INSIGHT & ANALYSIS
INSIGHT & ANALYSIS
If we could only recruit and retain staff properly, we’d have more teachers and be able to run more classes, bringing in more income to offset rising energy costs. It would become a virtuous circle rather than the current spiral of decline, and it can be done. I believe this is a learning for the public sector in particular. For 25 years, up until eight years ago, I worked in a public sector leisure centre where I fought to get our swimming teachers put onto contracts. The impact was significant: we had well-trained, long-standing staff who I still believe were the best group of swim teachers in the country. The local community knew it, too, and we had 9,000 children in our swimming lessons every week. This was a small leisure centre, but at the time, it was the biggest swim school in the country. Our pools made decent profits, too, and would still be profitable based on today’s higher energy costs.
The STA has helped, running a campaign in 2022 – STAnd Up for Swimming – where we covered the cost of training 900 new swim teachers. An impressive 86 per cent were employed as soon as they qualified, more than half with the operator who nominated them in the first place. It just goes to show the power of acting rather than endlessly ticking boxes and discussing strategies. However, there are still around 8,000 vacant swim teacher positions across the UK, with an estimated 370,000 children missing out on swimming lessons this year as a result. It doesn’t have to be this way, though, and it isn’t as hard to turn things around as you might think. Please elaborate… Everyone’s talking about the rising costs of running a pool and I fully appreciate the financial restraints. However, we know there’s huge unmet demand for swimming lessons, which are a great revenue generator.
“If we could only recruit and retain staff properly, we’d have more teachers and be able to run more classes,” says Candler
Rather than waiting for government handouts and subsidies, leisure centres must manage their own businesses
DAVE CANDLER
The public sector has much to learn from the private sector when it comes to swimming provision, says the CEO of the STA
The STArlight campaign focused on upskilling existing swim teachers to serve a disabled audience
What are you seeing in the sector? Things are changing far too slowly, leaving us frustratingly far behind other industries. Digital is a good example – we’re only just getting started with technology – as is energy efficiency. We’ve all been exploring energy cost- saving options in our own homes for years, but it’s taken the energy crisis for leisure centres to address it. However, my primary concern lies in staff recruitment practices. There are great careers to be had in our sector, yet all too often the way we recruit for roles such as lifeguard and swim teacher – self-employed, no contracts, no
job security or guaranteed income – makes them feel like temporary opportunities for young people. As soon as they’ve finished at school or university and want a ‘proper’ job, they disappear from the sector. So there’s always been huge staff turnover, with little chance for expertise and experience to build up within swim teams, but the issue is now even more marked since the pandemic. When pools closed, people turned to other ‘essential’ careers and they aren’t coming back. In a November 2021 survey by the STA, one-third of swim schools said their teachers wouldn’t return; more than half did not know if they would.
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STATE OF THE UK FITNESS INDUSTRY REPORT 2023 STATE OF THE UK SWIMMING INDUSTRY REPORT 2024
STATE OF THE UK FITNESS INDUSTRY REPORT 2023
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STATE OF THE UK SWIMMING INDUSTRY REPORT 2024
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