NASCAR:
Constant Change
Park University

The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, Inc. (NASCAR) is the sanctioning body for one of North America’s premier sports. NASCAR races are broadcast in more than 150 countries and in 20 languages. In the U.S., races are broadcast on FOX, TNT, ABC/ESPN/ESPN2, SPEED and SiriusXM Satellite Radio. NASCAR fans are among the most brand-loyal in all of sports, and as a result more Fortune 100 companies participate in NASCAR than any other sport. NASCAR consists of three national series (NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, NASCAR Nationwide Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series), four regional series, and one local grassroots series, as well as two international series.
Also part of NASCAR is Grand-Am Road Racing, known for its competition on road courses with multiple classes of cars. NASCAR sanctions more than 1,200 races at 100 tracks in more than 30 U.S. states, Canada and Mexico. Based in Daytona Beach, Fla., NASCAR has offices in eight cities across North America (Baxter & Schwartz, 2012).
The research conducted will influence what I believe to be true and that is that NASCAR is successful as an organization when it comes to the areas of competitive advantage, change management, diversity management, recruitment and selection, compensation and benefits, and organizational climate. These organizational aspects are truly more important than a company’s financial state because they play a large role in the lives of their employees and customers, and these issues can help to determine the future state of the organization.
A competitive advantage is what distinguishes you from the competition in the minds of your customers. Whether you are an employee, a business or a country, you need to have a clear competitive advantage and communicate it to your customers by offering consumers greater value, either by means of lower prices or by providing greater benefits and service that justifies higher prices (Amadeo, 2012). In the face of intensifying global competition, the key to competitive advantage for NASCAR is to create a system for developing high-quality products and services that meet market and most importantly, social needs and to provide them in a timely manner. In order to exercise their strengths in these areas, NASCAR need to develop organizational and personnel strategies based on people-centered management and management from the long-term perspective that can respond flexibly to a changing environment.
One of the reasons Bill France Sr. founded NASCAR was to bring a sense of order to a sport that had none in the early years. One of his goals was to draw bigger crowds to the races and to increase the amount of money available to pay drivers and promote future races. NASCAR racing is more sponsor-oriented than any other sport in the world -- and for good reason. NASCAR fans are extremely brand-loyal.
According to RaceStat, a syndicated NASCAR research project, 71 percent of the NASCAR audience reported that they "almost always" or "frequently" choose a product involved in NASCAR over one that is not, simply because of the sponsorship (Harris, 2007). As you can imagine, this has companies clamoring for a piece of the action and usually involves three distinct forms of sponsorship not seen in any other sport:

* Title sponsors: A title sponsor pays millions of dollars a year to have its name placed in the title of one of the major NASCAR series (Sprint, Nextel, Nationwide, Busch, and Craftsman).

* Primary sponsors: Companies that want to see its name on a NASCAR race car can become a primary sponsor (M&M, Budweiser, U.S. Army, DuPont, Lowes, and Home Depot). The cost for such high exposure averages $8 million a season.

