The Increasing Growth of Leisure - Essay Example

1. The increasing growth of leisure and sport industry has increased significantly in order to meet the demand s in different range of leisure activities. These are not the only industries that have come their way but also entertainment and recreation that have proven to be expanded through time. The increase of these industries benefited the labor force especially of the short term employees. Leisure industry are composed of companies that operate to facilitate services for the good of the customers who would want to relax and enjoy their leisure times in lieu of their vacation holidays. These are usually the amusement parks or theme parks such as Disneyland, casinos, Spas, entertainment and recreation, health clubs, restaurants and other activities that involve recreations (Leisure Industry Definition). The continuous influx of customers in leisure areas and the increasing growth of the industry in United Kingdom can be attributed to the following reasons: there has been increased time in the leisure time of the employees. They are required with lesser time in the office therefore increasing their time in leisure. Another reason is that employees have higher incomes thus they can pay for leisure activities from their extra money and spend to whatever leisure activities they want to engage with. Thirdly is the cheaper and more affordable transport. This makes the travel time lesser and going to more places during their holidays and vacations especially outside the city. And lastly, customers have the wider choice in leisure activities since the government is trying to put different leisure activities from all sectors (Leisure Industry Definition). The incessant growth benefited not only the companies but the government as well. The increasing demand meant increase in investment and revenues and employment industry. Alongside with the demanding nature of the leisure activities there had been increase in employment and job orders in the country. More and more job seekers prefer this kind of work because they get to be paid while enjoying what they wanted to do (Luque, 2002). This has lead also to increasing demand of courses and training in colleges. Based on the reports of the Institute of Sport and Leisure Management, The Institute of Sport and Recreation Management, The Fitness Industry Association and Sport England there are 1,000 students enrolled in leisure management or related courses that tackle this kind of industry. It was seen that the leisure industries involve a wide range of employees including permanent and seasonal paid staff, freelance workers, consultants and volunteers. It ranges from cook, hotel attendant, driver, tourist guide, sports analyst and trainer and among others who are connected to this leisure industry. As a result, there had been increase in the diversity of the labor force especially with this kind of industry. Since the employees come from different life experiences they construe things in different manners. This should be taken in action with the management team in order to guide the employees and make the company more competitive with other booming companies all over the world (Treven, 2000). Every person has the unique skills and capabilities as an individual. Working in a different environment with different people of different perspectives in life and dealing everyday with people of diverse culture can be stressing but this can be avoided if the management team of a particular company will address to this problem immediately. A skilled manager will be responsible in making a team work so that there will not be a difficulty in dealing with different types of persons in the workplace (Treven, 2004). The increasing competition of companies and influx of customers in a leisure industry developed strategies for managers to be highly competitive with others. One of the managers of UK's BT Global services said that there had been a slight decrease in the number of visitors and travelers in UK after the bombings but they had made their way to attract more customers when they decided to improve their technologies especially in providing customers with discount rates during their visits. Much more to serving the customers, the employer of this company invested in the training of its staff in order to best serve the customers and get the company growing despite of the outside forces that affected their business. Several companies have provided their employees with appropriate benefits that made them more committed to their work. A work habit is important in a company especially that this kind of work is more related to off season works. But once the employees are treated equally by the management they are more likely to stay in their jobs. Some strategies were suggested by Treven (2000) in her dissertation about managing employees with diverse personalities and attitudes. On her top of the list is the commitment of the top level management. They are the models who should be setting good example to their employees thus providing them with the vision on how they should work in this kind of environment. Second is the auditing and assessment of needs which is somehow used by some companies in the UK to better promote their industry and be competitive as they can. The company tries to give fair and equal treatment to their employees so that they will develop with themselves the fair and just working attitude. Thirdly is the clarity of objectives of the companies. This is popular in businesses that the objectives set and inter related with the overall goal of the company and its success. Fourth, is the accountability of the company with its objectives. Those who are responsible with each objective should be informed and related so that there will be readiness in carrying out the goals of the company. One industry on casino has seen this as one important issue in their establishment because setting clear goals and objectives made the company carry out its goal successfully thus gaining higher revenues and benefited also the employees involved. Fifth is the effective communication within and outside the company premises. This is one of the most common initiatives of the companies in improving their businesses and work ethics of the diverse staff. In a travel agency, this is highly regarded as important strategy of their company because they get to set the tone between the staff and the top level management especially in airing their issues and problems. This is to ensure that the company is not providing biased environment with their staff. One company can effectively implement a program or project if there is an effective communication among the staff involved in a diverse work environment and attitudes. Aside from the openness of the company there is an evaluation with the strategies conducted and employed by the company. It is a helpful tool in assessing the performance of the company's competitive advantage and the staff as well. Through this the program in each industry can be assessed and be provided with appropriate actions to further improve its competitiveness with other sectors and industries (Robbins, 1998). Addressing diverse and different types of personalities in a growing industry such as the leisure and sport industry can a difficult task but this openness to changes can an instrument in making a company successful and competitive with others. Involving an employee in setting goals and objectives can be the agent to change the fast growing industry. