Top-level sports and a working career can mix well
Tue 08 September 2009
, Roland Berendsen, Randstad
The Netherlands enjoy top-level sports to the full. Recent weeks featured the World Track-and-Field Championships, the European Field Hockey Championships, and the World Judo Championships. The urgent appeal for help from President Johan Wakkie of the Netherlands Field Hockey Association was striking in this respect. In an interview, he pointed out that top athletes need to find employers who allow for their sports activities. The fact is that more and more field-hockey players and other top athletes are currently forced to give priority to their social careers for lack of money.
Employers consider top-level sports and a working career an awkward combination, and I can see why. Top athletes train a lot and they often do so during day-time, which is a difficult combination with, for instance, an office job. Training-camps and international games, too, are sometimes hard to fit in. In short, it’s a challenge to find a position within one’s organization for a top athlete with such requirements. And, even harder, to find a position that’s productive as well.
Reality has shown it is possible though. During the Olympic year of Beijing, top rower Matthijs Vellenga did work experience at Randstad, albeit with special working hours and projects that allow for training and games. Via Randstad’s agency, baseball player Bryan Engelhardt also got special working hours at Corus that enabled him to contribute to the company.
This approach strikes me as very attractive. As a Partner in Sport of NOC*NSF (the Dutch Olympic Committee and Dutch Sports Federation), in cooperation with Sport & Zaken (‘Sports & Business’), we intend to use this approach to create a link between businesses and athletes. Our objective is to have a hundred top athletes employed by sports-friendly businesses between now and 2012. This is all in line with the ambitions for the 2028 Olympic Plan, which not only aims to bring the Games to the Netherlands, but which will also gives a big boost to sports and sports infrastructure. So what about the first step? In the context of the incentives-program Goud op de Werkvloer (‘Gold on the Work Floor’), Randstad will provide two (top-level) sports-friendly workplaces in order to - in Wakkie’s spirit - retain talents in top-level sports.
Athletes are very positive about it. This year alone, we have given study- and career-advice, or some other form of support, to 90 top athletes. It is for the employers to fully appreciate the special skills of athletes and bring ‘gold to the work floor’.
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