A Qualitative Report of Sport Facilities Management
Wondemagnegn A1, Zemikael G2
Sports Science faculty, Hawassa University
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PAPER INFO ABSTRACT |
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Received: 14th December 2022 Revised: 17th December 2022 Approved: 20th December 2022 |
Background: Facility management is the process of planning, administering, coordinating and evaluating the day-to-day operation of facilities, the technological dimension as applied in sports facility management is used in enhancing the value of facilities and acting as a foundation for smooth operation or processes that define smooth interactions between people and places. Aim:. This study aims to assess the state of management of Tirunesh Dibaba and director of facilities management for the South Youth and Sports Office and facilities and to compare the practices of two different venue facility management positions. Method: This study used qualitative data with in-depth semi-structured interviews with sports facility managers and a purposive sampling approach was used to select sports facility managers. Findings: The results of the study showed that the FM had come a long way to establish itself as a new business opportunity, especially with technological advances, international competition, and tight budget controls every organization wants to concentrate only on core business activities, this gives an opportunity for FM business to grow rapidly. It also requires seasoned professionals with technical and soft skills coupled with the right attitude to make business areas more user-friendly and liked by premise occupants |
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KEYWORDS |
Expenditure, Lifestyle, Self Control, and Consumptive Behavior |
INTRODUCTION
Facility management is process of planning, administering, coordinating, and evaluating the day to day operations of a facility (Parks, Quarterman, and Thibault 2007). These duties encompass a wide array of responsibilities, including marketing the facility, promoting facility events, facility maintenance, and hiring and firing facility personal. Most sport facilities are managed by a personal manager or personal director. Directors are ultimately responsible for facility planning and administration. Often the director is appointed or hired by the city, so many of his or her duties will be political in nature. An additional duty will be negotiating major contract pertaining to the facility, sometimes including events being scheduled in thefacility.
Some studies have related the level of population physical activity with the sports facility location, indicating that places closer to the physical and sports facilities have a more active population (Zasimova 2020). The sports facilities development and optimization of their use have been one of the main objectives of sports organizations in order to reach the goals concerning the sport, in particular the one of increasing the access contemplating the practices diversity.
Sport facility operations seek to maintain and care for public, private, and non-profit facilities used for sport, recreation, and leisure to ensure safe and secure production and distribution of products and services to users and ensure their satisfaction and utility (Schwarz, Hall, and Shibli 2015). The operations are either under the government or the sports authorities which have no interference from the government and have more resources to enhance the management activities (Megheirkouni 2017). The manager responsible for the operations has a duty to oversee other members of the management team including marketing, facility planning, customer service, maintenance services, operations, and sales (Schwarz et al. 2015). The dimension of technology as applied in sports facilities management is used in enhancing value of facilities and acts as a surface for smooth operations or processes that account for a smooth interaction of people andplace.
The facility management (FM) as an industry has emerged as one of the fastest growing sectors over the years. However, the scope and identity of FM are still unclear as evidenced by the definitions and issues that attempt to describe its scope. In fact, FM is the multi- disciplinary kind of work that covers a wide range of various activities, responsibilities, and knowledge. What is more interesting, every aspect of an organization seems to be drawn into FM.
If the building is said to be one of the important things in real estate, facilities management is part of the management of the building that needs to be emphasized by the management body. One of the facilities management objectives is to reduce maintenance costs while maintaining quality or the quality of facilities provided (Alegre et al. 2016).
Management of sports infrastructure refers to management of sports facilities which are areas with sports functionality where people gather for physical exercise, participate in athletic competitions, or watching sporting events (Higham and Hinch 2018). In other words, sports facilities involve individual buildings or groups of structures designed for exercising, sports training and practice, and competition in various sports. There are a number of sports facilities that are deemed to be involved including stadium, arena, gymnasium, rinks, outdoor fields, pools and supporting facilities. This research specifically addresses stadia management where as stadia is the plurality word that refers to more than one stadium. According to Webster’s dictionary stadia is defined as “a large usually unroofed building with tiers of seats for spectators at sports events”. Stadium is literally described as home of sports (Megheirkouni 2017) which basically means the built environment including sportsfacilities.
The emergence of contemporary form of sports facilities is conditioned by their purpose and increased interest of the public, while architectural forms drop regional attributes and types, gaining universal shape. Sports facilities become a reflection of unique culture and technology of construction, and they are often observed separately from the building type of their environment by creating unique units, Olympic villages, sports-entertainment complexes,etc. (Farmer, Mulrooney, and Ammon Jr 1996). Sports facilities built today are mostly of closedtype,while open type of construction is still used only in case on hippodromes, ski jump ramps and stadiums (but even more and more of them are constructed as semi-closed or closed). Stadiums gather the highest numbers of sports audience, which is why these facilities get proportionally more attention in media and public.
The stadium and the city: Sports infrastructure in late imperial Ethiopia and beyond
The inauguration of the Haile Selassie I Stadiumin Addis Ababain 1947 marked the beginning of the construction of stadiums in Ethiopia. They became important signifiers of accelerated modernization after the end of the Italian occupation (1935 – 1941) Quite similar to developments elsewhere, open fields were turned into formalized sport infrastructures Already in the1930s, stadiums had become essential elements of modern town planning in Ethiopia (Bromber 2016). Later, political officials, town planners and sport enthusiasts endowed them with specific meanings, involving ideas of progress, effective representation of political power and ‘useful’recreation.
