Cirque Executive Summary

Cirque du Soleil was formed in 1984 by a troupe of street performers in a small town outside of Quebec City. When Cirque started in 1984, it employed 73 people and at the end of 2001 it had grown to over 2,100 employees worldwide. For a majority of their existence Cirque, has been equally owned and managed by two men, Guy Laliberte who had responsibility for the creative production and Daniel Gautier who managed the business side. In 1998 Laliberte bought out Gautier's half.

Managing a company of this size has become an increasingly difficult problem as there have been many issues with artists disputing whether management was doing what was best for them, or for the organization. As well as the questions and concerns of the company's decision to go corporate.

The alternative solutions we are suggesting are as follows;

* Give employees, particularly the artists, the option of joining a performance that is either stationary or on tour

* A program of job shadowing, and

* Adopt an employee policy manual

Giving these alternatives we are suggesting that you give your employees the option of joining either a stationary our touring performance as our top solution. Our reasoning for this is because we believe if the employees have a say in their performance it will lead to longer career times per employee and higher employee satisfaction. We are also suggesting a series of surveys to get the employees feedback as a plan for implementation.

Identification of #1 Solution

After reviewing your case and discussing some potential solutions we have decided that it would be best for Cirque to give their employees, particularly the artists, the option to choose which performance they join; whether it is a stationary or touring production.

With this solution the artists who prefer to stay in one location would have a better opportunity to actually stay in the same location and have the opportunity to actually have a home. They would have the ability to have a normal life and have the dream career as well. On the other hand, the artists who prefer to be on tour would get the opportunity to travel and not only that but most of the touring artists develop close family type relationships with their coworkers.

We also feel that this would lead to an increased employee satisfaction rate all while ultimately leading to a lower turnover rate. There are many advantages associated with a lower turnover rate, one of the most important being reduced costs. An example of the reduced costs would be lower fees associated with hiring new employees and lower traveling and recruiting expenses for the Human Resources department.