RECREATION MANAGEMENT ONLINE STUDY
This course develops an understanding of important human resources such as developing a team approach, team performance, evaluating staff, workplace scheduling, recruiting and communication.
Lesson Structure
There are 8 lessons in this course:
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Work Schedules
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Work Teams
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Workplace Efficiency
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Recruitment
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Staff Performance
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Workplace Communications
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Staff Grievances
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Developing a Staff Manual
What You Will Do
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Prepare a work schedule, in accordance with a given job specification.
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List items of information which legally must be maintained in staff records.
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Explain different methods of maintaining work records.
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Calculate pay for a specified case study, including deductions for taxation and superannuation.
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Write a procedure for the maintenance of essential work records, in a specified recreation workplace, and in accordance with Quality Assurance Standard 9002.
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Explain different delegation techniques appropriate to a specified recreation workplace.
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Develop procedures to ensure different work tasks in a recreation workplace are performed in accordance with employer policy.
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Plan work programs, for different situations, including
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delivery of a specified activity program
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maintenance of a specified recreation facility.
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Develop a procedure to monitor work performance which satisfies the Quality Assurance Standard 9002.
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Develop criteria for evaluating team performance in different situations.
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Evaluate performance of a team, using criteria.
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Analyse evaluation made of the performance of a work team.
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Develop recommendations for improvement of work team performance evaluation.
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Develop a summary for a work team training program, in response to specified recommendations which have been developed.
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Analyse staff needs in different recreation workplaces you visit, to determine areas where adjustments may be desirable for allocated manpower hours.
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Explain the purpose of job specifications, including control of work tasks.
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Develop strategies to locate potential employees, for different specified situations in the recreation industry, detailing those strategies.
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Write copy for specified job advertisements, including
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a classified of thirty five words
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a small display advertisement.
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List criteria for staff selection, in a specified situation.
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Plan a standard job interview, in accordance with a given job specification, to run for twenty minutes.
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Explain initiation procedures for a new member of staff, in accordance with a given job specification and specified situation.
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Define "probation period" in a specific workplace.
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Compare the legal implications of recruiting new staff in accordance with different specified procedures.
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Explain differences in staff recruitment processes in different large organisations.
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Explain different methods of assessing work productivity.
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Design an Employee Performance Appraisal Form for a specified situation in the recreation industry.
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List difficulties in using employee appraisal forms.
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Evaluate the performance of different employees, in different recreation workplaces, using staff appraisal forms.
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Develop a list of procedures to review changes, in the skills of an employee.
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Explain career advancement opportunities for staff in different recreation workplaces you investigate.
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Explain career paths for different different specified recreation industry jobs using illustrations.
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Explain the purpose of staff meetings in a specified recreation organisation.
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Explain the effectiveness of communication systems between staff and management in different, specific, recreation organisations.
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Write an organisational procedure, to provide management with feedback from employees on any work related issues.
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Explain different techniques of conflict resolution, appropriate to a specified problem in the workplace.
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List guidelines for maintaining morale in a workplace.
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Explain different types of grievance, in a specific workplace.
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Explain the role of an employee or union representative in dealing with a grievance.
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Explain the role of a supervisor in dealing with a grievance in a specific case study.
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List guidelines to follow when dealing with a grievance.
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Develop a formal procedure for dealing with grievances in a specified workplace situation.
Employee Problems
Individual employee problems arise periodically in any workplace relating to a range of concerns, for instance:
- Emotional concerns
- Lifestyle issues
- Marital or relationship problems
- Job changes
- Job satisfaction
- Arranging training
- Matching skills to roles
Problems may also relate to organisational issues such as:
- Problems in the physical working environment
- Adaptation to change
- Motivation and incentive systems
- Poor productivity and staff motivation
Dealing with Employee Problems
The first step in dealing with any employee issue is to detect and understand the issue. Managers and supervisors sometimes overlook or misinterpret problems; and as a consequence, they remain a problem.
A certain level of sensitivity combined with good management practices, can reduce these risks.
Examples of Management Techniques include:
Interviews - managers may interviews an employee and asks a series of questions. Interviews may be structured or unstructured. Unstructured interviews are very open and the employee is offered little guidance. This type of interview makes it difficult to compare results between employees because there is often little overlap. They are considered most useful for gathering data from newer employees.
Structured interviews may use either open or closed questions. Where open questions are used, these are asked to guide the course of the interview but the employee is free to respond as they choose. Where closed questions are used these are designed to pose specific questions and provide specific answers which are determined beforehand. The questions must be concise and easy to interpret.
Typical duration for an interview may be in the region of one hour. The information obtained from unstructured interviews is subjective in nature and so cannot easily be generalised, though it may be useful when considered in conjunction with other forms of data.
The focus of any interview should be narrow in scope so that information pertains to a specific research topic. It should reveal whether there are sufficient questions to gain useful insight into employee attitudes and opinions. Interviews do take up considerable time, and are also prone to some degree of interviewer bias as well as self-report biases on account of the employee.
Critical Incident Interviews
These may be conducted to gather information on a particular incident that needs to be dealt with. They may be based on the critical incident technique (Flanagan, 1954) who described a set of procedures for collecting direct observations of human behaviour in order to facilitate their usefulness in solving practical problems and developing a set of psychological principles which could be applied elsewhere.
Observations are made of multiple people performing an activity. By recording these observations using carefully defined criteria, predictions can be made about different individuals who perform the same activity. In the workplace activities are situations which could have a good or bad outcome. The participants are asked what could have been done differently to change the outcome. In conjunction with the observations, this information can be used to help improve performance. It can also be used to reduce employee stress in some activities and work roles
Focus groups
These are an important means of research to measure staff satisfaction within large organisations, and many occupational psychologists acting on behalf of large-scale companies use them. They are often co-ordinated by two individuals, in a duel-moderator format, both of whom may be occupational psychologists. One collects data whilst the other acts as a moderator. The moderator runs through a series of planned questions and discussion topics. Some questions may be closed to gain specific answers, but usually they are open so as to encourage free thinking and open discussions. Sometimes other techniques from psychology may be used like projective techniques (which encourage free association of thoughts), or role plays. The idea is to gain insights into employee behaviour and attitudes towards work conditions, job roles and work satisfaction. A typical group comprises between six and twelve individuals and sessions last between one and three hours.
The moderator has to have a good rapport with the employees and gain their trust in order for free discussions to be encouraged. They should also not act as a leader as such by taking control of the group, but they should provide the topics for discussion and leave the group to discuss them at their own discretion. There is also some skill involved in choosing discussion topics and collecting data if it is to be useful for later statistical analysis. When it comes to the analysis, the contents of the discussion have to be coded so that particular words, phrases or facial expressions are placed into predetermined categories. This then allows for numerical values to be attributed to them and statistical tests to be used.
Focus groups are particularly useful when companies are fishing for reactions to new or proposed ideas which have not yet got past the exploratory phase. Focus groups are a cost-effective way for companies to garner useful research. Within organisations some employee participants may be disruptive to groups by trying to impose their own agenda and it may be necessary to screen participants before including them. It may take several sessions with each focus group to gain useful insights. Like interviews, there can be some self-report bias from participants as well as interpretation and recording bias from the researchers.
Why Study this Course?
This course provides a unique opportunity for upgrading your Human Resources skills, within the context of the leisure industry. It is a valuable professional development course for anyone already working as a manager in the leisure industry; and a great opportunity for others to improve their skills, career and business prospects.
