USTA
Since joining the USTA, Henry’ s primary objective has been to“ add the why to the what.” While the organisation’ s core focus is to facilitate the growth of the sport, Henry has worked to ensure that the workforce is aligned under a singular North Star.
As Henry explained to HR Chief Magazine:“ The notion that we are a notfor-profit, but still have this very profitable engine that allows us to do this great work was also very compelling to me. Marrying a personal passion – tennis – with a role that allows me to explore purpose and mission was too exciting to pass up.”
Scaling quickly at mass With more than 500 year-round employees, the USTA is required to undergo a massive, temporary expansion of that employee base each year as it stages the US Open – one of professional tennis’ four major events. Henry likens the tournament to an“ enormous bake sale” – or a high-stakes commercial engine that funds the organisation’ s mission-driven work for the rest of the year. Executing this spectacular event requires increasing the USTA workforce by thousands in a matter of weeks to fill the enormous number of roles required to stage one of the world’ s largest sports and entertainment events.
The process is a high-precision recruitment cycle that begins months before the first serve. As Henry explains:“ We’ ve got an incredible operations and talent acquisition team. They will scale leveraging the seasonal recruiting team – led by David Konecky – and several partners in the marketplace.
They come together generally six months before the US Open and with this incredible team that, again, maintains that USTA premium service standard.”
To manage this scale, the USTA leverages data-driven systems to handle the“ logistical coordination of thousands of interviews”, ensuring that every seasonal hire is properly vetted and aligned with the event’ s high expectations.
“ We need to make sure we can get the right folks onboarded, background checked and that we can provide critical orientation because we want to make sure they understand the US Open isn’ t just an event; it’ s an experience,” Henry says.
6 usta. com