BT is already working on the internal legacy of being an Olympics sponsor, with plans to introduce a redeployment initiative for project staff as well as a community scheme to enhance the overall working environment.
The telco, which is the official communication services provider for both the Olympics and Paralympic Games, explained its rationale during a panel discussion at the HR Directors’ Summit in Birmingham today entitled ‘The Olympics as a catalyst for people involvement and development’.
Caroline Waters, BT Group’s director of people and policy, said: “The real danger is that we get to the Games and relax. But they should be the start, not the end and turn into building blocks for excellence.”
As a result, the company is in the process of building a “huge” community programme, whereby staff will be able to use technology to vote for the things that they would like to see such as “people-centric spaces, for example, job clubs or places for carers to congregate”, she added.
Another work in progress, however, is the firm’s ‘Career-wise’ scheme. This initiative will provide members of specialised project teams who are currently laying the communications infrastructure for the Games with a ‘Skills Passport’, laying out what they are doing and what expertise they are acquiring.
Each project worker also has a series of one-to-one meetings with their line manager, while likewise attending various job fairs. The idea is that, by the end of May, everyone will know where they are to be placed when their work on the Games is complete in order to try and “take away their worries so that they have no distractions”, Waters explained.
“As we work on a lot of big projects, we’re taking this forward as a programme and we’re also moving this kind of training and development through the business,” she said.
A key focus on the training and development side will be on coaching, with the aim being to set up a new “coaching contract” that is co-developed by both HR and the project team.
“Athletes mostly have ordinary backgrounds so they’re ordinary people doing extraordinary things with a bit of support. But it doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s about simple things such as just asking people what they learned,” Waters concluded.
