It Is critical that all aquatic operations have a comprehensive onboarding and training process for all new and returning team members. Back in my aquatic manager days, I made the mistake of telling myself that I "didn't have time for training my management/supervisory team" and that was the biggest mistake I ever made, and I really paid for it.
Over the course of several years I developed a weekend management team training prior to the summer season that overviewed leadership, risk management, guest service, employee relation tactics, etc. Once this was fully implemented my leadership team started exhibiting all of the behaviors that I wanted to see (hard work, great attitude, service minded) and it trickled down to the lifeguards and guest services staff. They no longer tolerated their fellow management team members that has a poor work ethic and bad attitude and the entire team really started to thrive over the course of the next few summers. And, it happened because I simply took the time to train my team.
If you’re currently struggling with your part-time supervisors and leadership, here’s a few tips to help get you started.
- Keep a list of all the poor behaviors that your team members exhibit and start identifying ways to train them better so they start to exhibit good behaviors.
- Keep a list of every question that a team member asks you over the course of a season and start to develop a comprehensive document that answers all of these questions. Then, spend a day training your team on these questions/answers and scenarios which will better enable them to properly do their job.
- Provide a great vision for your team. In order for them to get where you want them to be, they have to know where it is!