RECRUITED, ACCREDITED, CAMPED AND READY TO GO !!

The planning is over! 1500 people have been found, signed up and rostered. Most will either already be at Camp or on planes, trains, and automobiles making their way there, by the time you read this.

We all relished the steep learning curves we had to embark upon this year and probably didn’t realise just how much of our time, attention and care would be required to ensure all prospective employee needs were met. But we’re nearly there and most importantly we’re all still smiling.

And speaking of smiling, many of you may have had the pleasure of dealing with our Recruitment and Camp Cleanevent staff. Like everyone they have had their days where it was difficult to be bright, happy and cheery to the 700^th telephone caller of the day - but they did! They have managed several thousand enquiries about Olympic work, international visas, requests to change shifts, transportation options … along with printing and interpreting the enormous number of data reports that 60 days with over 25 venues and 1500 workers can generate.

Then of course there is the 800+ people at Camp Cleanevent ….. finalising the daily catering number, who gets to bunk with who in which dormitory, scheduling of shuttle buses, and the enormous list of tasks required to care for so many people over a 2 month period.

As the Manager of both of these departments, like all Managers, I live and die by the talents and dedication of those in the team. I’d like to take the opportunity in this edition of TeamTalk to say thanks. So to Sascha, Lucas, Jo, Beryl and Peter who work on the recruitment team, and to Adam and Barry who are the masters of Camp Cleanevent – thank you, thank you, thank you! Your loyalty, dedication, patience and perseverance has been invaluable to the process of getting our people to the Games and to Camp. It is due to you people that we met our SOCOG deadlines and that our people are informed and ready to join Team 2000 Operations to deliver the company’s Games obligations. My hat is off to you and it makes me very proud to have worked alongside you as a team for this year.

Maryann, Roxanne and Fay in the Sydney office have been hard at it over the last week or so, finalising the accreditation and validation co-ordination which has been no easy exercise at all, so credit and thanks to them for that.

Last but not least, and in fact the most important of all for all our existing and new employees – The Pay!! Julie and her team have been flat out inputting the new Olympic payroll so everyone will get paid on time and accurately – about 1500 people will be looking to thank you for all that hard work Julie!

I’d also like to thank Gerard Hedger for his assistance throughout the year, and in more recent weeks Paula Bell. Gerard and Paula have been providing IT consultancy to us, and through a great deal of hard work they have worked with us to ensure our management of the enormous amounts of data we have to process, has been as efficient as what the tools at hand would allow the process to be! Thanks to you both.