Canadian HR Strategy

27 PHoto: aLejanDRo aCoSta / ReUteRS coaches and officials, 41 different countries and 250,000 visitors travel to the region. e committee's intent is to create three lasting legacies for the region, said Hacker. "We're working to create social, eco- nomic and sport legacies from these Games that will last for decades to come," she said, adding that those will include 26,000 jobs, 10 new sporting facilities and 15 renovations, and fast-tracked trans- portation infrastructure. i t's a massive, awe-inspiring under- taking: Within just a few years, a huge organization will be built from the ground up — and then com- pletely disappear. at's exactly what the organizing committee of the To- ronto 2015 Pan Am and Parapan Am Games has set out to do. e committee is approaching the home stretch of the pre-games work, and two senior members of its HR department gave the Strate- gic Capability Network an inside look at some of their recruitment, training and retention strategies — as well as how they've overcome unique challenges. e vision for the 2015 games is "e Peoples' Games," said Karen Hacker, se- nior vice-president of human resources and volunteers, general counsel and cor- porate secretary. "ey are going to be inclusive and accessible to the families that live and work here," she said. "In our smaller, more intimate venues, the fans are going to be able to meet and mix with our ath- letes. We will have an affordable ticket strategy, which means that an average family of four will be able to attend ac- tual competitions." A major part of that inclusive strategy is a critical focus on diversity, said Hacker. "ey will be dynamic and inclusive and a celebration of the global village that southern Ontario is," she said. "We are also promoting diversity in our work- force, volunteers and businesses that sup- ply us. We live in the most diverse region in the world and (the Games) are going to reflect this cultural strength." As the largest international sporting event Canada has ever hosted — bigger than any of the Olympic competitions held in Montreal, Vancouver or Calgary — the Games will see about 10,000 athletes, massive volunteer base A critical element of the Games is the mas- sive volunteer base. With a target of 20,000 people, the volunteer force will be the heart and soul of the Games, said Hacker. Beyond those volunteers, the Games will employ about 435 full-time staff, more than 200 temporary staff and thousands of con- tractors, said Naki Osutei, director of hu- man resources and diversity and inclusion. ose employees come from the public, private and non-for-profit sectors. Some have experience with sport or large-scale events, others do not. ere is a board of directors they are accountable to, as well as seven different divisions and 51 functional areas, she said. "One of the things that is really fascinat- ing about an organization like this are the blended cultures that make up this commit- tee," said Osutei. "Bringing together the best of all of these sectors has been quite benefi- cial to the organizing committee." And they've made good use of all that combined expertise, facing down several unique challenges. "We have very interesting external re- alities that we have to contend with. Among them are the staff and budget constraints, and one of the things that we oen talk about in these presentations is the scale of these Games compared to the resourcing that's attached to it," said Osutei. To put that in perspective, consider this: e Pan Am Games are going to be sig- nificantly larger than the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. "Where Vancouver had about nine ven- ues, we'll have 30-plus. Where Vancouver had 21 sports, we'll have upwards of 51 sports. Vancouver had an ultimate staff size of about 4,000 — we'll have a workforce of about 450,000," she said. And that workforce faces the realities of "working in a fishbowl," said Osutei, with the very public face of the organizing committee. "You can imagine how that impacts the workforce. From a positive perspective, it means that people are very excited about the organizing committee that we're part of… but, on the flipside, there's this constant scrutiny that the organizing committee is under." Another challenge they've had to address in their recruitment strategy is stiff interna- tional competition for talent, and recruiting for positions that have a fast-approaching end date. "It's fascinating to be part of an organiza- tion that's essentially a startup, that is going to have a defined shut-down. So part of our recruitment strategy has really been to en- sure that we're attracting that range of talent, but we're also in a global competition for tal- ent in a very real way. ere are a number of (international) Games that are happening right now… and so we really are competing for talent in a very busy marketplace," said Osutei. With employment opportunities that have a limited time frame, they've had to focus on building a strong employer brand that can attract the best talent regardless of the time frame. e quality of the talent is critical, she said. "One of the interesting things we've had to juggle is making sure that we maintain our commitment to local capacity-building and ensuring that local individuals benefit economically from the Games through em- ployment opportunities, but also ensuring that we've got enough previous Games ex- pertise to lead the various functions within the organizing committee," said Osutei. Ensuring the total compensation pack- age is competitive — which can be a chal- lenge when competing for talent with other international Games — and dealing with relocation and immigration issues for some of the temporary talent has also created challenges. Retention is also an issue, as is work-life balance in a fast-paced organization that is very focused on the July 2015 deadline, said Osutei. "Work-life balance has definitely been a challenge… the hours are long and we've had to tell people that in the interview pro- cess that if you're looking for a nine-to-five job, this isn't it. So people are coming with that understanding." Focus on retention To counter any potential difficulties around retention, the organizing committee has put a strong focus on employee engage- ment initiatives. "One of the exciting things on the re- tention side is that people have their pre- Games roles and then they'll move into different roles at Games time… that kind of conversion is going to happen across the organization and across different func- tions," she said. A very strong diversity and inclusion

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