​“Peo­ple are not your most im­por­tant as­set. The right peo­ple are.” - Jim Collins

​Hu­man Re­source (HR) cap­i­tal is crit­i­cal. But is its im­por­tance over­rat­ed or un­der­rat­ed in the world of sports, and per­haps in most or­gan­i­sa­tions?

​There are many per­sons in Hu­man Re­sources de­part­ments who know ab­solute­ly noth­ing about their jobs and their in­com­pe­tence sad­ly af­fects many qual­i­ty em­ploy­ees due to their in­ep­ti­tude. For some in HR, it is mere­ly an­oth­er pay pack­et; they seem to be in a "dream­land" or some "Dis­ney fan­ta­sy," await­ing a char­i­ot drawn by white hors­es.

It is here I will start with horse rac­ing. This sport em­ploys a large num­ber of per­sons whose sole source of in­come is main­tain­ing and look­ing af­ter the wel­fare of these equine an­i­mals. The lack of re­spect they of­ten re­ceive from many in our so­ci­ety is symp­to­matic of a cul­ture that shows lit­tle re­gard for those con­sid­ered of a per­ceived "low­er class" (which is both in­ac­cu­rate and in­hu­mane). Those so cul­pa­ble know them­selves.

​While there is a grow­ing air of pos­i­tiv­i­ty, giv­en the gen­uine care the cur­rent Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try, Ka­ma Ma­haraj, has for horse rac­ing, let us hope he can get the nec­es­sary sup­port from the ex­ec­u­tive of the Ari­ma Race Club go­ing for­ward. Every­one knows that Min­is­ter Ma­haraj's heart is in the cor­rect space for horse rac­ing.

​Crick­et is the sport that has drawn the most at­ten­tion from an HR per­spec­tive, with many of the per­sons in­volved in West In­dies crick­et, at one lev­el or an­oth­er, need­ing "man man­age­ment" train­ing.

​We all wit­nessed the flawed sys­tem ear­li­er this year to se­lect a West In­di­an cap­tain, where there were more ques­tions than as­sur­ing an­swers. The re­sult, ev­i­denced by a fail­ing Test cap­tain with both bat and re­sults, is that by Jan­u­ary 2026, any ob­jec­tive re­view will dis­miss the pre­vi­ous se­lec­tion pol­i­cy and adopt a new process.

It is a pity that Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) did not seek the ad­vice of a lead­ing Hu­man Re­source con­sul­tant or ad­vi­sor. In T&T, two names come to mind: Hol­lick Ra­jku­mar and Court­ney Mc Nish, each with dif­fer­ent skill sets that could save CWI from it­self.

Then there is the Hu­man Cap­i­tal loss when qual­i­ty play­ers de­cide based on treat­ment re­ceived and gen­er­al play­ing con­di­tions to “run away “and “run far “from West In­dies crick­et be­cause of the air of per­ceived favouritism and or vic­tim­i­sa­tion

His­to­ry will for­ev­er re­veal the toll that this has tak­en on West In­di­an crick­et over the last 5-10 years in par­tic­u­lar. It ap­pears that the pur­pose of HR is to gen­er­al­ly be a voice and a lis­ten­ing ear to em­ploy­ees has slipped away be­cause of the pos­si­ble qual­i­ty of staffing or the or­ders giv­en to the staff.

​We have al­so wit­nessed sit­u­a­tions where em­ploy­ees last­ed less than six months on a job, and in some cas­es, per­haps even less than one month. This is an­oth­er demon­stra­tion of pro­ce­dur­al flaws with­in the sys­tems. Sim­i­lar­ly, yet again, there ap­pears to be a lack of Hu­man Re­source re­gard­ing the qual­i­fi­ca­tions to be a di­rec­tor of CWI. A prop­er Hu­man Re­source Tem­plate would al­low qual­i­fied per­sons, based on set cri­te­ria, to de­ter­mine whether busi­ness, Law, man­age­ment, ex-play­ers and tem­pera­ment could be de­ter­mined.

​Foot­ball is no dif­fer­ent. We know that se­lec­tions have con­se­quences. When prop­er pro­ce­dure is not put in place, doubts will al­ways be raised, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter those favoured fail to achieve the goals set out. Per­haps in foot­ball, some are right­ful­ly or wrong­ful­ly sug­gest­ing the play­ing field was not lev­el, and pol­i­tics was al­lowed to in­flu­ence choic­es. The prob­lem is ex­ac­er­bat­ed when a lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty over team se­lec­tion dis­rupts the camp, caus­ing a rift too large to mend, and leads to di­vi­sions on the field of play.

​In all of this, we have the sit­u­a­tion where a group of per­sons who un­der­stand Hu­man Re­source cap­i­tal have come to­geth­er as an or­gan­i­sa­tion known as CARE (Com­plete As­sis­tance, Re­spect, Equal­i­ty). It was found­ed by An­ton La Fond, an ad­vo­cate for the el­der­ly and dis­abled in T&T.

​For the sec­ond year in a row, La Fond and his wide­ly di­verse and ded­i­cat­ed team held a func­tion on In­ter­na­tion­al Day for Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties on De­cem­ber 3, which ho­n­oured and recog­nised T&T blind crick­eters.

It is clear that La Fond and his team un­der­stand the pow­er of hu­man cap­i­tal and the in­vest­ment in such, which can ben­e­fit the coun­try. This func­tion was again held at the Har­vard Club, and the num­ber of vol­un­teers who gave of their time and en­er­gy yet again em­pha­sizes the qual­i­ty of prop­er vol­un­teerism in T&T. Whether it was Char­lene Forde, Dr Jen­nifer Rouse, or San­dra Lewis, there was so much good­will that every­one could feel the love and ap­pre­ci­a­tion. I could eas­i­ly de­tect the joy in the hearts of the blind crick­eters as they col­lect­ed their awards.

​This sort of hu­man cap­i­tal does not come eas­i­ly; it is born of a gen­uine de­sire to serve. It calls up­on those who claim to be Hu­man Re­source of­fi­cers or man­agers to prop­er­ly un­der­stand their roles and not let a “flight of fan­ta­sy” rule their world. In­evitably, they will be found out, and their or­gan­i­sa­tion will feel the pain.