Increase staff productivity to gold medal standards

According to performance development consultancy Lane4 and managing director, Adrian Moorhouse, companies who use an Olympic and Paralympic Games sponsorship and its knock on effect to increase staff engagement could reap benefits of more than 50 million.

Adrian, himself a gold medal winner in the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988, commented: ’’An Olympic and Paralympic Games sponsorship can be used to engage staff and enhance their development. This in turn can increase profitability, for example, by lowering staff turnover, increasing productivity and optimising customer service. Lane4 research suggests that the value of this engagement uplift could be upwards of 50 million pounds for a FTSE 250 company, which represents close to the reported rights fees for a top tier Olympic and Paralympic Games sponsorship.’’

In the last two years the UK workforce has grown by 9% and total salary levels by 36%. However, research by Gallup suggests that the number of actively disengaged workers has risen by 20%. Given this, it intuitively makes total sense that a property such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which can persuade millions of adults to send text messages of support or thousands of people to gather in Londonís Trafalgar Square, can play a major role in engaging a workforce.

Matt Rogan, head of commercial strategy at Lane4 added: ìIn a report published by Sports Marketing Quarterly around the objectives of the 1996 Olympic Games, 44% outlined the opportunities to enhance employee relationships as being either very or fairly important. 88% described increasing sales as being very important. However none of the sponsors actually used research to track changes in employee engagement and performance, which are key drivers of these objectives. Our research points to the fact the sponsorship and marketing community is missing an enormous trick here.î

Lane4 has established a strong track record in the corporate community for its innovative work around the development of high performance environments (HPE). The HPE model is based on creating high performance ethos and climate that pervades the whole organisation and turns people potential into a powerful source of competitive advantage. Lane4ís work combines the academic rigour and measurement focus with the sporting, specifically Olympic and Paralympic, Games experience that enables it to bring the world of performance alive well beyond the Board room table and deep into the business.