-
Does any community allow new, incoming, interested lifeguards to ‘pay’ for their certification through their paychecks throughout the summer until it is paid off? For example, if a new lifeguard wants to take the class and the cost of the class is $250. Would they be allowed to take the class and ‘pay back’ the city through their paychecks until it is paid in full? Any other options please let me know since we are in need of lifeguards and I don’t want to scare away any new, potential lifeguards due to not able to pay the full amount up front. Thanks in advance!
The City of Lake Mills pays for 1/2 of the training and if they work so many hours we give them Lake Mills bucks until the entire class is paid back in full – if they don’t work enough hours to pay it back – it does not carry over into the next year. This program seems to work out great for us. Thank you
We have resorted to offering lifeguard classes basically free of charge, except they pay the Red Cross fee, if we can offer it at our outdoor pool. We did this last year and got 10 new guards because they didn’t have to pay the class fee ($200) at another place in town. This year with Memorial Day being so late, and our schools should still be out before that I am going to lean to this again, and teach it the week before or of Memorial Day. I have also decided that if I have to rent an indoor pool I will pass along that fee to them as well, which I won’t teach a class at the rented pool for less than 6 students so their fee would be max $100. Hope this helps!
In 2017 we were in dire need of guards. We switched from staff paying full price ($190) to offering it for free. In 2019 we transitioned to staff covering the Red Cross cert fee. This year we are going to staff paying $45 to cover the cert fee plus materials (essentially paying for the PPE they use in class).
I know we gained some staff who would have otherwise not be able to accept the job due to the upfront cost of certification. I did not see any negative effects from asking them to pay for their direct costs. When classes were free we had a number of no-shows and even had to cancel a class once because we only had two people show up. When I tried to follow up, several never replied and a few said they decided to take another job because they could start working sooner. I think we’re at a happy medium now where we’re both invested.
Our finance department does not like to do payroll deductions for things like this so we had to find another way.
Here in West Des Moines we will pay back the cost of the class if they work the summer for us. If they take the class (through us, school, YMCA, etc.) we also pay them 27 hours for taking the class at the rate they get paid for the summer. We do the same for WSI Classes, they have to teach two of the three sessions of lessons to get re-imbursed.
In North Liberty we have had them pay for the class upfront and then if they averaged a certain amount of hours (22 per week for HS students or year round LGs, 34 for college students/seasonal) they were reimbursed at the end of the summer. This year we have decided to hire our lifeguards and then certify all of them in house at no cost to them.
In Davenport, we offer no-cost training for all employees this includes lifeguard training for the lifeguards and management staff. But also BWR and first aid/CPR for all cashier/concession staff. Managers who have the ability and desire to go through LGI training are also given the opportunity to go through this training as well at no cost to them. Staff is also paid for their hours of training. We lose very few during the summer and most come back in subsequent years.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.