How Cirque du Soleil’s CHRO rebuilt the corporate model after COVID lockdown

CHROs are all over the place—even the circus. 

Marie-Noëlle Gagnon, the CHRO for Cirque du Soleil, isn’t your typical folks administration govt. Overseeing round 4,300 staff working in 48 lively exhibits throughout greater than 80 nations, 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 employees.

She first stepped into the function simply three weeks earlier than the COVID-19 lockdown, as dwell leisure, together with the remainder of the world, got here to a cease. The present couldn’t go on, and consequently, round 95% of performers and artists have been laid off. However Cirque is again on monitor with its touring and residency exhibits, and Ganon is about on retaining the tradition alive.

Fortune spoke with Gagnon about what it took to revive the legacy circus after the previous few tumultuous years, her uncommon tasks, and what she seems for in Cirque expertise. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for readability.

Cirque du Soleil was pressured to shut down through the COVID pandemic. How did you’re employed on bringing staff again when exhibits began as soon as extra?  

All of us had a standard function. It was very clear what we needed to obtain, our North Star was clear. We have to deliver again all our exhibits. 

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 have been in a position to rehire or rent artists fairly shortly. 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 tough. Then folks have been asking us once we have been recruiting, “Are you able to assure that Cirque du Soleil is not going to shut once more?” And the reply was, “We are able to’t. We don’t have any crystal balls.” So we actually needed to be very clear, and we mentioned, “We can’t assure you something, however wouldn’t it’s an awesome story to be a part of the entire relaunch of Cirque du Soleil exhibits? Come and do that with us.” 

We have been very intentional in our actions. We had a really particular plan to rebuild your entire Cirque du Soleil expertise workforce one after the opposite. I needed to recruit each single one in every of my management workforce members. And what I’ve performed is mainly I mentioned, “Look, I don’t know what the longer term seems like. Hopefully followers will probably be again, however we’re gonna be creating incredible exhibits once more. Let’s do that collectively, and let’s have enjoyable whereas we’re doing it.” And it and it paid off. Followers have been again, thousands and thousands of tickets have been offered.

How did you rebuild tradition after years of being aside?

Every present may have their very own microculture. We’ve got an overarching tradition at Cirque with sturdy values, however the strategy was completely different, and my philosophy post-COVID at Cirque was: “one dimension suits none.” 

From a company standpoint, I made a decision to not put any obligatory 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 finest for his or her workforce. That is what I discovered to be the very best technique post-pandemic, making our managers accountable for his or her microculture. That is what actually makes a distinction within the day after day of an worker.

What tasks do you could 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 now we have to ship on an annual foundation. You will have visas for artists, solid, crew administration, additionally what we name the “accompanying members,” as a result of a few of our artists, solid and crew, can journey with their companions and household. When you concentrate on the touring exhibits, 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 now we have to verify all people has the precise to be and work on this nation.

I’m additionally in command of all the things that’s well being and security. We’re doing human efficiency at its finest, so we are going to by no means compromise something from a well being and security standpoint. 

What does it seem 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 concentrate on 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 guarantee that we are literally following protocols, now we have 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 essential, and typically when you could have what we name “close to miss,” we put in place a corrective motion plan so all the things is tracked. All the things is recorded, and we’d like 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’d like to verify [the performers] are in prime form. So there’s a workforce of individuals surrounding our artists: teaching, efficiency drugs, bodily therapists. 

Are there any ache factors in your function as CHRO at Cirque?

For me, it’s the entire HR know-how side. I want we might have extra instruments to assist make higher selections and faster selections. These days, you possibly can not depend on your instinct to make the very best determination. It’s all about details and knowledge, particularly if you end up exploring uncharted territory. Ensuring that we’re utilizing know-how 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 an increasing number of. It’s on my want checklist, HR know-how.

What do you search for when hiring somebody for Cirque?

You have to be open minded, you want to have a robust agility, and you want to be very comfy with the grey zone. Once we have been relaunching our exhibits, we have been rethinking, “Okay, now what? What does the following 20 years of Cirque seem like? What does the way forward for HR seem like?” To me, ambiguity is sort of thrilling in a way of all the things 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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