The suc­cess of any strate­gic plan de­pends up­on an or­gan­i­sa­tion's hu­man re­source ca­pac­i­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to Tay­lor, Do­her­ty, and Mc­Graw (2008), "at­tract­ing, de­vel­op­ing, and re­tain­ing tal­ent­ed peo­ple can pro­vide a sports or­gan­i­sa­tion with the re­sources it needs to pros­per, grow, and ul­ti­mate­ly gain a com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage."

At­tract­ing the right peo­ple in­to an or­gan­i­sa­tion al­lows for es­tab­lish­ing a com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage. It re­quires cre­at­ing a pool of per­son­nel who of­fer tech­ni­cal, team, and lead­er­ship skills, al­low­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion to de­vel­op and achieve its strate­gic ob­jec­tives and goals. The right or­gan­i­sa­tion­al per­son­nel pro­vide a foun­da­tion for high­er ef­fi­cien­cy, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and morale. "Such 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, 2008).

Or­gan­i­sa­tions that may not be able to hire full-time per­son­nel can be cre­ative by form­ing a work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive re­la­tion­ship with UWI and/or UTT. These in­sti­tu­tions are cur­rent­ly build­ing their sport­ing pro­gram ca­pac­i­ty. They can en­gage their sports man­age­ment and sci­ence stu­dents in in­tern­ships at sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions to gain first-hand ex­pe­ri­ence and com­ple­ment their the­o­ret­i­cal learn­ing and knowl­edge. On the oth­er hand, sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions will ben­e­fit from the in­tern's cut­ting-edge ex­per­tise and tech­ni­cal skills. Ul­ti­mate­ly, the col­lab­o­ra­tion will pro­vide a plat­form for rec­i­p­ro­cal ben­e­fits to all stake­hold­ers.

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. 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 re­gard­ing the use of tech­nol­o­gy.

Train­ing and de­vel­op­ment are es­sen­tial to hu­man re­source ca­pac­i­ty in any sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion. Train­ing and de­vel­op­ment al­low per­son­nel to de­vel­op and hone key tech­ni­cal skills that will con­tribute to their growth and self-es­teem, which can al­so ben­e­fit the or­gan­i­sa­tion re­gard­ing suc­ces­sion plan­ning. Suc­ces­sion plan­ning is a de­ci­sive fea­ture of the sur­vival and con­tin­u­ance of any or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Or­gan­i­sa­tions, es­pe­cial­ly those built around 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, im­pact­ing oth­er ar­eas such as fund­ing. There­fore, de­vel­op­ing an or­gan­i­sa­tion­al cul­ture through suc­ces­sion plan­ning is im­per­a­tive for con­tin­ued ex­is­tence and suc­cess.

The im­por­tance of staff pro­fes­sion­al­ism can­not be over­stat­ed. Un­pro­fes­sion­al staff can se­vere­ly im­pact the qual­i­ty of cus­tomer ser­vice in sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions, lead­ing to client dis­sat­is­fac­tion, loss of busi­ness, and rep­u­ta­tion­al dam­age. Poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion, lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty, and neg­a­tive at­ti­tudes from staff mem­bers can frus­trate clients, whether they are ath­letes, fans, spon­sors, or event at­ten­dees.

For ex­am­ple, in 2018, a ma­jor com­plaint against the Mi­a­mi Open ten­nis tour­na­ment in­volved poor event or­gan­i­sa­tion, un­help­ful staff, and a lack of clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion, re­sult­ing in neg­a­tive re­views and calls for im­prove­ments (Pan­ja, 2018). In con­trast, pro­fes­sion­al and well-trained staff con­tribute to pos­i­tive cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ences, en­sur­ing client loy­al­ty and long-term suc­cess.

In­con­sis­tent or in­ad­e­quate ser­vice de­liv­ery can lead to op­er­a­tional in­ef­fi­cien­cies and fi­nan­cial loss­es. The or­gan­i­sa­tion's rep­u­ta­tion and prof­itabil­i­ty can be dam­aged if staff mem­bers fail to pro­vide time­ly re­spons­es, mis­han­dle tick­et­ing is­sues, or are un­pre­pared for ma­jor sport­ing events. Theodor­akis et al. (2019) high­light that sports' cus­tomer ser­vice qual­i­ty sig­nif­i­cant­ly af­fects fan sat­is­fac­tion and will­ing­ness to re­turn. A well-doc­u­ment­ed ex­am­ple is the chaos dur­ing the 2022 UE­FA Cham­pi­ons League fi­nal in Paris, where poor crowd man­age­ment and un­pro­fes­sion­al se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices led to safe­ty con­cerns and le­gal com­plaints against UE­FA (BBC Sport, 2022). Such in­ci­dents demon­strate how un­pro­fes­sion­al be­hav­iour di­rect­ly im­pacts client ex­pe­ri­ence and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al cred­i­bil­i­ty.

More­over, un­pro­fes­sion­al­ism in cus­tomer ser­vice can af­fect cor­po­rate part­ner­ships and spon­sor­ship agree­ments. Sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions re­ly on strong re­la­tion­ships with spon­sors and stake­hold­ers. If staff mem­bers fail to main­tain pro­fes­sion­al­ism in ne­go­ti­a­tions, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, or event man­age­ment, it can re­sult in lost busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties. This un­der­scores the im­por­tance of pro­fes­sion­al­ism in main­tain­ing strong busi­ness re­la­tion­ships and en­sur­ing the long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty of a sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion. In­vest­ing in staff train­ing, en­forc­ing eth­i­cal stan­dards, and fos­ter­ing a cus­tomer-fo­cused cul­ture can help or­gan­i­sa­tions avoid such pit­falls and en­hance ser­vice de­liv­ery.

The im­pact of un­pro­fes­sion­al­ism al­so ex­tends to team dy­nam­ics and ath­lete de­vel­op­ment. Coach­es or ad­min­is­tra­tors who lack pro­fes­sion­al­ism—such as fail­ing to com­mu­ni­cate ef­fec­tive­ly, dis­play­ing favouritism, or en­gag­ing in mis­con­duct—can cre­ate a tox­ic en­vi­ron­ment that af­fects ath­lete morale and per­for­mance. Hodge et al. (2014) sug­gest that neg­a­tive coach­ing be­hav­iours, in­clud­ing ver­bal abuse and lack of em­pa­thy, can de­crease ath­lete mo­ti­va­tion and in­crease dropout rates. An ex­am­ple is the 2021 scan­dal in the Na­tion­al Women's Soc­cer League (NWSL), where re­ports of abuse by coach­ing staff led to play­er protests and forced pol­i­cy changes (Goff, 2021). Such is­sues high­light how un­pro­fes­sion­al­ism at the staff lev­el can dis­rupt ath­lete well-be­ing and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty.

More­over, un­pro­fes­sion­al ad­min­is­tra­tion can lead to reg­u­la­to­ry vi­o­la­tions, spon­sor­ship with­drawals, and di­min­ished fan en­gage­ment, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for or­gan­i­sa­tions to sus­tain them­selves in a com­pet­i­tive in­dus­try. By pri­ori­tis­ing pro­fes­sion­al­ism, eth­i­cal lead­er­ship, and staff de­vel­op­ment, sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions can pro­tect their rep­u­ta­tion, en­sure fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty, and fos­ter a pos­i­tive sport­ing cul­ture.

There­fore, "how well sports or­gan­i­sa­tions cope with fu­ture chal­lenges (tal­ent de­vel­op­ment, fund­ing, in­creas­ing mem­ber­ship, etc.) 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,2008).