* Associate sponsors: Associate sponsors spend less to sponsor a team, but they don't enjoy premium placement of their brand on cars and uniforms. A major associate sponsorship can cost up to $5 million a year.
Each year, fans purchase more than $2 billion in NASCAR-licensed merchandise, from T-shirts and caps to watches and jewelry, but a company, large or small, can't simply slap the NASCAR logo on its products and start selling them. The company must obtain a license -- for a fee -- to sell merchandise bearing the NASCAR name or the names of its drivers. Once it makes this investment, however, a company can tap into a very lucrative market (Harris, 2007). NASCAR has come a long way since it was founded in 1947. Many of the innovations in the sport have been technical improvements to the cars and tracks, making NASCAR racing safe without compromising excitement.
Change management means to plan, initiate, realize, control, and finally stabilize change processes on both, corporate and personal level. Change is the continuous adoption of corporate strategies and structures to changing external conditions. Today, change is not the exception but a steady ongoing process (Recklies, n.d.). Between 2007-2008 NASCAR faced the challenges of declining attendance and TV ratings after experiencing decades of steady growth. In 2008, NASCAR partnered with Vision Critical to create this panel of 12,000 passionate NASCAR fans. On average, NASCAR engages members at least twice a month on specific topics that influence everything from the on-track competition to business to marketing decisions.
Since its inception, that process though questioned initially helped NASCAR triple research while cutting costs by 80%. As of 2011, engagement is up, TV ratings are rising and feedback has sparked positive changes to the sport itself. When fans called for a new restart format, NASCAR listened. The company picked up the Fan Council’s comments, validated them and initiated the new “double-file” restart rule, to overwhelmingly positive reviews. Not only have these benefits paid off for the company and its relationship with fans, but it has also won NASCAR and Vision Critical the prestigious Forrester Groundswell Award for listening to consumers and generating business results using social media (NASCAR, 2012).
Recklies (n.d.) states the following about change management, “Change is the continuous adoption of corporate strategies and structures to changing external conditions. Today, change is not the exception but a steady ongoing process. Change management comprises both, revolutionary one-off projects and evolutionary transformation and needs to remain constant because customers’ needs and desires are always changing, and in order for a business to meet their customers’ expectations they have to be in a constant state of change (Recklies, n.d.).”
To bring out the potential of a diverse labor force, reforming personnel systems that overemphasize age and length of service will be necessary. New systems should focus on evaluation of ability, role and performance as well as personnel training. It is important for enterprises to continue nurturing the upcoming generation of personnel and improve their competitiveness. Creating training-based personnel systems to enhance intellectual skills and other qualities is a means of boosting corporate competitiveness.
Census data reports (Rose, n.d.), that by 2050 approximately half of the people in the US will be from a non white and not anglo culture. What that will mean to people in the US is that the need to understand the perspectives of others is very important and the importance will only grow. HR professionals will have to ensure that the organization promotes understanding of others and continue to work toward an environment and culture that is consistently fair to all. With just 20% of fans falling into the minority category and 40% of fans being women (N.C.S., 2012), NASCAR has aggressively pursued diversity initiatives to improve organizational success, increased exposure to different demographics, and to compete with globalization.
Diversity management is the method of implementing diversity-and-inclusion strategies—also referred to as D&I strategies—to maximize benefits of corporate diversity in the workplace. Using best practices in recruitment and retention, resource groups and mentoring, diversity management enhances talent development and workforce diversity through utilization of diversity metrics and diversity benchmarking (Diversity, 2012).
NASCAR created the Drive for Diversity Program and the Diversity Internship programs around 2004. The Drive for Diversity program which seeks to engage women and people of diverse, ethnic and racial backgrounds in all facets of the NASCAR industry currently supports drivers in two of NASCAR’s developmental series - the NASCAR K&N Pro Series and the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series. The Drive for Diversity Initiative also supports crew member candidates through a year-long pit crew training program.
The NASCAR Diversity Internship Program is entering its tenth year and is a 10-week, full-time, paid summer internship program is designed to expose diverse college and university students to the many career opportunities within the motorsports industry to include marketing, communications, event management, engineering, public relations, technology, sales, licensing, broadcasting, and various other practice areas for ethnically-diverse students to find full time opportunities within the NASCAR Industry (Initiatives, n.d.).
Employees are the cornerstone to good business; no successful organization can be self supportive without a solid foundation. This analysis will attempt to outline methods NASCAR has been using to recruit qualified employees and methods for keeping current workers satisfied. Recruitment is the process of finding candidates, reviewing applicant credentials, screening potential employees, and selecting employees for an organization. Effective recruitment results in an organization hiring employees who are skilled, experienced, and good fits with your corporate culture. NASCAR does not provide too much information about its employees because it is a privately (family) owned corporation, but as the number 1 spectator sport and number 2 rated regular-season sport on television; NASCAR embodies recruitment by name only. Each car displays numerous logos representing organizations, brands, and sponsors. With initiatives previously mentioned like the Drive for Diversity, Diversity Internship, and the NASCAR Green initiatives, NASCAR has expanded awareness and interest of the sport away from the stereotypical south and reached a global market. Employment opportunities exist beyond the league office - from race teams, to event promoters, to world class partners (NASCAR, 2012). NASCAR race teams, corporate and affiliate employees generally make appearances at car manufacturing factories and dealerships, and as well as local tracks. Advertisements about a company should fulfill the company's mission and should contain elements that brand the company. Potential employees should feel like they fit into the company's structure and framework. Consistency is the key to advertising positions for recruitment purposes. Advertisements placed on the Internet should be limited or highly targeted (Chambers, 2001, p. 56). The NASCAR corporation is a recruitment powerhouse, not just for internal positions, but for the different ownership teams which act as their own organizations and for the U.S. Military which has spent hundreds of millions on the cars of Dale Earnhardt Jr., Ryan Newman, and Eric Armirola in order to bring additional awareness to the military. Compensation includes topics in regard to wage and or salary programs and structures, for example, salary ranges for job descriptions, merit-based programs, bonus-based programs, and commission-based programs, while benefits typically refers to retirement plans, health life insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, vacation, and employee stock ownership plans (McNamara, n.d.). Compensation and benefits are among the most important aspects to applicants when considering employment. Applicants have to consider if the company’s compensation and benefits will meet their needs before accepting a position with a company. Compensation is, of course, rewarding the employee. “The reward structure communicates the overall philosophy and strategy of the organization” (Fisher, 1993, p. 60). Simple benefits like offering employee’s generous time off and creating daycare centers, wellness facilities or obtaining sponsorships with such can also help improve employee retention. With the amount of two-earner families and single parents, any amount of relief provided from employer’s will increasingly foster employee loyalty. Optional benefits go a long way when it comes to employee compensation. Employees still feel a since of commitment to a company that shows it cares about an employee's welfare. A company-sponsored gym or discounts at the local gym can keep employees healthy, reduce company health costs, and make employees work harder. Flex-time and alternate hours are also options that employers should explore. Employees tend to work harder and would prefer to stay with a company that allows them more convenience in choosing non-standard hours. In today’s economy with ever increasing energy costs, fuel prices, and cost of living expenses, flex-time will become a tremendous tool for HR managers. According to NASCARs employment website (2012), the organization offers the following benefits: * Health and Wellness: three medical plans; tobacco-free incentives; chronic conditions and maternity management; life insurance; several spending accounts; and health programs * Retirement and Savings: 401k with 75% maximum contribution of salary and 100% NASCAR match up to first 4% without vesting * Time Away: various brackets up to 20 days vacation; 6 days paid sick/personal time; 13 paid holidays; 8 weeks paid maternity leave; Flex-Time * Beyond the Basics: Membership and license; Pit road and garage access at any event; business travel accident insurance; Adoption Assistance (reimbursed up to $4,000 in legal expenses) Good employees are often on the look-out for new opportunities. Employees may feel as if they have a greater stake in the company if their value is raised and would want to stay at a company that provides learning opportunities, training, and reasonable compensation. They are more likely to stay with the company sometimes even with less money, if a company provides an atmosphere which creates a sense of challenge, comfort, and appreciation, NASCAR is on track.
Organizational climate is a relatively ending quality of the internal environment that is experienced by the members, influences their behavior and can described in terms of values of a particular set of characteristics of the organization and defined as the way in which organizational members perceive and characterize their environment in an attitudinal and value-based manner has been asserted as an important and influent aspect of satisfaction and retention, as well as institutional effectiveness and success in higher education (Johnson, 2012). I believe from the information provided that NASCAR the organization has achieved competitive advantage within the industry and through numerous other markets to include sponsorship, awareness, advertisements, and brand signature. NASCARs diversity management program is something that can potentially protect its infrastructure and success into the 22nd century with its goals of targeting minorities and women for roles within the organization and ensuring that fan bases are not isolated to one demographic. Additionally, NASCAR offers all the traditional benefits and compensations packages which help recruit and retain future and current employees. Furthermore, what stands out the most is the innovative wellness and fitness program NASCAR has established to help encourage employees to remain healthy without sacrificing personal time; everything is down during normal business hours, the compensation and benefits ties directly in with the recruiting goals.
Based on the research, NASCARs competitive advantage is solid. Though there was some information which was not accessible due to NASCARs organizational structure, enough was researched to understand an organization which is very dominant not only within its own industry but also numerous other markets of which they have been able to penetrate.

