Keeping heads above water

From the

Pools across Auckland, Wellington City Council’s Tawa pool, Queenstown’s Alpine Aqualand, Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools and Richmond Aquatic Centre in Nelson are all struggling with staff levels.

“We’re fortunate staff shortages hasn’t closed our facility as staff cover different roles within one shift, but we’ve started closing early on Sunday’s when there’s less demand as we don’t have swim classes, group fitness or sporting competitions.”

“By law we need lifeguards to operate our pools. They’re community educators, swim instructors, first responders and maintenance people all in one,” she says.

“There’s lots of pieces to the rostering system jigsaw just to keep the doors open, but we’re still missing about 150 hours of staffing every week which is hard especially as a not-for-profit charitable trust”.

“Being consistently short staffed leaves us pretty thin on the ground”, expands Health and Fitness Manager Ricky White. “Our staff are into sport and fitness in their own lives and love sharing with the public, but it can be a demanding environment to work in and when a few people go down we’re struggling.

“We’ve had to cut wildly popular 9am aquarobics classes from five days to three – it’s a case of not having enough staff rather than not enough interest”.

“The actual job and atmosphere we work in is perfect and our team loves spending our time in the water running lessons and Bridget has brought a great team culture to the Stadium staff which filters throughout, but as an industry we aren’t paid enough for the importance of teaching children to swim or the health of our elderly”, says Swim School Manager Alana McLuckie.

The Stadium 2000 team has been strategically revamping their hiring processes, implementing apprenticeships and training transferrable skills.

“We want to be here for the long haul, and we retain our staff once they’re hired, as we not only teach new hires how to do their role but present pathways there are in the recreation industry,” says Bridget.

“Trainees get paid through cours- es, shadowing hours, fitness and swimming tests and there’s a real openness to reimagine processes, motivate and looking at non-traditional channels of hiring people with existing transferable skills but the lifeguard vacancy stays up”.

“It is a real pressure point - we have to live within our means and staffing, but we directly benefit the community’s health and wellbeing.”

“The fitness industry isn’t going to get quieter,” sums up Ricky. “We love the public is being more active, but access to any activities we provide are limited by having people willing to step into the role.”

If you are interested in an aquatics career please refer to https:// www.stadium2000.co.nz/careers