The Olympic recruitment legacy
13 March 2013
How do you keep a project workforce motivated when they know from day one on the job that their jobs will cease to exist the moment the project is finished? This was just the issue faced by Paul Modley, the man who led the recruitment effort at London 2012.
Thu, 14 Mar 2013How do you keep a project workforce motivated when they know from day one on the job that their jobs will cease to exist the moment the project is finished? This was just the issue faced by Paul Modley, the man who led the recruitment effort at London 2012.
Modley, the head of recruitment at the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), spoke recently at Recruiter's Smart Resourcing 2013 conference, sponsored by Eploy about this and the other challenges faced by the organisation in the run-up to last year’s two fortnight-long extravaganzas.
“Historically in the run-up to the Games, there had been a high degree of attrition” as people realised they needed to sort out the next stage of their career, Modley noted. “The big thing was the cliff edge at the end – how do we keep people motivated and engaged, and how do we keep them.”
Key to this was LOCOG’s work with social recruiting firm Employer Connections, since re-branded as Hollaroo, providing an outplacement network workers could register on to start thinking about post-2012 prospects.
Another crucial aspect was work LOCOG did with Cranfield to think about “what’s it like to work on an event like this”, Modley (left) added. “We knew there would be a lot of highs on the way, we also knew that coming to the end there would be that emotional disengagement and that is a big deal... We knew we couldn’t just rely on the brand and the Olympic rings.”
“The glue really to pull this all together was communities and engagement… despite having one of the best brands to work with, we still had to communicate with our people right the way through.”
Joining the organisation in January 2007, Modley was responsible for recruiting a directly-employed, paid workforce around 8,500-strong. Including contractors and volunteers, the entire games workforce went from around 3,500 in January 2012, to nearly 200,000 involved at and in the immediate run-up to the Games.
He said that he hopes “for my colleagues going back into industry, they can look at things a little bit differently” following their Olympic experience.
Modley, the head of recruitment at the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), spoke recently at Recruiter's Smart Resourcing 2013 conference, sponsored by Eploy about this and the other challenges faced by the organisation in the run-up to last year’s two fortnight-long extravaganzas.
“Historically in the run-up to the Games, there had been a high degree of attrition” as people realised they needed to sort out the next stage of their career, Modley noted. “The big thing was the cliff edge at the end – how do we keep people motivated and engaged, and how do we keep them.”
Key to this was LOCOG’s work with social recruiting firm Employer Connections, since re-branded as Hollaroo, providing an outplacement network workers could register on to start thinking about post-2012 prospects.
Another crucial aspect was work LOCOG did with Cranfield to think about “what’s it like to work on an event like this”, Modley (left) added. “We knew there would be a lot of highs on the way, we also knew that coming to the end there would be that emotional disengagement and that is a big deal... We knew we couldn’t just rely on the brand and the Olympic rings.”
“The glue really to pull this all together was communities and engagement… despite having one of the best brands to work with, we still had to communicate with our people right the way through.”
Joining the organisation in January 2007, Modley was responsible for recruiting a directly-employed, paid workforce around 8,500-strong. Including contractors and volunteers, the entire games workforce went from around 3,500 in January 2012, to nearly 200,000 involved at and in the immediate run-up to the Games.
He said that he hopes “for my colleagues going back into industry, they can look at things a little bit differently” following their Olympic experience.
- Click for more news from Recruiter's Smart Resourcing event. Were you at the event? We’d be keen to hear your thoughts on the day via the comments box below, or through a letter to the editor via [email protected].
