Leisure Management II - Human Resources

Learn to manage human resources in a leisure, recreation or fitness facility

People are a key resource for any business.  This course develops an understanding of important human resource issues such as work schedules, developing a team approach, team performance, staff recruitment, evaluating staff performance, and communication between staff.  Builds on Leisure Management I, but can stand alone.

Every facility or service requires competent management of staff, for services to be delivered efficiently and smoothly. To do this the manager needs to have both generic human resources skills, as well as knowledge and skills that are more specific to the industry they are working in.

This course is unique in providing an opportunity to develop your human resource management skills, within the context of the leisure industry; guided by academic faculty who have experience in leisure facility and service management.

Why do this course?

• Raise your awareness and learn to understand human resource issues
• Learn about team development
• Improve your management - learn to improve staff productivity and performance
• Develop your communication skills
• Improve your career prospect

Lesson Structure

There are 8 lessons in this course:

1. Work Schedules
   • Recreation Organisations
   • Management within Recreation
   • Responsibilities of a Supervisor
   • Effectiveness as a Supervisor
   • Organisational Structures
   • Staff Records
   • Work Scheduling
2. Work Teams
   • Giving Directives and Introducing Change
   • Effective Communication
   • Giving Written and Oral Orders
   • Orders and Instructions - the differences
   • Order Giving and Correction
   • Delegation
   • Motivation
3. Workplace Efficiency
   • Team Working
   • Twelve C's for Team Building
   • Organising the Workplace
   • Productivity and Efficiency
4. Recruitment
   • Interviewing, Recruitment and Staff Induction
   • Pre-Interview Questions
   • Advertising a Position
   • Interviewing People
   • Staff Induction
5. Staff Performance
   • Introduction to Performance
   • Tips for Helping Staff Perform Better
   • Assessing Training Needs
   • Sources of Information for a Needs Assessment
   • How to Access Training Needs
6. Workplace Communication
   • Styles of Supervision
   • Communication
   • Non-verbal Communication
   • Communication Barriers
   • Developing Conversation
   • Conducting Meetings
   • Motivating Employees and Staff Training
   • Training Program and Planning
7. Staff Grievances
   • Dealing with Grievances and Complaints
   • Workplace Bullying
   • Cyberbullying
   • Detecting a Problem
   • Guidelines to Dealing with Grievances
   • Personnel Departments and Unions
   • Reducing Grievances
8. Developing a Staff Manual
   • The Importance of a Staff Manual
   • Development of a Manual​

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

Aims

• Manage work schedules.
• Manage a work team
• Develop work team performance, to improve productivity and efficiency
• Manage the recruitment of new staff.
• Manage performance of individual members of staff.
• Maintain good communication with staff.
• Deal with staff grievances.
• Produce a staff manual for a workplace.

What You Will Do

• Prepare a work schedule, in accordance with a given job specification.
• List items of information which legally must be maintained in staff records.
• Explain different methods of maintaining work records.
• Calculate pay for a specified case study, including deductions for taxation and superannuation.
• Write a procedure for the maintenance of essential work records, in a specified recreation workplace, and in accordance with Quality Assurance Standard 9002.
• Explain different delegation techniques appropriate to a specified recreation workplace.
• Develop procedures to ensure different work tasks in a recreation workplace are performed in accordance with employer policy.
• Plan work programs, for different situations, including *delivery of a specified activity program *maintenance of a specified recreation facility.
• Develop a procedure to monitor work performance which satisfies the Quality Assurance Standard 9002.
• Develop criteria for evaluating team performance in different situations.
• Evaluate performance of a team, using criteria developed in 3.1.
• Analyse evaluation made of the performance of a work team.
• Develop recommendations for improvement of work team performance evaluation.
• Develop a summary for a work team training program, in response to specified recommendations which have been developed.
• Analyse staff needs in different recreation workplaces you visit, to determine areas where adjustments may be desirable for allocated manpower hours.
• Explain the purpose of job specifications, including control of work tasks.
• Develop strategies to locate potential employees, for different specified situations in the recreation industry, detailing those strategies.
• Write copy for specified job advertisements, including *a classified of thirty five words *a small display advertisement.
• List criteria for staff selection, in a specified situation.
• Plan a standard job interview, in accordance with a given job specification, to run for twenty minutes.
• Explain initiation procedures for a new member of staff, in accordance with a given job specification and specified situation.
• Define "probation period" in a specific workplace.
• Compare the legal implications of recruiting new staff in accordance with different specified procedures.
• Explain differences in staff recruitment processes in different large organisations.
• Explain different methods of assessing work productivity.
• Design an Employee Performance Appraisal Form for a specified situation in the recreation industry.
• List difficulties in using employee appraisal forms.
• Evaluate the performance of different employees, in different recreation workplaces, using staff appraisal forms.
• Develop a list of procedures to review changes, in the skills of an employee.
• Explain career advancement opportunities for staff in different recreation workplaces you investigate.
• Explain career paths for different different specified recreation industry jobs using illustrations.
• Explain the purpose of staff meetings in a specified recreation organisation.
• Explain the effectiveness of communication systems between staff and management in different, specific, recreation organisations.
• Write an organisational procedure, to provide management with feedback from employees on any work related issues.
• Explain different techniques of conflict resolution, appropriate to a specified problem in the workplace.
• List guidelines for maintaining morale in a workplace.
• Explain different types of grievance, in a specific workplace.
• Explain the role of an employee or union representative in dealing with a grievance.
• Explain the role of a supervisor in dealing with a grievance in a specific case study.
• List guidelines to follow when dealing with a grievance.
• Develop a formal procedure for dealing with grievances in a specified workplace situation.

The staffing function of Human Resource Management can be divided into five different activities: 

Recruitment is the development of a pool of applicants for a job. This can occur internally or externally. Internal recruitment will come from employees already working in the organisation. The advantage is the understanding they already have of the facility and the opportunity to move upward within the organisation may encourage staff to remain with the company, work hard and succeed.

A disadvantage of internal recruitment is lack of skills or talent within existing employees creating a limited applicant pool leading to poor selection decisions.

External recruitment brings in new blood to the organisation which can inspire innovation. The most frequently used source of outside applicants is newspaper advertisements, employee referrals and college campus recruiting. It is becoming more popular for organisations to utilise electronic media such as the Internet both to advertise job openings and to gather applicant information.

Selection of staff can occur through interviews being the most popular ways. Questions asked by the interviewee have to be appropriate and job related. During an unstructured interview different questions are asked of the interviewees and follow up questions can also be asked to find out more about the candidates.

In a structured interview the same interview is conducted to each applicant. Reference checks, personality tests, biological/physiological tests, medical checks, performance and integrity tests can all be conducted.

During interviews there are types of questions in which can and cannot be asked, the following list provides you with a guide to asking questions without being discriminatory.

Appropriateness of questions does vary from place to place; and questions that may be acceptable in one place might not be acceptable elsewhere; either culturally or legally (or both).

As a General Rule….

You may be permitted to ask the following:

You might not be permitted to ask the following:

Out Sourcing

This involves engaging people who are not regular employees of the organisation, to take on some of the tasks which employees might have otherwise done. Outsourcing can be an excellent solution for extraordinary situations, to relieve pressure upon the regular staff. A good example would be during an event when a security company and a catering company might be engaged. This removes a couple of areas of concern for regular staff, allowing them to devote extra attention to other areas where their normal workload may have increased.

Out Placing

Finally, out placing is a process where organisations assist employees who have been dismissed gain employment with another company. People often get fired for poor performance or other reasons. Some employers may feel it appropriate to help them achieve new work somewhere else.