Adecco was hired as the official recruitment provider for the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics. Their role was to recruit over 8,300 staff while meeting diversity and inclusion targets. To do so, Adecco developed innovative programs like a guaranteed interview scheme for disabled applicants and recruiting directly in local communities to meet targets for unemployed, local, and minority hires. As a result, over 25% of LOCOG's workforce came from priority groups and diversity targets were exceeded, contributing to the Games' success.

1. adecco.co.uk
London 2012 | Diversity & Inclusion Case Study
Adecco signed the contract to be the Official Recruitment Services Provider
to the Olympic and Paralympic Games on 23rd December 2008.
The challenge
Adecco’s role was wide ranging, complex and demanding:
• Recruit the people to put on the greatest show on earth,
the people who would determine if London 2012 would
be a success or not.
• Help London 2012 meet the commitment it made in
Singapore in 2005 when it won the bid, to be the most
diverse and inclusive Games ever. Sebastian Coe committed
to the regeneration of Stratford and, for the first time, the
incorporation of the Olympic and Paralympic Games under
one organising committee. Two key objectives as a result were
to ensure the workforce reflected the diversity of London and
ensure the Paralympics were reflected in the workforce.
• Provide outplacement services to the workforce during 2012.
• All this needed to be achieved by the Opening Ceremony
on 27th July 2012.
By the end of the Games Adecco had recruited over 8,300 people,
nearly 5,000 in the six months leading up to the Games.
We recruited the widest range of staff from Board Directors to
Stewards, from Venue and Operations Directors to procurers of
shuttlecocks, the people who staged what was widely described
by the media and commentators alike as the greatest Olympic and
Paralympic Games ever.
Services
Systems design and
implementation including
the London 2012 Job site
Outplacement services
throughout 2012
Staff
Permanent staff
3,800
Games staff
(during the Games)
4,500
Managing over
Pre-employment
screening
of all staff
applications
218,000
London 2012
Diversity & Inclusion Case Study

2. London 2012 | Diversity & Inclusion Case Study
Within all phases there was a constant focus on social inclusion. There were pressures
politically, as well as the well publicised commitment in Singapore, to regenerate
the East End of London and be the most diverse and inclusive Games ever.
Unemployed
15%-20%
20%
6 Host Borough residents
How we did it
Whilst every stream of diversity was important, there were two
areas that had additional focus:
• Disability For the first time, an Organising Committee incorporated
the Paralympic and Olympic Games, so ensuring disabled people
were represented in the workforce was essential.
• Ethnicity The commitment in Singapore to help regenerate the
East End of London, one of the most diverse communities in the
world, required the workforce to be drawn, where possible,
from local people.
Recruiting disabled people
The two major challenges of recruiting disabled people were:
• Making suitable provision in the workplace for specific
disabilities.
• Reaching out to disabled people who would not normally
apply and convince them that we were serious and committed
to employing talented people whether disabled or not.
Diversity and inclusion, the unemployed and engagement with
the six host boroughs in the East End of London were firmly top of
the agenda for the Board of LOCOG and therefore Adecco.
Most organising committees from previous Games had, to a large
extent, relied on the Games experts who moved from Games to
Games and, with London being a popular destination, hiring from
this pool of specialists would have been the easier and lower risk
approach but would have been politically unacceptable.
LOCOG had set themselves diversity targets to reflect the population
of London based on the last census. The following were targets set
to reflect the percentage of the LOCOG workforce:
46%- 54%
Disability
3%- 6%
20%-30%
Age
<30
10%-15%
Age
>50
5%-7%
LGBT*
*Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual
Gender
(female)
18%-29%
Ethnicity
LOCOG workforce diversity targets
LOCOG workforce diversity targets

