The following is provided by Crown, on how they helped the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) to motivate and engage the Games Makers and the Workforce Training team.
Understand
LOCOG employed 70,000 Games Makers for the Games and the Workforce Training team needed to engage with this diverse audience in an inspirational and effective manner to launch their training journey. The success of the Games would come from creating a motivated and customer service orientated team of volunteers, or “Games Makers”. As Lord Coe has put it, the Games Makers would “make a good Games, a great Games”.
These events needed to communicate some complex themes and learning goals, from a vast number of stakeholders, yet still deliver an event that motivated, inspired and reinforced their retention up to and during Games time.
So the objective was clear; the Games Makers needed to understand the crucial part they would play, build confidence in what they could deliver together, and LOCOG needed to ensure the Games Makers were committed to the task ahead.
Create
We designed a series of six large-scale mass-audience Orientation events at Wembley Arena (a venue for the Games) for 10,000 people at a time delivering an interactive three-hour event with bespoke engaging multi-media content spanning all 14 functional areas of LOCOG as well as live action insight and exclusive content from a host of Olympic and Paralympic guests.
We devised and created the event format, including all the multi-media accessible format content for the events, scripted and directed the live action, designed and built the environment, and managed the delegate logistics for over 60,000 Games Makers in conjunction with LOCOG.
This was followed by a regional tour of the event to six cities hosting Games venues, delivering the same content with regional adaptations in theatres and venues for up to 900 persons at a time.
In addition, we then maximised the reach and cost effectiveness of the content by designing a series of 15 smaller events using recorded content along with Workforce Training hosts and Olympic and Paralympic guests to create an interactive event that leveraged the underlying principle of the whole campaign – through a shared experience, Games Makers would be introduced to the principles of their roles, and come away engaged and retained to fulfill their roles at Games time.
Deliver
Independent survey conducted as online questionnaire of 9,227 GMs, with 34% responding:
95% of Games Makers excited about performing their role, 95% understood their role as Host at the Games, 94% replied positively that either “nothing will stop me from being a Games Maker” (28%) or “I’m looking forward to being a Games Maker” (66%). Finally 87% said orientation made them “feel part of something special.”
“Thank you to you and your extended team for all the hard work,focus and professionalism you have put into making the Orientation Training events the success they have been.”
What’s been achieved so far has left tens of thousands of Games Makers happy and positive, with a very clear view that the London Games value their contribution and will provide the training and support they need to be successful” Jean Tomlin, HR Director, LOCOG
“London 2012: Olympics success down to 70,000 volunteers” The Independent 10.08.12
“The world will never forget the smiles, the kindness and the spirit of the wonderful volunteers, the much-needed heroes of the Games”. Jacques Rogge, 12.08.12
