World Cup – FRANCE 98 – Manpower

A football World Cup is above all an event concerning people. And 12,000 volunteers are going to provide the driving force essential to this one from the inside: Manpower, the temporary staffing expert, is to make its human resources expertise available to the French Organising Committee through the recruitment of volunteers: a top-flight task which will most certainly have a bearing on the overall success of the World Cup.

Without these 12,000 men and women, the World Cup would not be possible. The volunteers will play a vital role in the organisation of the event for two reasons, said Michel Platini, Co-president of FRANCE 98: “Firstly, we just don’t have the means to hire thousands of staff on a one-off basis. And secondly, we feel it is important to allow those people who want to help out to do so. It is also a fact of life that whether it’s the Olympic Games or the World Cup, you simply can’t do without volunteers.”

Quite naturally then, the CFO turned to a company with a proven track record, namely Manpower, to set about the considerable task of recruiting 12,000 volunteers. Manpower is a temporary staffing firm which specialises in human resource management. So from a wide range of possible candidates, FRANCE 98 chose several of Manpower’s regular staff members, with their invaluable experience, to oversee human resources at 9 of the 10 official venues. Thousands of men and women from various walks of life will participate in the most exciting sporting event at the end of this century as hostesses, chauffeurs, accreditation agents, medical assistants, interpreters and translators which all require an acquaintance with certain skills, laid out in the book “Volunteers: organisation and assignments” (see inset), jointly devised by the CFO and Manpower, in order to help candidates make their job choice.

It was natural for the 1998 World Cup to turn to Manpower, which is the temporary work company “par excellence.” And as Manpower France President MichaŽl Grunelius points out, there are striking similarities between temps and football players. “They all come from different backgrounds, either another club or another company, and for a short time form an integrated and solid group. They gain in competence as they gain in experience, whether by playing together for the same team or by working side by side on the same project. All in all they are the incarnation of a fundamental quality, that of sharing, without which no team can hope to win.” One thing is certain: the volunteer team (1,000 strong at each venue and with a few more for the semi-finals and the Final at Marseille and Saint-Denis), will ensure that the whole event is a great occasion.

Founded in 1948, Manpower today comprises 1.5 million temporary employees around the world; 503 million work hours have been clocked up; it has 13,000 permanent staff, 250,000 companies as clients and more than 2,400 agencies in 42 different countries. In France alone, Manpower employs 2,500 permanent staff, and on average 72,000 temps fill positions every day to carry out 1,530,000 different functions for 67,000 company-clients.

Here we go! When Manpower published the book “volunteers: organisation and assignments”, in January 1997, they started the ball rolling in the campaign for recruiting 12,000 World Cup volunteers. Around a 100 different jobs are described in a clear, informative way, with the help of illustrations and comments from six months, discussions based on the guidebook will be staged at each venue before the lucky candidates start their training sessions which will centre on three major aspects: the World Cup, assignments and venues. A programme whose key words will be professionalism and efficiency, but also enthusiasm and a sense of celebration.