Recprogram it Has Been Proposed

Recprogram

It has been proposed that the company establish a recreational program for participation by employees who wish to enjoy each other's companionship outside the regular work arena. In order to facilitate such a recreational program, it has also been suggested that the program be tied to an effort to ensure that the participating employees benefit from the program with improved health and fitness.

Establishing a program like the one being proposed has a lot of upside potential to it, but also provides for pitfalls if the administration is handled in a lackluster manner. The three areas to bear in mind regarding the implementation of this program are the business, organizational and technological aspects that all must be addressed before such a program bears fruit.

First the objective must be clearly stated. The objective here is to establish a program that will offer the opportunity for employees to track their own participation in a recreational program focused on fitness. In this case the objective can be accomplished by tracking the employee's initial status regarding their own specific health, as well as their individual improvement as they participate. Accomplishing this objective would demand a technology program be implemented that would assist in tracking the benefits of the program. The company would also have to discern the benefits for not just the employees but for the company too. One recent study showed that "Benefits accrue to the institution and wider academic community because the template suits a range of group assessment situations" (Freeman, McKenzie, 2002, p. 551).

Those assessment situations would provide information to the company that could help in various employee situations. Implementing this type of program brings about a number of questions from the business, organizational and technological aspects that would be necessary to accomplish this feat.

From a business standpoint a devil's advocate could ask "if developing a recreational sports program for the employee's will divert the attention of those employees away from their work" even while they are working and not recreating. A special emphasis therefore should be on the benefits of such a program, not only for the employees, who will benefit by being healthier, and presumably happier, but for management as well. Management will benefit by the higher level of camaraderie amongst the employees as well as a shared sense of commitment, loyalty and teamwork.

Another question could be; "what liabilities will be assumed by the company regarding participation in this type of athletic program?" This is a valid question because it concerns certain expenses to the company if the company has to pay for insurance to cover that liability. Along with the insurance expense can be expenses for uniforms, equipment and field or court space and time. The company will also be worried about any injuries that take place during participation. The cost of losing a valuable employee for any period of time due to injury can be a determent to establishing a recreational program such as the one being proposed.

A third question could be whether to pass those costs along to the employees. This can create bitterness amongst the employees unless those costs are reasonable, and there would still be some individuals that probably could not afford to pay. The company would have to look into a scholarship type program in order to facilitate the opportunity for all employees to participate who wish to.

Programs similar to the one being proposed have proven successful in certain situations, including with students and employees. One recent study developed a program with the acronym SPARK that might prove useful in using technology to assist in ensuring that the employees, and the company, are benefiting from the recreational program. "Self and Peer Assessment Resource Kit (SPARK), a web-based template which aims to improve learning from team assessment tasks and make the assessment fairer" (Freeman, McKenzie, 2002, p. 552). Integrating a web-based template, such as SPARK, into this type of recreational program creates a number of questions that would have to be addressed.

The first question is who would be responsible for defining the technology necessary to gain access to the program and how would the program be integrated into a recreational program. Someone will have to be responsible for discerning whether the SPARK program works better with Macintosh or PC hardware, and what application the program works best with. Another question would be the cost to maintain the program and to license use to more than one individual if the company decides to track employee participation and wellness program via the intranet.

The cost to allow this access by a wide variety of employees will also have to be considered. Another question would be if many of the employees all login to the same program at the same time, in order to enter their specific information, will that affect the LAN or internet access?

Finally, the company will have to address who is going to administer this program in all its many facets. The company may wish to address the problem of training someone in the administration of a recreational program as well as training individuals on the process of implementing the technological aspect of the program as well. A mixture of the two would probably be best in this case because it will allow for each trainee to know both aspects of the program, and will provide an understanding that will ensure that the individuals in charge of administering the program will be able to coordinate the various aspects of the program, whether those aspects are the physical factors of recreation, or the technological aspects of tracking those physical factors in a cohesive and understandable manner.