ABTT Launches its “Work Life Challenge” at this year’s ABTT theatre show.

The ABTT warmly invites you to sign up and participate in our “Work Life Challenge”.

A challenge designed to encourage us to prioritise time for activities that allow us to wind down from the stresses and strains of our working life, while also providing a focus and incentive for raising money for our much-loved industry charities: Backup Tech, The Theatrical Guild and Stagehand.

The aim of the challenge is to encourage us to consider and promote a better attitude towards achieving a healthy balance between our work and other “life” activities that help us to unwind and get away from the pressures of our career.  Consider starting a walking group; get together with others that run; start a weekly yoga practice before shows; baking; crafting; anything you like but make sure it’s fun and that it makes you smile. 

For those up for the challenge we invite you to commit to a longer-term goal and raise money for our much-loved industry charities; Backup Tech, The Theatrical Guild & Stagehand.

Choose from 2 options to sign up for the challenge; 

The “endorphin challenge:” running; walking; climbing anything; that raises that heart rate.  

The “mindfulness challenge:” baking; crafts; reading; anything that focuses our mind.

We want to encourage you and your theatres, businesses and organisations to commit to a longer-term goal.  Perhaps a weekly walking club that ends with completing a park run; an arts and crafts club that meets every week for 6 months; weekly yoga that ends with a 1-hour yoga challenge on stage!  Whatever your challenge, make it a part of a lifestyle change and commit to prioritising that precious work life balance while at the same time raising money for the charities that help others in our industry.  The challenge is being launched at the ABTT Theatre Show 2023, and you have until the day before the ABTT Theatre Show 2024 to complete it.  

There’s a whole year to complete your challenge, so plenty of time to conjure up a great idea, get people signed up and start focussing on addressing that work life balance!  What you do and how you do it is up to you, we look forward to seeing some of your creative ideas.

Why do we think this challenge is important?

The Backstage 2021 Well-being Survey told us that 40% of people employed in our disciplines identify as having a mental health condition.  66% of the survey sample worked over the national average of 37 hours a week.  We launched a Recruitment & Retention Survey ahead of our new Make a Difference Conference held in April this year.  Behind pay, work life balance was the 2nd most frequently cited issue linked to both recruitment and retention issues.  At the Conference 70 esteemed industry guests discussed various issues including work life balance.  Everyone agreed that we had to start promoting a better culture to encourage people to achieve and focus on a sustainable work life balance, as the name suggests the conference was about committing to making a difference and so this challenge was born. 

You don’t have to fundraise to take part in the challenge, but to find out how to register your challenge, download an information pack. For resources and to start fundraising head over to the ABTT fundraising page.  ABTT Work Life Challenge

We look forward to seeing what you do to balance your life outside of work.  Please share your progress with us by tagging the ABTT on your socials and using the hashtag #WorkLifeChallengeWe hope you enjoy taking some time to focus on that all important work life balance, and can’t wait to see what you all get up to throughout the year.  See you at this year’s Theatre Show and we look forward to  meeting again in 2024 to find out how much we raised.

ABTT Co-Chair Mig Burgess Walsh commented:

“As a Backup Tech Trustee and the ABTT Co Chair, it’s been such a pleasure to work on bringing this “work life challenge” to life.  It’s such a great concept to encourage us to think about and dedicate time to doing more things that make us smile.  Activities outside of work help us to decompress, they ground us and take us away from the stresses and strains of our working lives.  I hope that companies and businesses can get on board and encourage their staff to make time to get involved.  It is well documented that a happy workforce is a more productive one. Spending quality time outside of work means we can come back refreshed and full of energy.  I hope this challenge sees people finding new hobbies and making new friends.  Working towards a cultural change which promotes a healthy work life balance is a great ambition, even better if we can raise money for all our great industry charities at the same time!”

Robin Townley, ABTT Chief Executive, commented:

“The ABTT Trustees are very aware that the Association is a registered charity and we work to deliver our own charitable aims.  However, those objectives do not include the ability to distribute  funds to support those members of our industry who find themselves in moments of greatest need. The ABTT’s objectives do include providing better education in the technical aspects of the art of theatre and the promotion of excellence in the design of theatre buildings.  One of the things we do in pursuit of these objectives is to set standards for the safe and compliant conduct of live performance production and the operation of places of entertainment.  We work very closely with the HSE and we are always mindful of the legal duties to protect the health, safety and welfare of our workforce.  The Work Life Challenge is a great way to take one of the actions that resulted from the discussions at the Make a Difference Conference in April this year – to better support the work life balance in our industry – and in helping to achieve that to also benefit those charities that are able to distribute financial support when and where it is needed.  It is very rewarding  to be able to support Mig and the ABTT is promoting this challenge.”