Works Cited:

Amadeo, K. (2012, July 7). What Is Competitive Advantage? About.com. Retrieved September 25, 2012, from http://useconomy.about.com/od/glossary/g/Competitive-Advantage.htm
Baxter, A., & Schwartz, J. (2012, June 22). NASCAR and HP Drive Innovation with Fan and Media Engagement Center. In HP.com. Retrieved September 26, 2012, from http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2012/120622a.html
Business Dictionary. (n.d.). Recruitment. Retrieved October 1, 2012 from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/recruitment.html
Chambers, H. (2001). . Finding, Hiring and Keeping Peak Performers: Every Manager's Guide (p. 56). Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing.

Diversity Management 101. (2012). In DiversityInc . Retrieved October 2, 2012, from http://www.diversityinc.com/diversity-management/diversity-management-101/
Fisher, C., Schoenfeldt, L., & Shaw, J. (1993). Human Resource Management (2nd ed., p. 60). New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Harris, W. (2007, December 12). How NASCAR Works? HowStuffWorks.com. Retrieved September 24, 2012, from http://auto.howstuffworks.com/auto-racing/nascar/nascar-basics/nascar-racing.htm

Works Cited:

Initiatives. (n.d.). In Diversity.com NASCAR. Retrieved September 30, 2012, from http://www.nascardiversity.com/about/diversity_initiatives.aspx
Johnson, M. (2012, May 17). Organizational Climate - Definition, Studies, Measurement. Nonprofit Research Institute. Retrieved October 5, 2012, from http://professormattjohnson.blogspot.com/2012/05/chapter-two-organizational-climate.html
McNamara, Carter. (n.d.). Employee Benefits and Compensation. Managementhelp. Retrieved September 23, 2012, from http://managementhelp.org/pay_ben/pay_ben.htm
NASCAR. (2012, April 4). In VisionCritical. Retrieved September 19, 2012, from http://www.visioncritical.com/client-stories/nascar
(N.C.S.) NASCAR, Columbia Business, Sports Illustrated. (2012, March 15). Statistic Brain. In NASCAR Racing Statistics. Retrieved October 3, 2012, from http://www.statisticbrain.com/nascar-racing-statistics/
Recklies, Oliver. (n.d.). Managing Change-Definition and Phases in Change Processes. Themanager.org. Retrieved September 29, 2012, from http://www.themanager.org/strategy/change_phases.htm
Rose E. (n.d.). Working in a diverse society. About.com. Retrieved September 30, 2012, from http://humanresources.about.com .