Resourcing a Successful Esports Event

Introduction

Esports businesses have nowadays attracted many individuals and organisations as it is now deemed as a lucrative venture. Hamari, Juho and Max (2017: 215) describe Esports as a type of competition gaming using video games. Esports events take the form of well-organised multiplayer video games competition that mostly involves professionals, individual players or teams. The most known Esports gaming is a multiplayer online battle arena, Battle Royale Games and First-Person Shooter. This industry is anticipated to grow rapidly as viewers increase as well as the availability of the internet and online streaming channels (Michie, Sparrow, Cooper, and Hird 2016: 47). This paper presents the focal points towards resourcing appropriate Esports event while still investigating the distinct elements in HR and examining the challenges and offering solutions.

Factors to consider when resourcing a Successful Esports Event

Like any other event, when resourcing a successful Esports event, there are various factors to consider. First, training, personal growth and development are essential in Esports events. Training helps workers to acquire new skills, advance the existing skills, and enhance performance while still increasing productivity (Ford 2014: 15). In this regard, it will be advisable to do all that is possible to resource in training that led to personal growth and development. More so, it is important to consider the nature of training needed by the employees within the Esports event. The number of employees to be trained will as well be a factor to consider.

Additionally, the rate of the motivation of the employees will influence the process of resourcing. When the staffs seem to need motivation, it will be reasonable to invest more in this area. Motivation may mean offering rewards, job off days, salary increment, and so forth. To achieve this objective, the business should consider resourcing wisely (Peters 2015: 115). Motivation is a factor that cannot be underrated as it helps staffs achieve their set goals and enhances job satisfaction. Furthermore, motivation enhances the self-development of staffs and results in a high rate of production.

Recruitment and contracts is another thing to put into account when resourcing a successful Esports event. The size of resources in terms of workforce, machinery and finances will be determined by the number of contracts the Esports event have and for how long will these contracts last (Toubøl and Jensen 2014: 140). The amount of job to be completed will also determine the recruitment size needed. When there is a lot of work to be completed within strict deadlines as stipulated in the contract, the number of workers to be recruited will be high and vice versa.

Company culture and values is also a potential factor that can influence the entire process of resourcing a successful Esports event. Some companies hold culture and values that prohibits resourcing (Deken, Berends, Gemser, and Lauche 2018: 1930). In such an evolving world, it is good to have an organisational culture that allows the organisation to the resource. Resourcing helps the business to expand its scope and leads to more productivity. In this case, before taking a step of resourcing, one should consider the organisation culture and value to refrain from going against them (Kratzer, Meissner and Roud 2017: 130). Most of the successful Esports events considered resourcing as a way of expanding their operations. It is clear that with the increased number of viewers of Esports events, the HR needs to plan and design a plan on how well to outsource to accommodate these customers.

Consecutively, before resourcing a successful Esports event, it is advisable to consider the chances of applying back to events. If there are chances of applying back to the event it would be beneficial to resource finances, workforce and machinery to hold the event more triumphantly than the preceding event (Macey and Hamari 2018: 349). Resourcing is a critical process in human resource management as it ensures that the company gets optimum results in terms of workforce, finances and machinery. Organisations should have well-elaborated resourcing strategies that identify future staffing requirements and function to satisfy those needs (Wilcox 2016: 40). Effective resourcing strategy should meet the organisational needs by ensuring external recruitment, developing the existing staffs and collaborating with the entire organisation to comprehend its current and future needs.

When resourcing an Esports event, the number of human resources available should be adequate to handle all the activities within the organisation. To ensure that the event has not employed unnecessary labour, proper planning should be done where the needed workers should be indicated and their roles outlined (Pilbeam and Corbridge 2010:15). For instance, the Event will need a Human resource department that will be entrusted on recruiting other employees, training, planning, staffing and controlling. Indicating the number of employees needed is significant as it will ensure that the organisation has not over-employed or underemployed. Additionally, it will ensure that all duties are handled effectively and efficiently (Deken, Berends, Gemser and Lauche2018: 1925). When considering employees and their roles, it is worth considering the talents possessed by the workers. This is important in establishing training that the employees will need as well as the cost to be incurred. At the same time, the number of attendees should be established to ensure that the platform can accommodate all of them. This is significant in ensuring that overcrowding is controlled and the platform does not collapse.

Additionally, when resourcing an Esports it is advisable to consider the venue, localisation, and logistics of an event. This will involve developing and discussing site requirements where the management identifies, analyzes and evaluates the most suitable properties. Then a report should be written on the cost analysis and supporting documents attached, have a site visit where negotiations are done about the contract, space to be used and other facilities needed (Falola et al. 2018:1380). Venue visit is significant in monitoring the performance of different individuals, communicate about the event speculations, acquire relevant information and offer onsite management. When considering venues, it is significant to establish whether the venue will be in a position to host the anticipated customers. More so, this will help in understanding the things to install and where to get them. In this case, the management will establish all the equipment like the cloud infrastructure required for this business.

Furthermore, when resourcing an Esports event is significant to understand the public relations, type of communication used and marketing strategy (Gámez 2015:16). Public relation is the way employees relate with each other and with the organisation's customers. This will help in ensuring that the employees can relate well with each other and customers hence being able to get royal customers. Also, the communication strategies should be effective to ensure information gets to the right hand and at the right time.

Problems to Encounter during Resourcing

Resourcing Esports is one of the significant activities since most people have shifted their activities online. Nonetheless, some problems may come along when resourcing. To begin with, Compliances with rules and regulations has become an issue (Giampietro, Aspinall, Ramos-Martin and Bukkens2014:12). Due to the changing employment laws, it has become hard for the organisation to cope up with these laws where some ignore them believing that they are not important to their activities. Ignorance of these laws might call for lawsuits, audits and even the collapsing of the organisation. Lastly, since this event requires employees who have the most advanced skills in technological applications, it might be a challenge to get qualified workers. This is a major problem since most people have general knowledge, but lack experience and this can fail to offer services as expected by clients.

Solving the Problem

To solve this issue, whether a big or small event, it is significant to ensure that all laws and regulations are in place. Employees should be employed as indicated by the laws, and the working conditions should be suitable for all. Another problem is the lack of enough finances to work with (Kow and Young 2013:389). Although large amounts might be invested in event operations like an advertisement of the event on the most advanced and recent platforms, the finances might not be adequate to run other operations. To solve this issue, human resource should ensure that they have proper planning that will ensure that each activity has been allocated the amount to spend (Prashanthi 2013:65). Once the amount is allocated, there should be strict usage; the amount allocated for hiring should not be exceeded. To solve the issue of inadequate employees, Human Resource management should hire employees who have basic knowledge and take them through training that will ensure they acquire the needed knowledge. This is possible by Human resources getting out of the belief that they are acquiring the best talents.

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it is evident that before resourcing an Esport activity it is important to have a clear understanding of the areas that need improvement. Additionally, the HR department should make some consideration like the training needed, motivation level of employee, Culture of the Esport organization and location among others. Nonetheless, there are problems encountered during resourcing like compliance of rules and regulations might be difficult as well as lack of adequate workforce due to the skills needed. Therefore, before embarking on resourcing it is advisable to make all consideration. 

References

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