How Important IS HR in Your Club
Many of us came up in the business before the advent of a full-time Human Resources (HR) function in our clubs. HR for us was an accounting function generally handled grudgingly by the controller or accounts payable clerk. Why? Because accountants can be relied upon to cross T’s and dot I’s. And lord knows, we need to cross every T and dot every I when we are dealing with HR!
As an old-school club manager my priorities regarding the three-legged stool of club management were Members, Facilities and Staff, in just that order. My members were primary and everything else was a distant second. This was back in the day when the club world was viewed through the prism of the golf professional so facility management, except the golf course, was routine and staff was a necessary evil. This underscores everything you need to know about our feelings towards HR. Managing the staff was the sole responsibility of the manager and HR was about insurance and unemployment.
And then the world changed! The love of golf waned and Dad’s Saturday morning round gave way to Saturday kids’ activities. With more and more women working full-time, ladies day golf and bridge was only sufficient for the “older” ladies. And with the next generation of members scrutinizing the value proposition of club membership, clubs were forced to respond with huge programming changes to meet the needs of All family members or parish. With these new priorities the need for well-trained, engaged, qualified staff increased, exponentially. Add to this the mere challenges of finding sufficient warm bodies to support these staffing demands and the need for real HR in clubs has never been more apparent than it is today!
Amazingly, in spite of the sea change that has taken place in demands placed upon club staffing, I still find clubs treating HR as an accounting function. Bolstered by the ever increasing volume of compliance issues which suggest the need to cross more T’s and dot more I’s, many managers are not seeing the forest for the trees. But HR as an accounting function brings nothing to the staff development party. HR as a true human resource, to assist in recruiting, on-boarding, identifying and implementing staff development IS the party! In fact, one could argue that's the only job of HR.
An excerpt from an article by HR SVP Liz Ryan in Forbes magazine sums it up:
“The clerical and administrative stuff is inconsequential. If your organization is still treating HR like a compliance function, you're missing the power that is available to you when you hire human beings to work on your team. You're missing the forest for the trees. An HR function without a beating human heart is worse than unnecessary. It's a drag on your ability to do whatever you're trying to do. You need an HR function, and you need people in it who are out with the employees listening and building community.”
So to answer the question; “How important is HR in your club?” the answer depends on what kind of club you want to run. If you are solely in the dues business and you’re hoping the club will be around long enough to make it to retirement, HR is an accounting function and you may or may not make it. But clubs that are relevant now and will be for years to come treat HR as the most important resource in their tool box. Those managers understand that staffing clubs for today's and tomorrows members, is going to require execution by a well-trained, fully-engaged staff. A demand that is difficult, perhaps impossible, to fulfill without the assistance of a full-time HR professional.
The demands of our members will continue to evolve. As we gain an understanding of the millennial member we expect to continue towards more personalized service placing even greater emphasis on our staffing resources. That third leg on my management stool, the one with staff development written on it, has become the most important leg we manage and good HR support will be key to our success.
As an old-school club manager my priorities regarding the three-legged stool of club management were Members, Facilities and Staff, in just that order. My members were primary and everything else was a distant second. This was back in the day when the club world was viewed through the prism of the golf professional so facility management, except the golf course, was routine and staff was a necessary evil. This underscores everything you need to know about our feelings towards HR. Managing the staff was the sole responsibility of the manager and HR was about insurance and unemployment.
And then the world changed! The love of golf waned and Dad’s Saturday morning round gave way to Saturday kids’ activities. With more and more women working full-time, ladies day golf and bridge was only sufficient for the “older” ladies. And with the next generation of members scrutinizing the value proposition of club membership, clubs were forced to respond with huge programming changes to meet the needs of All family members or parish. With these new priorities the need for well-trained, engaged, qualified staff increased, exponentially. Add to this the mere challenges of finding sufficient warm bodies to support these staffing demands and the need for real HR in clubs has never been more apparent than it is today!
Amazingly, in spite of the sea change that has taken place in demands placed upon club staffing, I still find clubs treating HR as an accounting function. Bolstered by the ever increasing volume of compliance issues which suggest the need to cross more T’s and dot more I’s, many managers are not seeing the forest for the trees. But HR as an accounting function brings nothing to the staff development party. HR as a true human resource, to assist in recruiting, on-boarding, identifying and implementing staff development IS the party! In fact, one could argue that's the only job of HR.
An excerpt from an article by HR SVP Liz Ryan in Forbes magazine sums it up:
“The clerical and administrative stuff is inconsequential. If your organization is still treating HR like a compliance function, you're missing the power that is available to you when you hire human beings to work on your team. You're missing the forest for the trees. An HR function without a beating human heart is worse than unnecessary. It's a drag on your ability to do whatever you're trying to do. You need an HR function, and you need people in it who are out with the employees listening and building community.”
So to answer the question; “How important is HR in your club?” the answer depends on what kind of club you want to run. If you are solely in the dues business and you’re hoping the club will be around long enough to make it to retirement, HR is an accounting function and you may or may not make it. But clubs that are relevant now and will be for years to come treat HR as the most important resource in their tool box. Those managers understand that staffing clubs for today's and tomorrows members, is going to require execution by a well-trained, fully-engaged staff. A demand that is difficult, perhaps impossible, to fulfill without the assistance of a full-time HR professional.
The demands of our members will continue to evolve. As we gain an understanding of the millennial member we expect to continue towards more personalized service placing even greater emphasis on our staffing resources. That third leg on my management stool, the one with staff development written on it, has become the most important leg we manage and good HR support will be key to our success.