Ski school staffing: '21/'22

[surfsnowgirl]

I didn't teach last season so looking forward to this coming one. Going on 10 weeks post foot surgery so I can't wait to get out there. In theory I should be able to teach a full day but I'll start out with half days and see how it goes. We are asked to do 15 days so I'll make out my schedule for 30 half days. Grateful to not work at destionation resorts as we get to pretty much make out our schedule and that's it. I always look forward to our paid training days at the season start along with the ocassional clinic. Bromley was always awesome because we'd have 3 mandatory paid training days at the onset of every season. I always joked that outside of tips that was the most I made all season but what we got in training was worth a million dollars in my book. Magic is expanding our beginning area which is great because there's a giant jump from the beginner area to the green mid mountain chair, so great that it keeps more people on the carpet longer than at other places. Bromley has a nice beginner area with a chair lift as well so while there's a jump from the carpet to the chair it's not as great a jump as Magic. Sure getting paid more would be great but it's not a deal breaker for me. Think everyone is coming back at Magic's school this season, we've a small but awesome group.

 

[Seldomski]

Are there any ski schools that treat ski instructors as just one part of a full time job? What I mean is, if there is work to teach lessons, you do that. If not, you do other jobs for the resort?

EDIT basically a position where you show up every day, get paid every day, but instructing is not necessarily what you will be doing that day.

 

[Tricia]

For decades resorts have hired as instructors thousands of inexperienced people who can barely ski themselves, paid them minimum wage and fobbed them off onto unsuspecting customers. In addition to defrauding those customers, this practice has had the effect of wrecking the career prospects of the real instructors who have trained and worked to develop the skills to deliver high quality lessons. This deceit is now coming home to roost and I, for one, have absolutely zero sympathy for Vail, Alterra et al.

I take exception to the words defrauding and deceit.
I don't think there is a deliberate intent to defraud or be deceitful. I certainly wouldn't lump Alterra's practices in staffing ski school in the same boat as Vail, having experience with both.

There are definitely benefits of getting a lesson from someone seasoned, but if you're at a resort and told that you can't book a lesson because they ran out of instructors, you'll be happy that they pushed to get a bunch of new instructors.

The same thing can be said for bootfitting. Obviously you'd rather have the experienced bootfitter but if you need boots and you get the new guy/gal in the boot room, most will take the newbie if the alternative is no boots at all.

But...to your point. The year I took off from working at a shop to become a ski instructor I found that I was not cut out to instruct.
If you got my mentor at the time with 45 years experience teaching you would have definitely gotten a better lesson than if you got me.
If you were to ask the people I instructed that year, none felt short changed.

 

[jimmy]

Yet another "let's trash instructors " thread. Hopefully we'll be skiing again soon and focusing on the wonders of the positive.

Yes i am feeling the beginning of the season that comes just before ski season. Things are cooling off, leaves are starting to change color and i am starting to get excited for Winter. I found this discussion to be more about "trashing" ski school than actually the instructors. I agree with you that there is an important place for novice instructors in ski school as long as the customer is getting what they paid for. Our school was charging $120 for an hour of instruction last year. It could be a private or a group up to five. I taught a lot of both last year. I think that 1/5 of $120.00 for a never ever beginner lesson with any of the new instructors i helped train last year was a very good value.

Who knows what snow sports school will look like this year? I guess that's the question.

 

[fatbob]

Almost any human service industry has the problem that there can be only one absolutely best guy/gal in that business so relative to that anyone else is a shortchange if you were being very harsh. Reality is that "best" has many dimensions so dozens of people could meet the spec.

Whether there is deceit or not is probably an ethics class ponderable - I'd say there's almost certainly a bit of slight of hand at times- look at the poster/online pic of a top cert instructor, maybe PSIA pin prominent, leading his/her charges joyfully down a powder slope then sign here sir/madam.

We'd probably feel that it was deceit if we were buying say a Euro sport saloon at a used dealer if they didn't specifically call out to us that they'd swapped the V8 for a standard 2l lump, notwithstanding the fact that the incurious buyer who just liked the badge and looks of it and was never going to push performance would adequately have their needs met and might never lift the hood themselves.

I think the assumption runs that customers understand the ski industry so can't expect that their instructors are all high level qualified and indeed might hold no badge at all. I'm not sure how we know that's true for never evers - does anyone ever ask them?

And yes for the avoidance of doubt - this isn't dissing any instructor or doubting they can do the job. If we look at it on a cost basis if even top certs aren't earning much more than newbies maybe there is limited scope for economic deceit anyway.

 

[James]

Are there any ski schools that treat ski instructors as just one part of a full time job? What I mean is, if there is work to teach lessons, you do that. If not, you do other jobs for the resort?