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the company to address the needs and interests of each and every employee who are working in these kinds of industry. Each and every individual has its differences but through these differences it can transform the goals and aspirations of the company. This may not be in an instant but it is a learning process which is beneficial not only for the employer, employees but also to the customers as well. 2. In going to the 21st century, the focus to improve the quality of leisure services continues. We are challenged to account for the use of organizational resources, to identify and define benefits, and to embrace newer, more cost-effective ways of delivering leisure services. Outsourcing has been found to be a particularly powerful management strategy that can help leisure services agencies use their resources more efficiently, increase their responsiveness and flexibility, and offer higher-quality services. Performance management is also needed to determine the sustainability of such industry in today's world. There is a great need for such open mindedness in the management of organizational resources. In industries as well as the leisure industry, change still predominates, but it has become discontinuous, more rapid, and unpredictable. Because of this the life cycles of many programs and services are quite short. (Jiang, 2000) Performance management is a continuous process utilised by institutions or companies that is used to (a) setting up performance expectations, (b) establish measurement criteria, (c) identify areas for competency improvement, (d) provide performance feedback, and (e) enhance further the performance. It provides managers and employees (a) methods in order to identify individual job performance objectives and discuss their alignment with the organizations objectives, (b) forum for ongoing communication in order to attain the objectives in core competency areas, (c) aid in the identification of areas for development, and (d) opportunities to team up to develop personal job performance development plan (Mellon, 2005). Basically the approaches to performance management fall into the following categories, goals based, skills and competency based, talent management based and performance reviews and 360 reviews (Bersin, 2006). The goal based is where the employees, managers and executives issue a system of goals cascade. Each individual employee has will have its own goal as well as each organization or department. By collating and aggregating each goal, the management will be able to identify problem employees and problem organization. The system will give the management an effective tool in making sure the people are aligned and measured accordingly based on performance. The performance reviews and plans focus are under these category. Focusing on the goal based category will only limit the capacity of each employee into what their individual goals are. Even if the goals they consider are in line with the organisation, such conditions are not enough to maximize the capabilities of each individual. This will not help in their growth within the industry. This will further make them incapable of multi tasking and narrow minded ness. On the other hand, goal based will enable the workers to solely focus their energy, effort and time towards a common goal. The Skills and Competency based is an approach where organizations establish certain requirements and skills for a job that prospective employees must measure up to before given the job. Employees are assessed and evaluated based on their competency in each skill required. The evaluation is usually done by their immediate superior, proficiency tests, and by their peers. The results of evaluation will then be used to determine which specific area an employee needs improvement and areas where the employee is proficient enough to be considered as a leader. Improvements are done by implementing trainings and refresher courses that will help the employees cope with the demands of his work. The employees will then be assessed regularly in order to determine the sustainability of the trainings and courses in terms of the skills and competency of each. The problem with this approach is that employers will not immediately know the skills and competency of the individual before he or she is hired. Actual performance is necessary in order to measure accurately the competency of the individual. Evaluation will not be available for a short time since at the start of employment the actual capacity of the employee will not be measured immediately. Several considerations such as new to the job, not familiar with the process or method and adjustment to the working environment are necessary before any critical evaluation will be done. Criteria for evaluation must also be established first in order to fairly evaluate each individual. Time, resources and effort of both the employers and employee will be used in this method. In theTalent Management Based, the organization uses rankingand rating system in order to identify the potential and the performance of an individual. The system is used to motivate employees to do well in their in order to be recognized as capable to handle next level positions. This process is used to motivate people and to identify key employees who are ready to take on higher levels of responsibility. The problem with this method is that this may create unhealthy competition between employees. Such incidents will then be detrimental to the success of the organisation. Unhealthy competition results to crab mentality and jealousy among employees. The Performance Reviews and 360 Reviews is usually the basis for performance management. It is used in most companies - and generally it relies upon the 3 techniques above. Organisations often add 360 reviews and 180 reviews to this process, regardless of whether they use goals, competencies, or talent management. Generally, performance reviews is the centre of the performance management cycle. It will help the management to see the overall performance of the employees in an organisation. Performance review is also necessary for the management to evaluate present plans and programs and to decide the future plans and programs of the organisation. The cycle then continuous in a spiral where adjustments and changes are implemented in order to catch up with the demands of each business. Apart from the categories mentioned above, other external factors are also considered in performance management. Government policies also play a major role in performance management. For the leisure industry, the state has definitely defined a 'voluntary sector' in leisure industry to integrate elements of voluntary activity into its overall response to perceived 'problems' in society. The nature of this response has evolved from a general concern with the 'problem' of leisure in an expanding economy to the need for policies to deal with the reappearance of an open crisis of the economy and the emergence of mass unemployment. The state has taken measures to dictate the direction of grant aid and support to particular parts of the voluntary sector, in accordance with the evolution of these concerns. But the nature of the state's response also heightens tensions within existing organizations, as well as between different levels of the state apparatus (Tomlison, 1987). The leisure industry also faces factors that are affected by the government incapability in the following areas, (a) declining economy that caused a decline in tourism, (b) cost cuttings by leisure companies due to taxes and other financial factors, (c) the trend of contractualisation of workers which helps agencies cut costs by avoiding paying benefits. In the leisure industry, performance management is also critical in order to sustain the business in the world of business. Factors that determine the success of such business are increasing competition, customers' expectations, funding arrangements and the changing social trends. There is a grey line that exists within the services of the public, private and voluntary sectors. Commercial providers invest in and manage public sector facilities; the public sector offers high quality health and fitness opportunities, which have traditionally been offered by the commercial sector, while the voluntary and commercial sectors are beginning to establish partnerships primarily for the benefit of customers of commercial facilities (Robinson, 2004). References Bright, A.D. 2000," The Role of Social Marketing in Leisure and Recreation Management". Journal of Leisure Research January 1, 2000. Bersin, J. 2006. "The Convergence of Learning and Performance Management" http://www.bersin.com/tips_techniques/oct_04_perf_mgt.asp, April 17, 2006 Edginton, C.R., 1997."Managing leisure services: a new ecology of leadership toward the year 2000". JOPERD--The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance October 1, 1997. Gilbert, E. 1992. 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Pdf Treven, S. 2004. "Human resource management on a global basis". In: The Information Technology & Global Business Research Conference, March 10-13, 2004, Cancun, Mexico. Research Forum: Technology & Business Forum, Volume 1, Number 1. Read More