The sports industry’s primary resource is human capital – athletes. It is up to sports administrators to manage this human capital. This means they need to dig into their human resource (HR) skills to ensure that they are effectively managing athletes to achieve the most in their sports careers.
What is HR?
HR is the use of a distinctive set of integrated policies, programmes and practices to manage the human capital of an organisation to achieve competitive advantage.
It is a process that consists of planning, recruitment, selection, retention and replacement, orientation, training and development, and appraisal and rewards.
What does HR do?
An organisation’s effectiveness can be defined by a set of goals, its acquisitions of resources (in this case athletes), and the efficiency and effectiveness of its processes.
The athletes are not always aware of the bigger picture of an organisation. It is up to HR managers (in this case the sports administrator) to guide and supervise the athletes towards achieving the organisation’s goals and objectives.
Organisations need to constantly manage their resources. Doing this strategically can lead to a competitive advantage. It is up to the HR manager to facilitate appointing skilled athletes, coaches and managers. The HR manager is also responsible for keeping them committed to the organisation.
Following good HR practices can help to enhance the sporting performance of an organisation.
HR can be divided into three areas:
- Recruitment, selection and appraisal.
- Fulfilling resource policies.
- Philosophies that specify the values of an organisation’s policies and practices.
HR needs to meet these three conditions to deliver a competitive advantage:
- It must add value to the production process. In sport, the product is human performance. If you are managing the needs of your athletes well, they will perform at their best.
- The skills the organisation wants from its HR must be rare. In sports, organisations look to recruit and retain the best athletes and coaches they can find.
- Human capital investments should be managed in a way that gives you a competitive advantage. In sports, making investments into your athletes, coaches, managers and admin personnel has been proven to make the teams better and more efficient.
Recruitment
The recruitment process of an HR manager involves identifying, attracting and choosing suitable people that meet the organisation’s requirements.
This can include advertising the openings in newspapers, on the Internet and in journals. Recruiting people from universities is also beneficial as you have access to young professionals.
Training and induction
Training is the stage in the HR process where a new athlete, coach or manager is taught the basic skills that they need to perform their jobs.
The sports administrator provides them with background information to the organisation, including health and safety, terms and conditions, as well as its ethics and values.
In a sporting organisation, it is usually up the sports administration to fulfil the human resources needs of the organisation. This includes the appointment of new athletes and staff, training them, as well as managing their performance throughout their career.
Contact Trifocus Fitness Academy
If you want to become a sports administrator, then you need to do our Sports Administrator Course. For more information, please follow this link.