Without any doubt, football was one of the main drivers for stadium constructions, but it did not represent their sole purpose. Stadiums and sport centers became essential elements of modern town planning. Their construction was invested with specific meanings and expectations. These expectations involved particular notions of ‘useful’ (as well as ‘harmful’) recreation. Stadiums, as part of a rapidly transforming urban sport structure, were inculcated and manifested specific ideas of progress in a period called “Ethiopian modernity”. This period is especially associated with RasTeferi, later Emperor Haile SelassieI, whose name the first Ethiopian stadium took (Bromber 2016).
The Sport Policy of Ethiopia, declared in 1998, underlines the importance of developing public sport and recreational facilities to the community for enhancing mass participation (Borena, Shidaram, and Abdulkadir 2019). However, after 20 years of its implementation, residents in Addis Ababa still play ball games on derelict areas and complain about scarcity of physical activityresources.
Performance indicators
The performance indicators are a management support tool that allows defining and monitoring clearly the evolution and performance of a service according to defined objectives (Alegre et al. 2016). There are some fundamental characteristics in the indicators, namely, being relevant and in line with the organization’s strategy being representative of its operational performance, so, the better the performance of the building the better will be the contribute to the organization’s success. The data of a performance indicators’ system should be measurable and object to an easy reading allowing crossing with the reference levels (Parmenter 2015). Despite the mentioned advantages of this system, the establishment of a model based only in indicators may lead to a narrow vision of the business and restrict the potential growth and evolution of the service. It is a useful tool but should be inserted in an overall business philosophy (Tukker and Tischner 2017).
The standard 15221 – 3 (CEN 2011) refers that performance indicators may be defined as objective – hard (physical, temporal, functional, financial) or subjective – soft (sensory, behavioral, ergonomics). The hard performance indicators are not subjects or don’t depend of individual interpretation. They’re clear and objectives, reflecting the attitudes of users towards the building. The soft indicators reflect subjective characteristics of needs and perceptions of users, normally measured through surveys, wanting to predict the level of satisfaction and identify problems still in an early stage making them possible to correct. These indicators can be used in the three levels of management, depending on the wanted degree of precision and evaluation.
Objective: To assess the current state of facility management practices of Tirunesh Dibaba and south youth and sport office facility management director. To compare the two different place facility management position practice
Research Question: What is the current status of facility management practices in the…….and south youth and sport office facility management director?
METHOD
Research Design
Since these studies are used to investigate and understand a particular issue or topic area. Exploratory surveys were used. The design is mostly qualitative in nature, seeking input from respondents with interview question focused on why and/or how they perceive and practice certain aspects of the facility management system and practice.
Participants of the study
This research utilizes qualitative data captured from in-depth semi-structured interviews of sport facilities managers (N=2). A purposive sampling approach was utilized to select sport facilities managers (N=2). A semi-structured approach offered flexibility for the researcher to ensure a conversational discussion in order to build rapport and address topics as they emerge (Cargan 2007; Parnell, Millward, and Spracklen 2015; Walker and Hayton 2017). The approach adopted allowed the researcher to build familiarization with the participant, and bring clarity with regards to roles and responsibility during the initial phases of the semi- structured interview.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Semi-strutured interview
What are the Roles and responsibilities in your institution? FM is responsible for coordinating all efforts related to planning, designing and managing buildings and their systems, equipment and furniture to enhance the organization’s ability to compete successfully in a rapidly changing world. Facility management is been adapted more within organizations. It has become a part of their governance structure, because the primary function is to support the core process and meet the needs of an organization and its employees. FM is a key function in managing facility resources, support services and working environment to support the core business s of the organization in both the long- and short- term. They believe a facility manager’s the most important role is to ensure all needs are being met for the employees in order to ensure maximum efficiency and profit for the company. That includes a safe, stable environment, functional equipment and adequate training in the facility’s machinery and technology. They are overseeing and agreeing contracts and providers for services including preparing strategic and yearly plan, purchasing plan with specification, and supervising multi-disciplinary teams of staff (specially the southern youth and sport office facility management director this much wide control the activity of team) , maintenance, grounds and security.
How can the facility management structure be measured? A manager of an organization has the intention to adjust the structure of an organization to his employees and resources in a way that goals can be reached. There by the goals of external and internal stakeholders can be realized.
In what ways would you push to improve the work place experience? They think the culture here is one of the strongest features of the company, and I want to make sure that overall working conditions are up to par. They would like to evaluate the technological needs and make sure that we are using updated equipment and ensuring that employees are properly trained and up skilled if necessary, so they can work in tandem with the devices. They also want to review the safety protocols and see if employees have concerns that might indicate areas of improvement or lapses in disability resources. I want my team to feel safe and comfortable at work.
What is your motivation to be the best facilities manager you can be? They want to be successful at their job, and they’ve always been motivated by the challenge of solving problems and finishing projects on time. Being thorough and producing quality work is a point of personal pride for me.
How do you stay up to date on the latest trends for facility management? They regularly attend meetings and network with other professionals in the region to learn about what other managers are doing at their facilities. They also enjoy listening to podcasts about the topics on their way to and from work. I love hearing about cutting-edge solutions and thinking about how new methods and ideas can improve my facilities.
In your opinion, how does facility management impact company goals? They believe if accompany is going to operate like a well-oiled machine and maximize profits, it needs to have the right tools and work space so employees can do their best work. That includes utilizing technology in a way that can optimize work flow without breaking the budget. Regular inspections and maintenance can prolong the life span of equipment and prevent interruptions. In my opinion, the functionality and cleanliness of a company’s facilities is a direct reflection on the quality of the company.
CONCLUSION
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