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Hiring, training, and retaining a quality lifeguard staff presents many challenges. Managers depend on the lifeguards to keep the pools safe, the public happy and the facilities clean. While safety is obviously the most important aspect of the lifeguards’ duties, customer service and the ability to keep the pool area clean are probably the next most important job functions for most agencies.
So how do you get the most out of the lifeguard staff when many of them are high-school or college age, and expected to perform such important duties? Let’s face it: the lifeguard staff can make supervisors look either impeccable or horrible. Few municipal staff members will have as much contact with the public as lifeguards, and even fewer will have as much impact on public safety. Most police or firefighters might not save as many people as the average teenage lifeguard does on a busy summer day.
Even though lifeguards can be a fickle group, there are some measures that can be taken to improve the quality of the staff, and have fun doing it.
