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Employment & Staffing
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Employment Matters in Your Dive Store
Employment and labor tips on hiring, firing, and other staffing matters important to the dive store owner and manager. Please note: Legal articles are for your general information only. Legal advice must be tailored to the circumstances of each case, and laws are constantly changing. Federal laws, the laws of each state, and often each municipality vary and each may have its own procedures and time limitations that must be followed. Confer with a lawyer in your state to assess your legal rights in a particular situation.
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Delegate This: The Key to Staying Sane and Growing Your Business
by Greg Laslo
Repeat after me: I can't do it all myself. I know what you're thinking, Superman. But I mean you, too. Now that we've got that settled, we can get down to business -- that is, the business of making your dive center more successful. To do it, you don't need to be faster than a speeding bullet or stronger than a locomotive. You just need the strength of three, five or even a dozen people. That is, in order to really up your shop's performance, you need to be able to delegate. . . . keep reading
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Why Can't They Be Like We Were? Managing Younger Employees in the Dive Store
By Patricia Luebke
In this article, we look at what makes younger workers tick and how to motivate and keep them. The scuba industry has a particular need to employ and rally twentysomethings. Our industry is getting old and older. The average dive store looks like an Elks Club meeting place, rather than the fun, vibrant center of adventure it was meant to be. Attracting and keeping younger employees is critical to attracting and keeping younger customers. . . . keep reading
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Dive Retailers and Employment
By E. Mark Young
We thought it would be a good idea to take a general survey about employment to give retailers a look at their peers in terms of staffing, attitudes about employee qualifications and benefits, and to determine where they find employees. This is an effort to compile information on store staffing that might help stores benchmark their own hiring practices. . . . keep reading
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Are You Missing the Boat?
The Business Case for Promoting Non-Instructor-Level Dive Leadership Course
By Alex Brylske
While the various reasons for not getting into the professional training business may be valid for many, an important point is often overlooked: Professional, or what I prefer to call leadership, training doesn't just involve the instructor level. All training organizations have leadership programs that precede the instructor certification. While different training organizations have differing hierarchies -- and sometimes even different titles -- they generally all follow a common path and have similar goals for preinstructor leadership-level courses. In these courses, rather than the goal being how to teach, emphasis is placed on how to take on the responsibility for the safety and well-being of others divers. . . . keep reading
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Are You a Bad Boss?
Six Ways You Can Improve Your Employee Relations
By Greg Laslo
According to an MSN-Zogby poll, 42 percent of Americans don't like their boss, and nearly the same amount -- 44 percent -- said they've worked for an abusive boss, according to the Employment Law Alliance. Yet, every day, they go to work and put up with bad directions, contradicts and micromanagement, making these hapless -- and hopeless -- employees wonder if it's worth putting in any effort at all. And that begs an important question. Do any of these folks work for you? Before you go storming off to write a letter to the editor, hear me out. The hectic world of a scuba retail store lends itself to a certain kind of chaos, and certainly, good employees are hard to find. In fact, they're worth their weight in gold -- and I don't know if you've checked lately, but, well, gold is pretty pricey these days. So if they're not performing up to your expectations, it's probably worth the effort to make sure it's them, not you. The good news is, being a bad boss isn't a permanent affliction -- to be sure, and becoming a good one is more of a learned skill than a natural instinct. By understanding what makes a bad boss, what kinds of problems that might be causing for your business, and how you can reverse the trend, you can save yourself and your people the headaches and heartacahes that make "fun" work a drag -- and even build a team of all-stars in the process. . . . keep reading
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All in the Family...
Running a Family-Owned Dive Center Takes Understanding,
Communication and a Plan
By Greg Laslo
For months Tami Ross' father would call her to talk about his dive center, Rogue Scuba, in Medford, Oregon. He'd talk about how business was doing and his struggles with managing the store, and Tami, who had just finished a masters' program in family counseling, would try to help him through the problems. "Finally, one day he said, 'why don't you do it,'" Tami says. "I was like, 'Yeah, whatever.'" Yet, after nearly six months of these conversations, she looked at her husband, Paul, and said, "Hey, have we thought about this?" It looked like a good time to take the leap, and it was the right part of the country. So they bit... . . . keep reading
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The Importance of an Employee Handbook and What to Include
By Alisa Pittman Cleek, Esq.
