Although it may seem obvious to most, it’s important to remember the many benefits associated with training and educating staff. Training and education provide a significant opportunity for employees to grow their knowledge base and improve their job skills to become more effective in the workplace and deliver even better service to customers. Industry experts agree that the time and resources spent on swimming pool and spa service training provide immense return on investment.

Training programs can also help prepare employees who are moving into higher roles and taking on more responsibilities in an organization. These programs will help them learn the skills that are required to function effectively in their new positions. With the surge in demand in our industry, retaining employees and being able to hire from within is more important than ever to ensure a smooth, successful, and profitable summer season.

Typical training protocol for the pool and spa service industry tends to focus on product knowledge and technical certifications, such as water chemistry, CPO certification, and the like.  However, it’s important to remember that there are other business and management training opportunities available and, while they may not be industry-specific, they are still extremely empowering for staff. Different levels of business management training can prepare employees for higher-level responsibilities, thus enabling you to hire from within and promote them to managerial or senior-level positions.

Additionally, refreshing staff with sales training is always helpful. Sales training courses will sharpen employee skills in selling and marketing a company’s products and services. This is also true of customer service training courses. The beauty of Google is how easy it is to find and register for these types of general business training courses, whether they are through training companies or local education centers, such as community colleges. This also applies to accounting, inventory control, merchandising, and retail management courses.

The pool and spa industry, as a whole, is always stretched thin by the demands of the busy season. This past season, in particular, forced retailers to push employee limits. Most employees did jobs they had not done previously. As a result, our industry became aware of the upside benefits to having cross-trained staff, as well as fully trained seasonal employees.

The winter months provide a unique opportunity to create and implement a cross-training program. This is particularly important for cross-training on your pool and spa business software system. Don’t let your employees be baptized by fire to learn as they go! Whether it be new responsibilities in the retail store, working in the water testing lab, cash-register responsibilities, or inventory control, ensure employees are familiar with your business software capabilities and protocols.

As a part of this cross-training, remember to utilize the features in your business software system. One of the best features available in some pool and spa softwares is called the ‘practice company.’ This is a valuable training resource that allows you to simulate all the functionality of your store operations, without touching the actual system. This ‘virtual’ company allows new hires to run sales, process refunds, and look up inventory—everything that employees will be doing in the heat of the season. And, once again, when these systems can be accessed from any computer, employees can practice and train from home if needed.

Pro-tip: 

While you are conducting software cross-training, take time to sit down with managers and staff to:

• Ensure your staff is fully utilizing all of the features your pool and spa software has to offer.
• Determine whether or not your current software systems are providing the capabilities needed to run the most profitable and efficient pool and spa business.

This is the perfect time to ramp up your team’s use of mobile technology features, such as mobile live retail and mobile live service. Because the pandemic has limited most people to their homes over the past several months, e-commerce has exploded and consumers have come to expect a seamless purchase process. Now is the time to implement digital sales features, if you don’t already have them! These slower months are the best time to learn something new within your business software, reinvent existing processes, and retool your business.

According to LinkedIn’s 2019 Workforce Learning Report:

• Approximately 25 percent of Gen Z and Millennials say learning is the number one driver of their happiness at work.
• 27 percent of Gen Z and Millennials say the number one reason they’d leave their job is because it lacked education and growth opportunities.

Investing in training and education is a way to show employees that you value and appreciate them. By giving them professional development opportunities, they will not only become better workers, but will also feel like important members of your organization. This will significantly improve their morale.

Additionally, trained employees will yield increased productivity and job performance. By building confidence in their abilities, employees will work more efficiently, effectively, and consistently.

Training also results in more uniformity of work processes, as trained employees will help set a consistent standard among your staff. New employees will easily assimilate into your culture if you give them exposure to the same training.

Ultimately, pool and spa service training and other professional development opportunities will set your employees up for success during the next busy season and empower them with confidence. And, the more your employees know, the less supervision they’ll need! This will reduce your managers’ workloads, which is a welcomed benefit during the busy summer months!