One crit­i­cal fac­tor for the suc­cess of any strate­gic plan is an or­gan­i­sa­tion’s hu­man re­source ca­pac­i­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to Tay­lor, Do­her­ty, and Mc­Graw (2015), “at­tract­ing, de­vel­op­ing, and re­tain­ing tal­ent­ed peo­ple can pro­vide a sports or­gan­i­sa­tion with the re­sources it needs to pros­per, grow, and ul­ti­mate­ly gain com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage.”

At­tract­ing the right peo­ple in­to an or­gan­i­sa­tion al­lows for es­tab­lish­ing a com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage. This re­quires cre­at­ing a pool of per­son­nel who of­fer a mix of tech­ni­cal, team, and lead­er­ship skills, al­low­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion to de­vel­op and achieve its strate­gic ob­jec­tives and goals (Chel­ladu­rai, 2006). The right or­gan­i­sa­tion­al per­son­nel pro­vide a foun­da­tion for high­er ef­fi­cien­cy, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and morale (Agui­nis, 2013). “(These) peo­ple are like­ly to be mo­ti­vat­ed to give their best and will de­liv­er the flex­i­bil­i­ty and com­mit­ment that most sports or­gan­i­sa­tions seek” (Tay­lor, Do­her­ty, and Mc­Graw, 2015).

Or­gan­i­sa­tions need­ing more time to hire full-time per­son­nel can es­tab­lish col­lab­o­ra­tive work­ing re­la­tion­ships with UWI (Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies) and UTT (Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T). These in­sti­tu­tions are cur­rent­ly build­ing their sport­ing pro­gramme ca­pac­i­ty and can fa­cil­i­tate their sports man­age­ment and sci­ence stu­dents tak­ing in­tern­ships at sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions to gain first-hand ex­pe­ri­ence to com­ple­ment their the­o­ret­i­cal knowl­edge. On the oth­er hand, sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions stand to ben­e­fit from the in­tern’s in­no­v­a­tive ex­per­tise and tech­ni­cal skills.

In any or­gan­i­sa­tion, re­tain­ing per­son­nel–ath­letes, ad­min­is­tra­tors, coach­es, oth­er tech­ni­cal staff, and vol­un­teers–is crit­i­cal to its sur­vival and con­ti­nu­ity. Cre­at­ing a pos­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment with high lev­els of mo­ti­va­tion and ap­pro­pri­ate re­wards and recog­ni­tion sys­tems is cru­cial to main­tain­ing high re­ten­tion lev­els (Kahn, 1990).

There­fore, ad­min­is­tra­tors must un­der­stand what makes a mo­ti­vat­ed, com­mit­ted, and sat­is­fied mem­ber­ship. Ad­min­is­tra­tors must tap in­to their lead­er­ship re­sources to find ways to keep their mem­ber­ship–es­pe­cial­ly ath­letes and sup­port staff–in­ter­est­ed. This pe­ri­od pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for think­ing out­side the box and us­ing tech­nol­o­gy.

Train­ing and de­vel­op­ment are es­sen­tial for a suit­able hu­man re­source ca­pac­i­ty in any sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion. They al­low per­son­nel to learn and/or up­skill their ca­pa­bil­i­ties. By ex­ten­sion, sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions ben­e­fit from util­is­ing their staff’s in­no­v­a­tive strate­gic and suc­ces­sion plan­ning knowl­edge. Strate­gic and suc­ces­sion plan­ning are de­ci­sive fea­tures for the con­ti­nu­ity and growth of any or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Or­gan­i­sa­tions, es­pe­cial­ly those that re­ly heav­i­ly on one or two per­sons, may ex­pe­ri­ence se­vere chal­lenges when they are no longer in­volved. These chal­lenges may re­sult in an ex­o­dus of ath­letes and tech­ni­cal mem­bers, af­fect­ing oth­er ar­eas, such as fund­ing. Hence, de­vel­op­ing an or­gan­i­sa­tion­al cul­ture through strate­gic and suc­ces­sion plan­ning is im­per­a­tive for con­tin­ued ex­is­tence and suc­cess.

There­fore, “how well sports or­gan­i­sa­tions cope with fu­ture chal­lenges fac­ing them will de­pend to a large de­gree on how well they can man­age peo­ple to suc­ceed in new ways of work­ing and how suc­cess­ful they are at ne­go­ti­at­ing as­so­ci­at­ed changes” (Tay­lor, Do­her­ty, and Mc­Graw,2015).