3. adecco.co.uk
London 2012 | Diversity & Inclusion Case Study
The work environment at LOCOG’s offices was accessible and
provision was made to ensure adaptations were made for any
disability. Communicating the fact that this was an inclusive work
environment, that we actively encouraged disabled people to apply
and that it was skills we were interested in was a harder challenge.
To demonstrate that we were serious and not just a slogan on a
recruitment advertisement, we worked with LOCOG’s D&I team to
develop a Guaranteed Interview Scheme for disabled people.
If someone had the right skills and was disabled, they were
guaranteed an interview.
There were two outcomes. The recruiting team sometimes had
short lists that were long, with many disabled people having the
right skills. But the benefit was that we uncovered a rich seam of
talent. So much so, we wanted to make sure we had access to
the skills for future jobs. We developed a Disability Talent Pool. If a
disabled candidate did not get the job they were interviewed for,
but received positive feedback from the hiring managers, they were
asked if they wanted to be considered for future jobs and were then
flagged on the recruitment system for hiring managers to draw on
for future short lists. Once signed up, candidates would be regularly
emailed with news of London 2012 and new job vacancies.
The success of this programme was reflected in the fact that 10%
of the total workforce had a declared disability by Games time.
Recruiting Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people
The target to recruit people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic
groups (BAME) was between 18 and 29%. However, by the
summer of 2010, whilst we were attracting 33% of applicants from
BAME backgrounds, we were only hiring 11%. Demonstrating the
importance of the issue, we were asked to come up with a plan
to rectify the position as quickly as possible.
We devised a two pronged approach. Firstly, we physically took
our recruitment activity out to the communities of the East End of
London. We had been surprised at the lack of attendance when
we had organised recruitment events at the offices of LOCOG in
Canary Wharf. On investigating the reasons, we were told that
most people from the host boroughs considered the high rise office
blocks of Canary Wharf as very separate from their neighbourhood.
We therefore organised recruitment events in local venues and
enlisted the help of Job Centre Plus, local employment brokerages
and other local community groups to get people along to local
venues where we would give a presentation about the work being
done at LOCOG and the desire to hire local people. We also used
the local community groups to help people with their applications
and even had vacancies posted in mosques.
The second prong was to use the success of the Disability Talent
Pool and develop something similar for BAME candidates. This
required us to ask the applicants, when filling out the diversity
questionnaire, if they were from a BAME background, if they wanted
to be considered to be part of the Talent Pool and to do so, agree to
have their names associated with the BAME Talent Pool. The risk in
this approach was that it could be seen as positive discrimination.
We consulted the legal teams at both Adecco and LOCOG and
their opinion was that as LOCOG had committed from the outset to
reflect the diversity of the communities of the East End of London in
its workforce, we would only be using the talent pool approach to
meet published commitments. The focus, as with all candidates,
was on the right skills for the job. Our role was to spread the net
wider and reach out to those that would not normally apply. Again,
the result was spectacular. At the start of the Games, 33% of the
workforce were from BAME backgrounds.
Internal education
Because of the scale of the recruitment operation, as well as the
additional challenges and targets around diversity and inclusion,
a competency framework based on the LOCOG values was created
and implemented jointly by LOCOG and Adecco. The framework
was used in all communications with hiring managers to educate
them in how to attract and recruit the best, and most diverse and
inclusive workforce possible. With the growth of the workforce,
including managers who would build their own teams, we created
and implemented a training programme that was delivered weekly
to all new hiring managers. This included a focus on LOCOG’s
commitment to deliver against their challenging diversity and
inclusion targets and the programmes we had put in place to help
achieve this. In addition, one-off courses were delivered by the D&I
team to Functional Areas in conjunction with the Adecco team.
Diversity & Inclusion
Unique software
developed to track
diversity through all
stages of recruitment:
MonthlyBy department
*Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic
Ethnicity (BAME*):
1 3Two programmes
developed to reach
disabled candidates:
2
Guaranteed
Interview
Scheme
Disabled
Talent
Pool
BAME* Talent Pool

4. London 2012 | Diversity & Inclusion Case Study
But hosting an Olympic and Paralympic Games in the modern era
is about much more than putting on the biggest global sporting
event. With billions invested by the host country there is a greater
emphasis on the transformative powers of the Games, a legacy.
For London it was all about the regeneration of a run down area of
East London and an engagement with one of the poorest areas of
London and one of the most diverse areas in the world. For LOCOG
and Adecco this translated into the diversity and inclusion agenda.
Through a series of innovative programmes and continual dialogue
with the communities of the six host boroughs, we ensured the
diversity targets were exceeded: over 25% of the LOCOG workforce
were previously unemployed and over 25% of the workforce were
six host borough residents.
The results
London 2012 is considered to be the most successful Games ever and this is entirely
down to having the right people in place to deliver. Adecco is proud to have been a
sponsor and the recruitment organisation behind the placement of those people that
made it such a success.
48%
Disability
10%
25%
25%
40%
Age
<30
13%
Age
>50
5%
LGBT*Gender
(female)
33%
18%-29%
Ethnicity
3%-6%
46%-54%
20%-30%
10%-15%
5%-7%
Achieved
Target
Achieved
Target
*Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual
Unemployed
15%-20%
20%
6 Host Borough residents
LOCOG workforce diversity results
LOCOG workforce diversity results
By working closely with the senior team at LOCOG, Adecco has
demonstrated that hiring a diverse and inclusive workforce is not
about achieving targets but about having the best, most innovative
and capable workforce possible; one able to put on one of the
largest, most complex, deadline driven projects the world has seen
and one that uniquely reflects the people and capabilities of London.
Adecco takes from the project unique experience and a series of
practical tools to help our existing and future clients better engage
with local communities. We attract and source unique talent and
above all deliver skills and teams to help organisations be the best
in their respective markets.