Cirque Du Soleil: The History And Employee Satisfaction

Cirque du Soleil is a Canadian entertainment company which is a self-described as a dramatic mix of circus arts and street entertainment, it was formed in the year 1984 by troupe of street performers commonly known as “Le Club des Talons Hauts”. The main purpose of the company was to reinvent circus by gathering street performers, clowns, acrobats and gymnasts and by eliminating animals in order to meet customer satisfaction and to provide dance infused dramas to the audience.

Cirque Du soliel was owned and also managed by Laliberte and Daniel Gautier but after 14 years, Laliberte bought out Gautiers half, which was highlighted on Canadian business Magazine valuing the company at $800 Million. Mr Laliberte was a chief executive of an internationally renowned performance arts company who was responsible for carrying on different shows around the globe, backed by a supporting cast of 4,000 employees. Many years in the making, with a lot of work and effort put in, each show costs millions of dollars to develop and produce. The key was that they were creative and made their own business and there was no point in competition since they were much unique.

The business was mainly focused on decentralization and diversity, so the casting director needed of about 100 artist every year keeping in mind growth and also maintaining the excitement between the audiences. Further, there was an issue with decentralization and diversity that had occurred when travelling around the globe. Also, there were more business people joining the company’s upper mark, it was necessary to find a right mix and to not destroy the soul of Cirque. The performers had their own way of executing in the circus in terms of uniqueness in following field like clowns, acrobats and gymnasts a vast skill variety between the team members, which had its own Identity on various field depending on the task that had to be performed.

One of the main characteristics of job satisfaction is assigning the role to an employee and giving them the significance of the task that need to be performed whilst doing it. The company would never allow survey or audience feedback to be used to create product because they are moreover an artistic workers. Secondly, from psychological point of view, it was important to know the right knowledge about the circus, while recruiting they most preferred the once with experience and a potential contributor, so that when they perform it they would do it whole heartedly and meaningfully. Also there were 475 acrobats with Cirque and it expected to surpass 500 in the next year, with just turnover around 15% and by providing best strategies to retain employees.

The management made sure best possible working conditions are provided to everyone which encouraged them to work or be more productive, as mentioned by Gagne, “the acrobat mentality is, if you wake up in the morning and feel no pain, it’s because you’re dead. They give whatever they have to cirque every single day”. Job satisfaction is the most important criterion, it is an indicator of person’s attitude towards his or her job that cuts across various facets. The survey can be conducted to estimate the appropriate satisfaction among the employees. The major factors that affects job discrepancy is Attitude (values + beliefs), job outcomes, discrepancy disposition and also emotions are involved.

Some staff members resigned from the company because they were tired of putting their family on hold and they could not handle the touring life anymore. Others left for job-related reasons, such as they wanted a promotion so discrepancy was created in the working environment. Also, when it came to pay scale, few employees found it relevant but others found that it was less compared to their previous employment, that’s where discrepancy was created. There were many people who said that the show was life changing experience.

There was a customer who left his job after seeing the show wherein with the high self-esteem he mentioned that circus changed his life just after watching the show and that it makes up to live our life, so the company being so productive has impacted many life’s, so every employees has contributed dispositional in a room and a personal emotions is also come into factor. Lastly, taking about the emotions and mood has great influence on job satisfaction, Oberacker knew that he had to change the job in a year, but he was emotionally attached to the work that he has contributed towards cirque du soleil and that would be remembered throughout.