Every company, regardless of size, is subject to the challenges that surround the employer/employee relationship. Employers and employees both have expectations and opinions about the work and the relationship, and sometimes they don't match. Too often it's because something was not communicated and understood. Before a good long-term working relationship can exist, each side should understand the position, desires and expectations of the other. . . . keep reading
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Employees, Employees, Everwhere:
The Importance of Good Employees and How to Find Them
By Donna Askew and Mark Young
Tanks need to be filled, a dozen regulators and BCDs are queued in the repair department waiting for service, classes are filling up, requiring good instructors, and several trips are scheduled and filled. Oh, yeah, and someone has to be out front selling gear. By the way, the rental gear that was returned after the weekend isn't putting itself away, and the floors need sweeping. You really can't do it all. Customer service and sales suffer if you are short-staffed, or poorly staffed, but you can't hire just anyone because of the specialized skills and knowledge needed to serve diving customers. On top of this, you have certain standards regarding who represents your business. Face it, you can't just pull anyone off the street, pin a name tag on him, and shove him in front of your customers. In this article, we'll look at some general employee value issues, and then explore some methodical and consistent methods for staffing your store. Like everything, once you have a system, it gets easier. . . . keep reading
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Finding Great Employees:
The Key to a Successful Business
By Alex Brylske
Many years ago, near the end of a long and illustrious career, a reporter asked a famous department store magnate if the key to his success was his emphasis on satisfying customers. His response may surprise you. "Certainly, your customers pay the bills," he said, "but your employees are your business." I think that this insight is spot on, especially in our industry. The most fundamental difference between diving and most other retail businesses is that, unlike the local shoe store or car dealer, people do not walk through our doors qualified to purchase much of what we sell; we have to literally create our customers. This is done, of course, through the diver certification process, and in no small way depends on those who conduct the training programs: instructors. Little wonder, then, that in every business survey ever taken in our industry, the top rank for the most influential person in the mind of our consumer is -- and will likely always be -- one's Open Water instructor. But what I have always found curious is that, given their importance to our success, how little time and attention is placed on finding and recruiting those, whom we freely admit, are so vital. I'd probably only exaggerate a bit if I said that, in many cases, when it comes time to find new employees a lot of dive center owners look for little more than someone with a pulse and an instructor credential; and the only interview question is, "When can you start?" . . . keep reading
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Don't Leave Mad, Just Leave!
Firing Legal Pitfalls, and How to Avoid Them
By Barry K. Shuster, Esq.
Under the most basic definition of "at will" employment, the employer may terminate the employee -- for cause or without cause -- and not be subject to liability for wrongful discharge. This is such a well-known employment legal principle that some managers who know a little employment law, brandish the "at will" doctrine like a badge and a service revolver, in belief that they can "give the boot" to any employee at any time and for any reason. In practice, it's not that simple. . . . keep reading
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Navigating the Ocean of Hiring Law:
A Basic Sailing Guide for Scuba Retailers
By Barry K. Shuster, Esq.
Hiring isn't child's play. There are numerous federal, state, and local statutes that address various aspects of the hiring process, and employment law continually evolves. For example, employer liabilities for employee acts are frequently tested and redefined in the courts. Federal and state courts and administrative agencies continue to broaden their interpretation of anti-discrimination laws. In the interview process, it can be easy to trip up. In this article, we'll review several key legal issues relevant to hiring, of which you should be aware when recruiting and selecting employees. We'll also offer some practical hiring tips. Our goal is not to give you all the answers, but to help you ask some of the right questions. . . . keep reading
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Avoiding the Misclassification of Workers in the Dive Store
By Barry K. Shuster, Esq.
With regard to employee vs. IC staffing, big headaches can develop by blurring the distinction between these classifications. Problems can include a variety of unexpected liabilities from a number of sources related to taxes, insurance and lawsuits, even when the business owner believes he or she is doing everything right. Simply labeling your contractor instructors "ICs" and issuing 1099 forms are not enough to avoid the pitfalls of worker "misclassification." . . . keep reading
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Securing Your Ship Against Loose Cannons
By Barry K. Shuster, Esq.
When navies lashed muzzle-loaded cannons to their gunwales for battle at sea, cannons that were improperly secured -- or "loose" -- could damage the ship and crew more than the enemy. Today, "loose cannon" has become part of the business lexicon to describe employees who cannot be controlled, are unpredictable, and who may damage the organization. . . . keep reading
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Selecting the Right Person for the Job:
Interview Practices to Make Your Life Easier
By Patricia Luebke
Interviewing candidates for an open or new position can be time-consuming and disruptive to your schedule. You know you have to fill the position, but isn't there an easier way? Can't the ideal employee just show up at your store and start working? It would be great if it happened that way, but finding the right person for the job requires a meaningful interview and assessment process to learn as much about that potential employee's attitudes, competencies and skills as possible. The stakes are high. If you hire the wrong person, you open the door for problems for weeks or months to come. Anyone who has been in business for any amount of time knows that one bad apple can indeed spoil the whole barrel. In this case, the barrel is your dive center that can get thrown into bickering at best and lost sales, chaos and theft at worst. If you feel you're not good at finding that right person or have made some serious mistakes in hiring people, you're not alone. . . . keep reading
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What Makes a Good Instructor?
A Retailer's Perspective
By Alex Brylske
To me, what's essential in overcoming the "oily salesman" cliché (which, like all stereotypes is often an unfair and exaggerated generalization) is first understanding and communicating to your instructional staff what sales is really all about, particularly in our business. First and foremost, we as managers need to communicate that what we sell in diving is diving. Said another way, we aren't in the business of selling hardware but experience. Equipment is merely an essential component to participation, and sales of hardware shouldn't be considered an end in and of itself. The equipment of diving is merely the technology that enables the experience of diving. So, if you can sell the experience effectively, the gear should sell itself. Well, almost, but here's where attitude rears it's head one more time. The gear sells itself only if the instructor has accomplished two goals. The first is that he or she has truly done a good job of selling the experience of diving. And while that's necessary, this alone isn't enough. Goal number two is that the instructor has also formed a strong personal bond with the student (potential buyer). . . . keep reading
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Welcome to Dive Center Business Online, a web-based educational resource created by the publishers of Dive Training and Dive Center Business magazines expressly for dive center owners and managers.
WE ARE bullish on the dive industry, and believe that the DIVE CENTER IS VITAL TO CREATING ENTHUSIASTIC, LOYAL, AND SAFE SCUBA CUSTOMERS.
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