Introduction
The employment of various members of staff is a crucial role in Sports Centre Organizations. Essentially, every sports organization has to create a match between the employees, workforce and career paths, to ensure effective utilization of workforce potential as well as cost effective recruitment process. The Human Resource Management provides a clear forecast of the future needs of the sports organization to ensure it has the required human resources to implement its objectives (Chernushenko, 2001).
HRM is managed and regulated by the human resource manager, and aims to maximize the productivity of any organization by optimizing the effectiveness of its employees and focusing on the policies and systems (Collings & Wood, 2009). It helps to establish a strong, goal-oriented and functional organization by creating an excellent team of the workforce. In every sports organization, the responsibility of the HRM is governed by HR department where it guides the human resource managers in screening, hiring, and retaining the best employees.
The professional employment in the sports industry is controlled and managed by a complex set of legal requirements established by the sport governing body. These legal requirements are subject to the greater extent of standardization by global sports institutions like FIFA for football and FIBA for basketball. These institutions create a clear validation of international rules to make these rules universal as a way of promoting international sporting exchanges. The sporting bodies in various organizations are granted an extensive autonomy to facilitate the legal process of the employment. This paper analyzes a report on the stages of employment process as well as the legal elements involved in the employment process for the American College of Football Organization.
Stages Involved In the Employment of Sports Member of Staff
Primarily, the choice of the employment technique varies depending on the type of sports organization, nature of the position, and the state of the labor market. For instance, a small sports organization tends to employ by using the area networks and other partnerships (Branch, 1992, p. 9). In the American College of Football Organization, the entire of process of employment involve major critical stages.
Planning Stage
Planning is the primary stage in every employment process. This stage enables the sports organization to plan for the type and the number of staffs it requires, to accomplish its goals (Slack, & Hinings, 1987, p. 191). The first part of organizational planning involves research. The information is then analyzed to forecast on the supplies of human resources and predict the needs of future human resources. The planning function is essential to any organization since it acts as the key to all other human resource management functions. Also, through job analysis, job description, and specialization, the planning management describes the nature of different jobs and the experience and skill requirements (Lawler et. al., 2004, p. 28). The design also outlines various activities and work duties of the prospect employees.
Recruitment Stage
Recruitment involves evaluating and hiring of the best-suited candidates for the job, using the most cost efficient manner. Primarily, the College Football HR manager has to describe and specify the vacancy-requiring filling or replacement. It outlines the tasks for the job and the qualifications needed. The recruitment process involves internal and external sourcing. Internal sourcing entails the process of promoting, demoting, transferring, and retrenchment of employees. On the other hand, an external sourcing is carried out if the organization requires an increase in the number of its staff members. It entails the use of media, newspaper, and internet advertisement. In some of the voluntary positions, the recruitment and sourcing for the candidates are typically informal; thus, attracting a significant number of qualified applicants may be hard (Thibault, et al., 1991, p. 84). In sport voluntary positions, the selection is conducted on an ex-official basis. If the recruitment process attracts a high number of candidates, the sports organization has to conduct preliminary screening of the candidates (Richardson, 2007). This process leaves only those candidates that are best fit for the positions relating to job qualifications, experience, and skills and knowledge.
Selection Stage
The candidates who qualify in the recruitment stage are then selected for the job. Some selection options are available; they include behaviorally based interview, cognitive ability test, assessment center, work sample test, personality inventories, and standard interview. When evaluating the selection process, accounts are taken depending on the validity and reliability of the technique. Reliability entails the degree in which the selection criterion is free from errors. That observable features like verbal fluency are highly reliable. On the other hand, validity relates to the extent in which a measure on a certain method of selection corresponds to the real performance in the employment opportunity. It pertains to the measure in which a particular selection criterion relates to the job performance. Some selection techniques result to a higher validity than others. Also, selecting the ideal technique varies and depends on each selection method.
Hiring Stage
After the selection process, the College Football HR manager has to make a concrete decision on the right candidate to employ. At this point, the management assesses the references of the selected candidates. In most cases, the sports management uses other assessment criteria since most written references have a low validity. In fact, the HR manager conducts telephone interviews with the former employers since they are likely to reveal a truthful feedback. In other cases, the management assesses the qualifications documents that the applicants claim to possess. A survey by the College Football HR management shows high cases of false claims on qualifications documents from job applicants (Frisby, 1986). After conducting a clear check on the documents, the HR makes positions offers. In many organizations, the candidates are ranked accordingly, and the offers are made by order of preferences. This process ensures that the management has alternative candidates in case the offers made are rejected. Another approach is to declare the prospect employee eligible or not eligible, and the employable list is selected, usually according to the order of preference.
