ABSTRACT
Considerations associated with human resource planning for events The context in which human resource planning takes place for events can be said to be unique for two major reasons. First, and perhaps most significantly, many events have a ‘pulsating’ organizational structure (Hanlon and Jago, 2000; Hanlon and Cuskelly, 2002). This means they grow in terms of personnel as the event approaches, but quickly contract when it ends. From a human resource perspective, this creates a number of challenges, including obtaining paid staff given the short-term nature of the employment offered; working to short timelines to hire and select staff, and to develop and implement staff training; and needing to shed staff quickly. Also, volunteers, as opposed to paid staff, often make up the bulk of people involved in delivering an event. In some instances, events are run entirely by volunteers. The challenges presented by this situation are many, and relate to such matters as sourcing volunteers, quality control, supervision, training and motivation. Later parts of this chapter suggest responses to these challenges.
