With a staff of 130 — mostly teenagers — trainees can get lost. So the team at Provo Recreation Center developed a lifeguard training program meant to allow for smaller groups and hold their attention.
The Lifeguard Challenge Program spans over eight weeks and consists of 15-minute training and skills-practice sessions before every work shift. The groups are naturally smaller, consisting of that particular shift. And holding shorter, but more frequent, sessions makes the information more digestible. “These small, intimate groups keep them using less pool space and equipment, and we don’t have to wait another two weeks to a month to do training,” says Cathy Smits, aquatic facilities supervisor for Provo City, in Provo, Utah.
The sessions may be short, but the training time adds up: “They might work four shifts in a week, so they’d have an hour training just for that week,” Smits says.
A different skill is addressed each week, allowing guards to fine-tune within that time.
The supervisor on duty will present the training before the shift. Lifeguards must be ready to go 15 minutes before their shifts.
If a lifeguard works a double shift, they receive the training twice. Each shift supervisor decides how to convey the information. Some will present lectures, while others may use videos, quizzes, drills or relays, hands-on practice or employ games and skits.
“You hear it from different supervisors in different ways,” Smits says. Since each person learns in their own way, she adds, one instructor might reach a particular lifeguard differently than the other.
Holistic approach
The lifeguard skills training is mandatory. However, guards also can take part in optional training, called Bonus Skills and Fitness Skills. The first concerns customer service, covering such skills as handling the awkwardness that comes when one patron complains about another breast feeding in public, or disputes about lane sharing. Lifeguards attend these sessions on their own time.
To boost the fun factor, trainees can win prizes for completing all mandatory and optional training during a given week. Grand prizes are awarded at a finale event when lifeguards complete all training for the eight-week sessions. Prizes can include cash, gift cards, swag, days off, cafe bucks and schedule preferences.
Each eight-week Lifeguard Challenge is given a theme, which have included, among others, Survivor, Harry Potter, Mario Party, Disney, and Marvel versus DC Comics. Team activities based on the theme boost enthusiasm and team spirit. During one Survivor-themed Challenge, teams had contests creating their team flags, doing a team scavenger hunt, and a suitcase escape room (taking clues from a suitcase for the solution).
This year, due to the pandemic, Provo couldn’t incorporate the theming, but they did continue with the 15-minute training sessions, finding ways to follow social-distancing and other safety protocol.