Orientation Stage
The newly selected candidates need to be oriented. The process involves proving the employees with the required information, training, and instructions for the new environment and task. This process involves meetings, lectures, videos, monitoring and evaluation to help the prospect employees understand their tasks and the organization mission and vision better (Belch, & Belch, 1998). Also, orientation aims at increasing the employee’s’ skills and experience to perform their delegated jobs. Sometimes, it may take time for the prospect employees to adjust to the new environment, especially if the candidates were not able to understand the key organization’s policies.
Performance Review Stage
During the first year of employment, the College Football HR management conducts a regular review relating to the performance of all the organization’s employees. A common practice by most sports organizations involves the use of performance management system, whereby they administer a performance appraisal system per year. The main purpose for this is to measure the trends of the employee’s performance to maintain and improve the performance of all staff members.
Key Legal Elements in Each Stage of Employment Process
Equality Acts
The College Football organization has formulated the equality act as a key legal element that applies to all the applicants and candidates seeking for the job opportunity. It ensures that all the prospect employees and candidates get fair treatment. In essence, it stipulates various elements under the law such as anti-discrimination laws. In case of any violation of the rights of the hiring process, the applicant is allowed to seek an employee’s right attorney to address their legal rights.
Hiring rules
Before any recruitment is carried out, the employer is required to adhere to certain employment regulations. The Football HR management has introduced various hiring policies that safeguard the rights of the prospect employees. These include obtaining an employment identification number for every new employee, setting a pay system of the prospect employee, obtaining the employee compensation insurance and assisting in the registration for employee’s benefits.
Interview Rules
The interview process comes with employment laws that protect the prospect employee against interview questions that are protected under the discrimination acts. The HR management is not allowed to ask interview questions on any of the stipulated grounds of discrimination as outlined in the Equality acts, including gender, sexual orientation, age, family status, disability, marital status, religion, and race (DeSensi, & Rosenberg, 2003).
Contract Stability
Contract stability is a crucial element employed by the College Football organization acts. Essentially, it stipulates rules that guarantee the staff to commit to their teams and positions for the specified duration of the engagement. According to the employment representative act, the aspect of club financial instability is the primary cause of the contractual instability policy. Also, it influences the policy that aims to push the players to move from their clubs as a way to uphold a new recruitment policy. The rules on contract stability are highly regulated to ensure that no conflict is experienced with the rules on free movement of members of staff (Irwin & Stotlar, 1993, P. 9).
Redistribution and financial solidarity mechanisms
The sports organization formulates various rules of employment that provide a system of financial redistribution to its clubs to enhance the implementation of solidarity system mechanism (Jones, 2007). These mechanisms promote equity and increased competition between the financially stable and less financially stable clubs since the financial position of the clubs influence the levels of competition (Chelladurai & Haggerty, 1991, p. 141). The redistribution and solidarity element is linked to the market employment system, and also, it is a major component of employment regulations. Usually, a collective bargaining agreement is made between the sports organization management and its players that regulate the enforcement of the contractual stability.
Monitoring of Transactions and Financial Accounts
The sports organization undertakes a crucial step to handle abusive, fraudulent and financial malpractices that prevent a fair and efficient balance of employment mechanism. Such approaches aim at promoting transparent financial deals and transactions. Notably, financial instability is a key inhibitor to creating contractual stability (Huggins, 1992, p. 38). Besides, it is a concept of consideration by the management since financial misappropriation is creating concerns among public authorities, supporters and the general public (McGuire, 2002). Monitoring systems are established to coordinate and track various employment transactions. Also, they collect accurate information and data to regulate the legality of the different transactions.
Conclusion
The process of employing various staff members is highly crucial to the sports organization. Notably, no specific employment method is perfect for all situations. Thus, the choice the technique to be applied depends on the prevailing conditions of each selected decision. Cases of biases and subjectivity are likely to occur in the employment process. Equally, there is no employment criterion without some possibilities of errors. Ideally, by applying these employment stages, the American College Football organization ensures that the employment process is fair and free from discrimination. Besides, the employment process is subjected to legal procedures that are designed to ensure the protection of the applicants as well as creating fair and equal treatment in the selection process.
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