Lifeguard Shortage
Farhad Madani and Tom Nelson, City of Austin
Volume 4 Issue 2 (2001)

Year after year, pool operators deal with recruiting, training, and hiring lifeguards in order to open aquatic facilities. Every year we question whether we did a good job in recruiting and hiring staff, because certain facilities do not open or hours are reduced due to a lack of staff. Thousands of dollars are spent on advertising for staff positions in hopes of gaining enough seasonal staff to operate the aquatic facilities. However, relying solely on advertising may not be the answer to the lifeguard shortage crisis, especially if other issues are not analyzed.

These are some of the factors that may be causing staff shortages:
• Cost of Certifications—Who is paying? Is your staff paying for the lifeguard course and required uniform or is your agency paying for the course and uniform?
• Lifeguard’s salary—Are your wages less than what grocery stores, fast food establishments, or retail stores paying?
• Unemployment rate—What is the unemployment rate in your area? Is this a recruitment factor?
• Lifeguard expectations—Do we expect too much from our lifeguards?
• Prior knowledge of risks—What is a potential lifeguard’s knowledge of liability, standard of care, skin cancer, and other workplace hazards and risks? Do these issues deter an individual from becoming a lifeguard?
• Hiring process—What is your hiring process? Is your process complicated or do you cater to the individual?

The answer to some of these questions may not be the same for everyone. In the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department’s Aquatic section, many of these factors affecting lifeguard shortages have been addressed, and the solutions that we found may be helpful to you.

Certification Costs
One of the major issues is certification costs. Many applicants do not have the money to pay for a lifeguard certification class, textbooks, and the required uniform. The challenge we face is funding the training classes at a reasonable cost but without incurring a loss on our end as well. The solution came in the reorganization of programming and scheduling.

The City of Austin PARD Aquatic section made a tight budget even more efficient in order to fund the training program. First, students are not put on the payroll until they complete the class. Therefore, the cost to train is minimal. Because the City of Austin hires and trains 600 to 700 lifeguards each summer season, labor costs tend to be the most expensive budgeting item. We found that providing the certification and uniforms for free is more attractive to potential employees than other incentive items like free towels or sun tan lotion. Also, instead of giving staff the required orientation after they are on payroll, which equated to $30,000 in labor costs, we included the required orientation at the end of the lifeguard certification class. The length of the class was only increased by four hours, and we saved money.

Lifeguard Wages
The second challenge the City of Austin PARD Aquatic section faced, and probably the most important issue to an employee, was salary. After performing a market survey in Austin, we found that a lifeguard’s salary was only 50¢ below the market rate. Although 50¢ per hour is not a huge discrepancy, our budget was already stretched too thin to pay 600 employees 50¢ more per hour. The solution came with a bonus system tied into a
performance review. We split the summer season into three time periods. An employee will get 50¢ per hour increase if he or she will be able to complete a time period without an unsatisfactory documentation. If an employee receives an unsatisfactory documentation during the particular time period, he or she will not be eligible for that bonus. However, if an employee receives an excellent documentation during that time period, it cancels out the unsatisfactory documentation upon approval from management. This bonus system keeps the employee motivated to perform at a high level throughout the summer. This process is also budget-friendly because a certain percentage of staff will not receive a bonus for a particular time period due to an unsatisfactory documentation.

Unemployment
Unemployment is a variable that is dynamic. The unemployment rate in your area may not affect how many individuals apply to be a lifeguard with your organization. This, of course, depends on the size of your staff. Because the City of Austin hires 600 to 700 lifeguards, the unemployment rate in Austin affects us greatly. Thereby, we have to be creative in how we recruit.

Lifeguard Training Programs
The next factors that the City of Austin PARD Aquatics section had to identify and modify were in our training program. Due to the fact that we live in a litigious society, more and more staff members are aware of the liability involved with lifeguarding.

Compounded with this awareness is the fact that orientations and lifeguard classes stress the liability inherent with being responsible for saving another individual’s life. We found some training programs use scare tactics in order to get potential staff to do a good job. However, this did not work. nstead of concentrating on the negative parts of the job, we concentrated on the positives while training. For example, our orientations are now designed to promote participation by asking positive and informative questions and I evoking a positive response by providing inexpensive give away items for correct answers. This approach to training is meeting the needs of today’s youth by providing a positive learning environment. This in turn leads to a happier and more productive and vigilant lifeguards.

Hiring Process
Finally, the City of Austin PARD Austin reviewed the hiring process. In order to work for the City of Austin, a potential staff member had to jump through numerous hoops to be hired. A potential employee had to make at least five trips to the aquatics office before being added to payroll. We streamlined this process to meet the needs of the applicants. Now a prospective life only has to come to the aquatics office twice before starting work—once to apply and then again to receive a uniform. Afterwards, the employee was ready to begin work.

Although the methods we developed and implemented help in our lifeguard shortage, it may not be the solution to your challenges. You are the expert in your area and you will be the one who has to determine what will work best for your agency.