Having got into the Olympic spirit with our special features in the July edition, Recruiter asked to hear from anyone in the recruitment and resourcing community who is giving their time to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer. Here’s who we found…
Before the Games had even begun, Richard Leman, owner and director of technical recruiter Gold Group had played his part. He ran the Olympic torch through East Grinstead on 17 July, having won gold and bronze medals at previous Olympics (1988 and 1984 respectively) as a player in Great Britain’s hockey team. He remains involved in the sport and the Olympic Movement as president of Great Britain Hockey and a director of the British Olympic Association.
A resourcing specialist within the HR department at Network Rail, Matthew Lutz volunteered to be seconded from that role to become a customer-facing travel champion at St Pancras station as part of the London Ambassadors programme organised by the Mayor of London, telling Recruiter his role involved supporting station staff, helping passengers and “being a friendly face and doing things like being a tourist information point”.
Fiona Coombe, who owns and run Foresight Legal Consultancy, has also been volunteering as a London Ambassador on the other side of town, at Waterloo station. Coombe also worked for the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) for 12 years as director of legal services — and told Recruiter that her role, based as Waterloo Station, has involved “helping people find their way round London and to enjoy London at its best”.
As part of the same scheme co-founder of legal recruiter Lipson Lloyd-Jones, Marian Lloyd-Jones, has been based on the other end of the Bakerloo line, at Marylebone station. She describes the experience of being recruited rather than doing the recruitment as “very positive”.
Still at a transport hub, executive recruiter Connaught Search Solutions’ director Andy Gibb has been volunteering as a Games Maker (the official 2012 volunteering programme) at Heathrow Airport, as part of the workforce operations team. He tells Recruiter this is “a slimmed-down HR, we have hundreds of volunteers at Heathrow who do everything from accrediting the arriving athletes, officials, technicians airside, so they can proceed quickly through border controls; then meeting and greeting as they emerge from the arrivals funnel, and taking them to the various cars, buses or Heathrow Express to get to their many destinations”. Despite some shifts starting at 4.30am, he has been enjoying the experience, and adds: “There is always a lot of emotion at airports; armed police are in evidence when a politically sensitive nation arrives, and we have even seen one proposal of marriage!”
Emma Johnson, PR officer at online recruitment management system Hireserve has been volunteering on the Games Maker programme as an Olympic Family Assistant, looking after the ‘Olympic family’, a group including the International Olympic Committee, various National Olympic Committees and Associations and other sporting federations and organisations. Her role has included driving these people around in an official BMW.
Professional recruiter Morgan McKinley has provided two Games Makers. Anouska Serich, an international candidate manager, has been volunteering at the New Zealand Olympic hospitality house, welcoming visitors from New Zealand and their guests. Tara Wallace, manager of Morgan McKinley’s HR, secretarial & support teams, has been a print distribution runner inside the Olympic stadium handling results of various athletics competitions.
Also in the Olympic Park is Games Maker Julie Rodman, a health & social care consultant at Dutton International. She is taking a one-month sabbatical to volunteer as a marshal at the Velodrome, having previously worked as a marshal at track cycling events across the globe.
Finally, the recruitment industry also has a contender in the Games! Richard Dobell, managing director of building services and construction sector recruitment consultancy Reflex Recruitment, is in Team GB’s 10-man squad for the Paralympic Sitting Volleyball competition.
He has also been part of British Volleyball’s Performance Management Group, looking to prepare all three disciplines (beach, indoor and sitting) of the sport for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. He himself has also previously represented Britain in the indoor and beach disciplines.
Look out for Dobell wearing shirt number 9 when the team starts their tournament against Beijing 2008 bronze medallists Russia on Thursday, 30 August. The medals will be handed out on Saturday, 8 September.
He might have a word or two of advice for Andy Pink, a member of the Team GB indoor volleyball team at the Olympics, who having played his final game with the team on 6 August, already has an appointment to see a recruitment agency in an attempt to get himself back into the labour market. Good luck to both of them!
