetings with their team members, and I will look for people who may not be engaging in traditional company channels, like Slack which we use heavily. By not engaging with teammates, this might be a warning sign that someone is not ok emotionally, either personally or professionally. A few years ago, I had been hearing discussions about a small group within the company that was being less than collaborative. After digging deeper, it became clear that we needed to make some staffing changes for the betterment of the organization, and so we did. That is why it is so important for company leaders to step back from time to time, assess the situation, and focus on mental wellness.
2. Create an open culture for conversations — From the very early days of our company two decades ago, we hired employees based on cultural fit within the company. We are a service organization first and foremost, so everyone must be focused on that. We’ve always looked to hire people who are dedicated, loyal, and who are willing to be collaborative and open with teammates. It’s also paramount that they support the shared mission for the company and want to work in a small business environment that is both fun and rewarding. By hiring people with this criteria in mind, it creates an open culture of thinkers who, despite the various backgrounds and experiences, all bring unique perspectives to the conversation and make us better as a company. Our CEO recently shared a story highlighting our open culture for Inc. Magazine, where he talked about his conversation with a team member about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The ability to openly share unique perspectives and opinions is a big part of what drives innovation in organizations. These conversations simply don’t happen without trusting your employees and feeling comfortable speaking your mind.
3. Equip your leaders with tools — Working for a small company gives our leadership a lot of options for fun ways to recognize our team’s morale. I already mentioned that our company will award Wellness Days over our existing PTO schedule, which employees really like. We plan fun activities outside of working hours, either as individual teams or as company-wide events. We use a fun tool called Bonus.ly that allows everyone in the company to give any other employee bonus points for a job well done. Points can be redeemed for cash, gift cards, charitable donations, and so on. A lot of what helps keep our employees positive at work are the little moments when we can recognize and thank each other for excellent work.
4. Find experts to help — The best strategy is one I’ve seen often in my role working for speakers bureaus, and that is bringing in outside experts to speak on mental health to the organization. We have hosted speakers ourselves on the future of work, managing stress, and staying positive in uncertain times. Jenny Evans, who is an expert on the physiology of stress, had our team doing a 60-second fitness exercise. Anthony Trucks talked to our team at a volatile time for us about Embracing the Shift. Dr. Christian Conte spoke with us about his work with student athletes and incarcerated inmates to help them manage emotions. There are so many experts out there to help your employees feel heard, empowered, and productive.
5. Demonstrate empathy — Get to know your employees on a personal level, and become invested in their successes and achievements inside and outside the office. Most employees (if not all) do not want to be considered a commodity or simply a number. They want to be heard, appreciated, and valued as part of the team. Make sure they know how much you value them by communicating when they’ve gone above and beyond, or been a consistent performer. Celebrate their milestones outside of work too. When they are struggling, be empathetic to their situation. If they have small kids and their daycare fell through unexpectedly, offer flexibility with timing or help with a project they’re working on. It’s also important that leaders walk the walk. We can’t expect our employees to unplug after hours or on vacation if we are consistently ourselves working extreme hours or during vacation. We have to emulate the way we want people to be treated and lead by example.

These ideas are wonderful, but sadly they are not yet commonplace. What strategies would you suggest to raise awareness about the importance of supporting the mental wellness of employees?

We’ve come a long way by even having this discussion about mental health. Make sure your employees know what resources are available to them. Make them feel they can be comfortable raising a concern about mental health with their manager or anyone in leadership. Know what resources are available in your health plan and local area, and share that information with your team. They may not be comfortable asking for it if they need it.

From your experience or research, what are different steps that each of us as individuals, as a community and as a society, can take to effectively offer support to those around us who are feeling stressed, depressed, anxious or having other mental health issues ? Can you explain?

I think that the biggest thing we can do is pay attention. People who are not engaging with peers, or seem to be struggling based on what they are saying, may need help. It is easy for people to not want to get involved and let people just be, but if the warning signs are there, I think it’s our responsibility to try and ask if we can help in any way. I always make it a habit to look for those employees who might be less engaged and reach out to them to check in. I also think we need to make sure our leaders know how to recognize the signs of mental illness or struggle so that they can be most effective in addressing it.

This might seem intuitive to you, but it will be helpful to spell it out. Can you help articulate a few ways how workplaces will benefit when they pay attention to an employee’s mental health?

Our company has been very fortunate in that we had a 2.8% turnover rate in 2021. That puts us within the top companies at retaining employees, and that’s something I’m really very proud of. In a competitive employee market like we currently have here in North Carolina, this is a significant achievement. This would not have been possible without consistent care and monitoring of the mental health of our employees and the collective impact that has on our company culture as a whole.

Our teams are also structured in such a way that fosters collaboration on projects and tasks, and this allows any employee to not feel alone in the struggle — whether it’s dealing with a difficult client or balancing a large workload. Everyone has someone who they can rely on to assist them, and that helps our people feel supported while reducing isolation, which is especially important in a remote hybrid work environment.

Do you use any meditation, breathing or mind-calming practices that promote your mental wellbeing? We’d love to hear about all of them. How have they impacted your own life?

At home, I try to exercise when I can, which can be hard to do with two small children. I also like to take a few minutes by myself to relax every day. At work, we will invite all employees to take a wellness walk — a 20 minute loop outside around the office (or at home if working remotely) on days when the weather is nice.

I work in the communications industry, so I’m particularly interested in this question. As you know, there are a variety of communication tools such as video conferencing, phone, text, and push-to-talk. What changes or improvements would you suggest for these technologies to help foster better mental health?

We really need to have video conferencing and smartphones these days, so my suggestion would be to set boundaries for both. As a society, we’ve become so reliant on these technologies personally and professionally. Video chat did help a lot of people feel connected while socially distanced from family and friends for months at a time. But, it also made people feel like they were available at any hour of the day when working from home.

I would encourage people to schedule and stick to technology-free time, giving your eyes and brain time to rest. Also, it is really easy to struggle with mental health by spending a lot of time on social media. Set your calendar and stick to a schedule. Getting outside for some fresh air is far more beneficial than checking your social media feed.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Our company partners with Durham Children’s Initiative which is an amazing local non-profit here in North Carolina. They support our community by improving equity in education and empowering students to become high school graduates so they are ready for their next chapter, be it college or a career. The amazing work they do by investing in our kids, our community, and our future workforce has generated remarkable results. I would love to see this type of lifecycle equity empowerment program replicated in every part of our country, especially in underserved communities.

What is the best way our readers can further follow your work online?

You can find me on LinkedIn or on our AAE Speaks blog.

Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!