Don Dobson | Secondments – game changer for local sports organisations

Calls for local sports organisations to become more professional and business-like are usually made with little to no reference to the paid, dedicated human resources required to support such endeavours.

This is one of the reasons why last year’s appointment of Owen Hill, as CEO of Professional Football Jamaica Limited, is a welcome development not only for the Jamaica Premier League (JPL), but local sports generally. It signals an appreciation for human capital (non-playing) as a pillar of sports development and acknowledges the importance of alignment between a sports organisation’s human-resource capabilities and its business strategy and goals. Hill was seconded by JN Money Services as part of its $10 million sponsorship of the JPL.

If they have not already done so, other sports organisations should seriously explore secondments – temporary assignment of an employee to another organisation – which allow them to integrate employees of their sponsors and or partners into their operations. Considering the financial challenges that many local sports organisations face – which may limit their ability to engage paid staff – secondments might be a viable way to strengthen their human resources.

Seven of 12 Jamaica Olympic Association member federations that participated in a 2021 study on sports governance – Good Governance in National Governing Bodies of Sport in Jamaica: An Analysis of the Jamaica Olympic Association’s Member Federations - reported having zero paid administrative/management staff while the other five organisations reported between one to five paid administrative/management staff [unpublished dissertation].

PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP

These and other sports organisations or an umbrella organisation such as the Jamaica Olympic Association should approach the Government of Jamaica (GOJ) and the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) with a well-thought-out proposal requesting assistance with the recruitment or employment of paid administrative and management staff by way of secondment. Importantly, such a proposal must include a package of benefits to incentivise participation, which may or may not be driven by a mix of social responsibility and enlightened self-interest.

SECONDMENT INITIATIVE

The ’Secondment Initiative’ could start as a pilot involving, for instance, five sports organisations which would each benefit from the provision of four paid, full-time employees for an initial period of two years, courtesy of the GOJ in partnership with the PSOJ.

These professionals would carry out tasks across a range of disciplines including finance, business-strategy development, communications and marketing, sponsorship sales, market research, customer relationship management, analytics, and project management. Of course, measures would have to be put in place to protect the rights, interests, and welfare of the participants.

This infusion of talent could act as a catalyst for increasing professionalism, improved management practices, and improved organisational performance across what researcher Roger Pielke Jr refers to as the 3Ms: money (growing revenues); membership (growing the number of people who are members of the National Governing Body or the numbers participating in the sport); and medals (on-the-field success). At the end of the two-year period, the Secondment Initiative would be evaluated to document successes and/or failures and determine appropriate next steps.

NOT WITHOUT PRECEDENT

Interventions of this nature are not without precedent in the world of sports. In England, the official legal advisers to the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, Gowling WLG, seconded several members staff to the Games’ Organising Committee to gain valuable experience and insight while helping the committee to oversee a successful and memorable games. This saw a senior construction paralegal being assigned to the legacy integration team, where she served as project assistant to the chairman of the organising committee, and an intellectual property lawyer took on the role of brand-protection manager for nine months. These were two of several roles performed by Gowling WLG staff.

Another example is France, where the government seconded 1,700 civil servants to work with national governing bodies of sport to promote their activities and strengthen organisational performance. This amounted to an indirect subsidy of 75 million euros and reflected the high regard in which sport is held as well as its importance to the French economy.

Sport is no less important to Jamaica. In 2006-2007, for instance, sports contributed more than “two per cent of our GDP and two per cent of jobs and was also ranked among the highest in terms of payback to the country for every dollar of foreign exchange spent on capital investment” ( National Sports Policy – 2011 Green Paper). Additionally, the success of the nation’s sportsmen and women is a source for building national pride and serves as a unifying force that lends support to social cohesion.

Given the importance of sports to Jamaica, and personnel to the effective management of sports organisations, targeted interventions that can connect these organisations to critical human resources should be encouraged and explored. The continuation of Jamaica’s standing as a beacon of sporting excellence rests not only on the natural talent of its athletes, but also the knowledge, skills, and expertise of the executives and managers who work at all levels of the sports ecosystem.

Don Dobson is a Chevening Scholar and a member of the Board of the Sports Council for Glasgow, Scotland. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com