CHROs are all over the place—even the circus.
Marie-Noëlle Gagnon, the CHRO for Cirque du Soleil, isn’t your typical folks administration government. Overseeing round 4,300 workers working in 48 energetic reveals throughout greater than 80 international locations, she manages a novel workforce that features each company staffers and performing artists. Though the artists are employed by a separate division, Gagnon performs an element within the expertise of all staff.
She first stepped into the position simply three weeks earlier than the COVID-19 lockdown, as stay leisure, together with the remainder of the world, got here to a cease. The present couldn’t go on, and because of this, round 95% of performers and artists had been laid off. However Cirque is again on observe with its touring and residency reveals, and Ganon is about on preserving the tradition alive.
Fortune spoke with Gagnon about what it took to revive the legacy circus after the previous few tumultuous years, her uncommon obligations, and what she appears for in Cirque expertise.
This interview has been edited and condensed for readability.
Cirque du Soleil was pressured to shut down throughout the COVID pandemic. How did you’re employed on bringing workers again when reveals began as soon as extra?
All of us had a standard goal. It was very clear what we needed to obtain, our North Star was clear. We have to carry again all our reveals.
For the artists, it was simpler to persuade them to return again. As a result of while you work for Soleil, it’s main league. So we had been in a position to rehire or rent artists fairly rapidly. We needed to additionally rehire or rent our technicians, and there was an actual labor scarcity on the time with the pandemic, and the leisure trade was very troublesome. Then folks had been asking us once we had been recruiting, “Can you guarantee that Cirque du Soleil will not close again?” And the reply was, “We can’t. We don’t have any crystal balls.” So we actually needed to be very clear, and we mentioned, “We cannot guarantee you anything, but wouldn’t it be a great story to be part of the whole relaunch of Cirque du Soleil shows? Come and do this with us.”
We had been very intentional in our actions. We had a really particular plan to rebuild your entire Cirque du Soleil expertise crew one after the opposite. I needed to recruit each single considered one of my management crew members. And what I’ve accomplished is principally I mentioned, “Look, I don’t know what the future looks like. Hopefully fans will be back, but we’re gonna be creating fantastic shows again. Let’s do this together, and let’s have fun while we’re doing it.” And it and it paid off. Followers had been again, thousands and thousands of tickets had been offered.
How did you rebuild tradition after years of being aside?
Every present may have their very own microculture. We’ve an overarching tradition at Cirque with robust values, however the method was completely different, and my philosophy post-COVID at Cirque was: “one size fits none.”
From a company standpoint, I made a decision to not put any necessary variety of days on the workplace. It’s actually about empowerment of the supervisor, so I left your entire freedom to the supervisor to determine what’s greatest for his or her crew. That is what I discovered to be one of the best technique post-pandemic, making our managers accountable for his or her microculture. That is what actually makes a distinction within the each day of an worker.
What obligations do you may have that the common CHRO doesn’t have?
What is sort of distinctive with Cirque is the entire immigration half, as a result of it’s hundreds of visas and work permits that we have now to ship on an annual foundation. You might have visas for artists, forged, crew administration, additionally what we name the “accompanying members,” as a result of a few of our artists, forged and crew, can journey with their companions and household. When you concentrate on the touring reveals, these are those which might be touring from one metropolis and one nation to a different. So each time we enter a brand new nation we have now to verify all people has the precise to be and work on this nation.
I’m additionally answerable for the whole lot that’s well being and security. We’re doing human efficiency at its greatest, so we’ll by no means compromise something from a well being and security standpoint.
What does it appear like to watch the well being and security of artists?
When you concentrate on the artists which might be up within the air doing magical issues, first they want to pay attention to what are the protection protocols if one thing dangerous occurs. So all people will get very tight coaching on what to do in emergency conditions.
To be sure that we are literally following protocols, we have now very tight KPIs that we’re monitoring regularly, and we report as much as the board all our well being and security metrics. We’re measured on well being and security. So coaching is tremendous necessary, and typically when you may have what we name “near miss,” we put in place a corrective motion plan so the whole lot is tracked. The whole lot is recorded, and we want to verify it is not going to occur once more.
We have to work additionally from a prevention standpoint, due to the accidents that may occur once they carry out. So we want to verify [the performers] are in prime form. So there’s a crew of individuals surrounding our artists: teaching, efficiency medication, bodily therapists.
Are there any ache factors in your position as CHRO at Cirque?
For me, it’s the entire HR expertise facet. I want we’d have extra instruments to assist make higher selections and faster selections. These days, you’ll be able to not depend on your instinct to make one of the best determination. It’s all about details and information, particularly if you find yourself exploring uncharted territory. Ensuring that we’re utilizing expertise to spice up enterprise efficiency will certainly assist the worker expertise. It’s one thing that within the coming years we’ll be investing in increasingly more. It’s on my want checklist, HR expertise.
What do you search for when hiring somebody for Cirque?
It is advisable be open minded, it is advisable have a powerful agility, and it is advisable be very comfy with the grey zone. After we had been relaunching our reveals, we had been rethinking, “Okay, now what? What does the next 20 years of Cirque look like? What does the future of HR look like?” To me, ambiguity is sort of thrilling in a way of the whole lot is feasible. The world is your oyster. Let’s put some readability round what’s grey.
Emma Burleigh
emma.burleigh@fortune.com
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