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Whistler Blackcomb predicting slow season

Sharing numbers intended to help businesses prepare for unusual winter

The Olympic Games may bring tens of thousands of visitors to Whistler, but most won't be skiing.

For that reason Whistler Blackcomb is hiring hundreds fewer people this season, renting fewer homes in Whistler for staff accommodation and is loaning 750 employees to the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Games (VANOC) and its contractors.

"I can tell you the ski hill is not going to be busy," Joel Chevalier, director of Employee Experience at Whistler Blackcomb told over 150 people at a Whistler Chamber of Commerce lunch Thursday.

"Normally we are used to seeing skiers and riders. This time around it is going to be athletes and sponsors and the media.

"So the expectation that we have is that it is going to be a really different demographic so.... we actually expect to be pretty slow during Games time."

Added to the fact that Whistler visitors during the Olympics are not here to ski is the fact that there will be practically no public parking in the resort over the two weeks of the Olympics.

Both mountains will be open with 90 per cent of the terrain open to the public, but regional skiers will have to use private coachlines to get up here during the Olympics.

Whistler Blackcomb normally hires 1,500 staff each year and has a paid staff of 3,600 through the winter. This season they are hiring 900 people and their staff will total 3,000.

Even with that cutback Whistler Blackcomb still expects it will have 1,000 staff too many at Games time.

About 250 of those said they wanted to take time off to enjoy the Olympics. So more than a year ago the company started talking about lending out their staff for the Games. Now 550 will be working with VANOC and the other 200 will be working for two Olympic related contractors.

"This really was a partnership destined for success," said Chevalier.

Whistler Blackcomb does have a make-whole agreement in place with VANOC to compensate the company for the rental of the Alpine ski racing venue and a loss of business due to the Olympics. The specifics have not been released.

Many businesses are keeping a lean staff thanks to the global economy, but Chevalier warned when it gets busy at Games time it would hurt the whole community if people began to steal employees from each other.

"As a community we need to be responsible with each other," he said.

"Poaching each other's staff isn't any good for anybody."

Christmas bookings to date are below the Christmas period last year. Whistler Blackcomb research shows that the resort will be busy for four weeks this winter - at Christmas and for the Olympics - but slow for the remaining 22 weeks of the season.

"The market trends that we look at to see how busy we are going to be say that it doesn't look like we are going to be that busy this year," Chevalier said.

"I wouldn't plan on having a two million visit year in Whistler..."

With a human resource plan in place Whistler Blackcomb decided not to aggressively market the resort as a place to come and work this year.

Whistler Blackcomb will hold a two-day recruiting fair Nov. 8-9 to fill the final 200 positions, but all interviews for that fair have been booked.

"If you are banking on thousands and thousands of people showing up in November looking for jobs I think you might want to start getting ready for Plan B, because I'm not sure how many of those people are coming," said Chevalier,

The lunch had several other speakers whose focus was Plan B.

Chamber president Fiona Famulak and Arlene Keis of go2 both offered numerous ways to source staff (see box below). The best group to target is the mobile youth set, said Keis.

The chamber is working with about 200 Whistler Secondary students who will be available to work during the Games. A special Spirit Program will be offered in January to help prepare these students.

A labour market study done recently for go2 showed that the region is chronically short 3,500 workers, without the added pressure of the Olympics.

The key, both told the crowd, is to be prepared - that means having a plan to get through the season, make sure staff are trained and that staff are prepared for the busy Games time.

Part of that preparation is understanding that staff will get burned out with the intense level of service needed during a Games - the rush of adrenaline in the first few days will not sustain them through the 17 days.

And after the Games, many may need a break.

Staff also need a chance to enjoy the Games and of course the chance to ski and board on uncrowded runs.

VANOC spokespeople Ellen Barbers, project integration manager, and Kim Campbell, director of Human Resources, explained that the Games would have a staff of volunteer and paid workers totalling 56,000 through VANOC and its contractors.

There will be 5,600 volunteers and 1,500 paid staff in Whistler.

There are also 5,000 workers needed in the resort by contractors for everything from logistics, to transportation.

 

Resources

Some sources to find workers:

chamber@whistlerchamber.com

www.go2hr.ca

Vancouver@swap.ca

Katrin.werle2@arbeitsagentur.de

www.fnes.ca

Kelly.andrews@lilwat.ca

employ@bcit.ca

www.capilanou.ca/ses

jenny.au@ubc.ca

www.sfu.ca/wil/employers/symplicity

www.indeed.com

 

Housing:

Whistler Workforce through Ponce de Leon at

604 690 5453

Whistler Housing Authority

Accommodation Seeker