Well because of covid, I know one ski school of a well known area that did this last year. They had no group lessons. I know one trainer who was told he’d have to be available to do things like shovel snow, assist with lifts, and parking. He went elsewhere. It was more common last year to see some instructors helping with liftlines and mask patrol.

In general, no but this may become more of a thing. It’s not that easy though, due to changing of clothes and equipnent.

 

[Nancy Hummel]

Aspen encouraged and helped people work hours in other positions so they could get full time hours. I expect that to continue with people not returning due to vaccination status and housing issues.

 

[Ron]

it will be in an interesting season for sure between shortages and mandatory vaccinations.. (I fully support mandatory vaccinations btw).

 

[HDSkiing]

Are there any ski schools that treat ski instructors as just one part of a full time job? What I mean is, if there is work to teach lessons, you do that. If not, you do other jobs for the resort?

EDIT basically a position where you show up every day, get paid every day, but instructing is not necessarily what you will be doing that day.

In the past we did that quite a bit, primarily with ski patrol morning/evening sweeps, and we have a number of instructors who will work pre-season getting the mountain ready (nothing like hiking/skiing in ungroomed snow at 12K feet to get you in shape.

Last year we expanded work opportunities to lifts and crowd control. We shouldn’t need the crowd control this year but lifts were short last year and this season looks to be the same. For all these positions we leave the staff in their Ski School Uniforms rather than have them change. Teaching is always the priority, if there’s no assignment then we plug those that want the hours into one of those roles. They carry radios so we just call them back if we need them.

It works pretty well, until we’re busy, but it keeps people on the clock.

 

[mdf]

Almost any human service industry has the problem that there can be only one absolutely best guy/gal in that business so relative to that anyone else is a shortchange if you were being very harsh. Reality is that "best" has many dimensions so dozens of people could meet the spec.

Whether there is deceit or not is probably an ethics class ponderable - I'd say there's almost certainly a bit of slight of hand at times

Not just human service industry. Any industry with individual input (i.e. not a factory).
Before you sign the contract -- VP's and other heavy hitters in the meetings.
After signing -- your account is assigned to the kid 6 months out of college and you never see the VP's again.

 

[HDSkiing]

it will be in an interesting season for sure between shortages and mandatory vaccinations.. (I fully support mandatory vaccinations btw).

Yes it will be. Curious to see how the whole OSHA mandatory Vax will affect the industry. I imagine it’s not going to help, and some resorts may be in areas where state & fed requirements conflict which will cause further headaches in recruiting with Over 2 dozen states mounting legal challenges. To be clear I’m vaccinated & I urge others to be, beyond that, meh…I don’t have a dog in that fight.

But if you look at the medical profession where a surprising number are pushing back on being required to get it, to the point it has caused staffing issues, I can only imagine that will be the case in our industry.

Mandates aside, I believe an employer has an absolute right to require it as a condition of hiring, something the courts have largely agreed can be done. Will that be an issue with many prospective ski area employees, particularly the younger demographic where vaccination is lagging? If it is required and it takes 2-6 weeks to be fully protected should they be allowed to work prior to then? Tough HR decisions to be made in an already tough hiring environment.

 

[Tricia]

I understand that there are complexities in mandatory vaccinations and I also understand that it will potentially complicate hiring at resorts, especially ski instructors who will be working with children who are unvaccinated.

However... Please for the love of ULLR, don't make this thread about vaccinations and vaccination requirements.

Bold for emphasis
Thank you

 

[Wendy]

So last year Alpental/Summit at Snoqualmie was short on instructors as were many of the concession schools who operate up there. This year my understanding there will be some limits on class sizes and the number of classes on the mountain at any given time so this may actually alleviate some the demand for instructors.

For those of you planning to travel for skiing this season book now. At lot of resorts are now fully booked through to the end of March. We had to change the dates for our Big Sky trip just to find accommodation in the mid-March time frame. This leads me to believe this is going to be a busy ski season.

I booked a trip with my local ski club this season for that reason. The price was great, accommodations really good, and it was just easier. And….I had to reserve it in July.

 

[Wendy]

Are there any ski schools that treat ski instructors as just one part of a full time job? What I mean is, if there is work to teach lessons, you do that. If not, you do other jobs for the resort?

EDIT basically a position where you show up every day, get paid every day, but instructing is not necessarily what you will be doing that day.

I taught in 2019-2020. I was able to teach and also work at the ski school desk. However, it was a super busy season (there is a hotel at the mountain) so I always had lessons. Since I was instructing, and knew a lot of the instructors, it was easy for me to talk to people calling and asking questions about ski school lessons. It also was easy for me to prepare the paperwork for the shift supervisors each day since I had a decent understanding of how their day worked. In turn, the supervisors appreciated that I was only scheduling group lessons if the group members were of similar ability.

