Recruiting others to the park and recreation profession: professionals should examine what attracts them to the job, and apply it to recruiting new faces to the field

Parks & Recreation, June, 2005 by Mary Parr

Great Pay! Flexible Hours! Work from Home! Exciting Opportunity!

We've all seen fliers with words like these posted around our communities. Did you ever stop and wonder "what kind of people answer this call?" or "what kind of work could this be?" or perhaps even "maybe it's time for a change?" If you are in a position to hire staff, maybe you're wondering if this is a successful recruitment strategy for the company posting the fliers. If you were to post your own flier, what words would you use to grab the attention of the potential recruit?

Recruitment and retention of qualified leisure service professionals has been an ongoing topic of discussion and concern. In fact, a forthcoming special issue of the Journal of Parks and Recreation Administration (in press) centers on professional development in response to a predicted shortage of park and recreation professionals in the coming decades. Leaders in parks and recreation predict mass retirements in the next decade.

According to Steve Dice, director of Park Operations for Cleveland Metroparks, "The exodus has begun. One third of the staff in Cleveland Metroparks Department of Park Operations has worked here less than seven years. Seventy percent of the employees occupying positions in management in park operations will be eligible to retire in the next seven years."

Combined with fewer students choosing public parks and recreation as an emphasis, and fewer faculty identifying with public parks and recreation in their teaching and scholarship, many people are wondering who will fill the employment gap. This is particularly important as park and recreation professionals seek not only to fill jobs, but also to develop the future leaders of the field.

"We are having difficulty in finding potential employees academically prepared to work toward park and recreation management and administration positions, especially in the resource area," Dice says. "Further, we are finding no potential employees with academic preparation in both parks and recreation, and fringe positions in human resources, engineering, accounting, marketing, etc."

Considerable research has been conducted during the last few decades in order to determine the qualifications necessary to perform the work tasks of the leisure services practitioner. This research has led to the development of accreditation and certification standards. Research and discussion centers around identifying characteristics of the job and knowledge, skills and abilities required to do that job. This highlights an outward perspective: What qualifications are we looking for in others to support the mission of our organization? But maybe park and recreation professionals need to take a more inward perspective: What do we have to offer in order to attract qualified employees to support our mission? What factors influence a person's decision to enter the field in the first place?

Related Literature

There are virtually no studies that specifically address the recruitment and retention of qualified employees into parks, recreation and leisure services. While there is little empirical research in parks and recreation, there have been studies comparing public versus private sector employees in their motivations and rewards. These have suggested that public service may be an important and attractive component of careers in public recreation. If so, then emphasizing the public service component of the work may aid in recruitment and retention of individuals with such dispositions.

It stands to reason that graduates of academic degree programs in parks, recreation and leisure services would be a major recruitment resource. NRPA's Society of Parks and Recreation Educators (SPRE) has conducted a series of surveys, beginning in the 1960s, to monitor the status of academic programs in the U.S. and Canada. These show an overall decline in enrollments from the late '70s to the mid '80s. Trends in overall enrollment from more recent SPRE studies are difficult to determine due to increasingly low response rates to the survey.

These decreases in enrollments might be a natural function associated with a decline in job possibilities throughout the late '70s and the '80s, particularly in public recreation. Any expansion in enrollments in the '90s (if it occurred) might be attributed to the expansion of the purview of academic programs to include commercial recreation (specifically travel and tourism) and sport management. Unfortunately, due to low response rates to the SPRE survey, these trends are difficult to document as well.

The 1986 SPRE study was the first in the series to ask respondents to indicate where their students would like to get jobs after graduation and how many were likely to continue their education. While the responses represent a "best guess" by the survey respondent, the average percentage of students who would like to get jobs in public parks and recreation has remained fairly constant at about 30 percent, albeit a percentage of a potentially smaller total. If the real number of students interested in public parks and recreation has decreased, as anecdotal evidence suggests, then an impending lack of qualified employees in public parks and recreation is likely in the near future.