How The Kia Oval hired large volumes of skilled event staff for their busy season.
The Kia Oval is an international cricket ground and now one of the best conference and events venues in London. They pride themselves on putting clients at the forefront of all functions they undertake. The Kia Oval is one of the largest cricket stadiums, with a capacity of 40,000 and 55 dedicated events spaces, with beautiful views of their famous pitch or London’s skyline. Learn more about The Kia Oval.
Industry:
Stadiums
Events:
Over 2,000 p.a.
Locations:
London, UK
On behalf of the People Ops team we just wanted to say a huge thank you for all your work to help deliver this WTC Final. The staff supplied were incredible and we received some great feedback. We hope to see the same staff back for the games to come. Thank you to those who joined us on-site, it was great to see you all! We hope staff have had an enjoyable week and know that they have worked such a historic game. It has been confirmed that this was the most watched test match of all time!!”
Max MicNicol, People Operations
Challenge
The Kia Oval struggled with consistency in their workforce throughout their peak events season, from April to September. Every year, their busy season has a packed calendar with a variety of events and matches, so team regularity is important. They needed to ensure they had a swift turn around between event days. The Kia Oval regularly experienced staffing consistency problems to meet coverage demands for their back of house and culinary events teams. Ahead of their next season, it was critical to be more prepared and find a staffing solution that could support a strong delivery.
Their main challenges were:
Sourcing a large volume of high-quality event workers, especially back of house (BOH) and culinary roles.
Ensuring events staff were available and interested to work consistently throughout their busy season. The Kia Oval needed workers they could rely on.
Finding a dependable solution for last minute replacement cover, in case they were met with unexpected coverage challenges.
How did Coople help?
Through the Coople platform, The Kia Oval had strong connectivity with Coople’s workers, operations, and commercial teams to support a successful season. This solid collaboration and engagement were key to experiencing limited churn and maximising pool size and quality. Prior to the start of the season, Coople gradually created a pool of 260+ reliable and high-quality events staff, who were integrated into The Kia Oval’s workforce through early season domestic games. The early season required smaller numbers of staff, which ensured all workers had previously worked on site and were familiar with their role and the venue before the peak season began in June.
The Kia Oval needed significant staffing support for large events, such as the World Test Championship and the famous Ashes in June and July respectively; these two events alone required up to 60 workers a day, seven days in a row. The Kia Oval relied on flexible events staff through Coople every week in their busy season from April until the end of September. They hired staff into their planned rotas in advance and used Coople to cover last minute cancellations. The power of Coople’s platform was evident when The Kia Oval was missing five Chef de Partie’s in a key hospitality area on the morning of the Ashes. A job was posted on the Coople platform at 7am, and all five newly hired workers were onsite ready to work at 10am.
The Kia Oval had a complex accreditation procedure to follow for the World Test Championships, which required all workers to be accredited six weeks prior to the event start date. Coople met full delivery for The Kia Oval, by adequately over hiring to mitigate any potential dropouts between the accreditation deadline and the start date. The Kia Oval felt confident that their staffing demands would be met with Coople.
Results:
Flexible staffing to meet high-volume coverage demands.
Large volumes of staff.
The Kia Oval was supported by Coople’s operations and commercial teams to create a strong pool of 260+ events staff prior to their busy season starting. The gradual building of the pool ensured top quality staff were found and upskilled prior to the peak season.
Improved speed to hire.
The Kia Oval experienced situations when they didn’t have enough staff on the day of the event, often due to last minute cancellations or absences. On one occasion, Coople delivered five CDP’s in less than 3 hours, from job posted on the platform to staff onsite ready to work.
Bespoke recruitment process.
Coople fully delivered a complex accreditation process for the World Test Championship and mitigated any potential dropouts. All workers were required to be accredited six weeks before the event start date.
High volume events staff to meet seasonal demands.
The Kia Oval built a strong pool of events workers to meet high-volume seasonal demands through Coople’s flexible staffing platform. The Kia Oval used CoopleFlex to gain the consistency in their workforce that they’d been missing. Additionally, they were satisfied to improve their time-to-hire and ensured coverage was met over the busy season. If you have similar staffing challenges and want to learn more about how Coople can help you, get in touch today.
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