Mind you, the pay was crappy even in the office. I made most of my $ in tips.

One of the trainers was working there full time. He rotated between training snowboard instructors, supervising teaching shifts, and working in the rental department. He was working 50 hours/week.

So, yeah, it’s definitely possible, and if done right, could actually benefit the ski school and the customers, as well as make a happier employee for somebody wanting either more variety of responsibilities or just more hours.

 

[4ster]

Your strongest young employees are the most likely to leave you and diminish your return on that investment.

So a lot of ski school managers are scared to invest too hard in people because they know that they have to rely on who stays and not who's best.

If I had a dollar for everyone who spent 4 or 5 years to get their Llll & then leave the industry

 

[Mike King]

yeah, thats where I feel the instructors are grossly underpaid. As @James pointed out earlier, (and its apparent you understand this) is the instructors dont get paid if they dont instruct. I know plenty of top-end, senior instructors who have a steady book of privates but the lower-end and mid-level instructors dont have a book of clients. Something has to change. you can't reasonably expect a person to continue to make you money (you=resort) while they (instructors) are at the local food pantry because they dont make enough to feed themselves. its a two-way relationship

Well, here's the thing. If you are good, then you should be able to build a book of clients who come back and book you year after year. Good ski instructors don't depend on the resort to supply them with a stable book of business; great ski instructors virtually never are available to accept bookings from the resort.

If you intend to make your livelihood through teaching skiing, then you MUST learn how to develop your own business -- that is: bring your clients back.

Mike

 

[Ron]

Well, here's the thing. If you are good, then you should be able to build a book of clients who come back and book you year after year.

yeah, but the trick to identify and retain those who dont have a book yet. it behooves the resorts much more than the instructor. A good instructor draws clients to the resort. the money made beyond the lesson is many times over. no surprise here, but high end clients will book their favorite instructors for 2-3 weeks solid just to avoid lift lines and have a babysitter for the trip. the lessons are basically secondary.

 

[David Chaus]

A lot of this discussion may apply to destination resorts, less so for local/weekenders lessons, certainly not a place like Stevens Pass.

The independent schools in W WA tended to sign up kids for a 6-week class, and it was designed to be affordable to get skiers into the sport, and keep them coming back the next season. They didn't operate last season due to Covid and for this year have not been invited back, so no more independents in Washington state except at Summit at Snoqualmie. Stevens Pass ski school offer the same type of programs, as well as private and semi-private lessons, but I can tell you the PLO (private lesson office) does not have anywhere near the volume as the group lesson program.

Most L2's and L3's do this as a part-time gig, not their full-time job.

 

[dovski]

A lot of this discussion may apply to destination resorts, less so for local/weekenders lessons, certainly not a place like Stevens Pass.

The independent schools in W WA tended to sign up kids for a 6-week class, and it was designed to be affordable to get skiers into the sport, and keep them coming back the next season. They didn't operate last season due to Covid and for this year have not been invited back, so no more independents in Washington state except at Summit at Snoqualmie. Stevens Pass ski school offer the same type of programs, as well as private and semi-private lessons, but I can tell you the PLO (private lesson office) does not have anywhere near the volume as the group lesson program.

Most L2's and L3's do this as a part-time gig, not their full-time job.

With the cost of living in the Seattle area not many can afford to do this as a full time gig. In fact most ski schools struggle to find instructors. As a result you have a lot of concession ski schools doing their own instructor training and many instructors do not even have their level 1. Not to say that the concession ski schools are bad, my kids did several years of Mohan and had a great experience. At that time the Summit learning center was not great. Fast forward a couple years and the Summit Learning center made a big push to get their instructors properly trained and certified. At Alpental I think almost every single instructor has at least an L1 if not L2 and there are a bunch of really experienced L3s. Taking lessons at Alpental and then graduating to the Freeride program was a real game changer for my kids. That said for almost everyone there it is a side gig they do because they love skiing which only contributes to the great vibe

 

[pchewn]

I've heard quite a bit of general talk indicating that ski schools will be even more short-staffed this upcoming season than normal. I suspect that this is true mostly due to seasonal lodging being so difficult to find. I could not find anything to rent this season that was near the mountain where I work, so I have chosen to work at another mountain where I was able to find something.

Has anyone else heard talk about this staffing issue? Does anyone have information about how ski schools will handle things should they find it really difficult to hire enough instructors to meet demand for lessons?

At Timberline Lodge (Mt Hood, Oregon) they are hiring new ski instructors this year. I don't know if they are hiring more than usual. I do know that they will be hiring one old slow man who has never instructed before: ME ! (That's right, after 54 years of skiing I'm going to try instructing this year).