Canadianbombar wrote:Congrats on the New Job Tom! You're within' "Pop in" distance of me now...lol. You need to work on the pay structure there regarding problem #1. I've never understood why there's such a huge discrepancy in pay in the industry from resort to resort....area to area. It's not a major have resort vs. have not resort thing either....Some of the best paying jobs in business can be had at smaller areas with next to no money who know they need someone who knows their #$%$ to get twice as much done with old equipment while not breaking it. Meanwhile....you have large 'have" resorts that routinely spend 1 million on new cats every winter who field a budget for staffing a 20 man grooming dept of 150K. I have always believed the pay scale for ops should be $12 an hour for never evers with equipment experience....$18 for a good 3 year guy....and $30 for a 10 year guy with a track record of looking after the gear while getting a lot done in a shift. Some places pay that. On the other end of the scale...some places think the scale should run $9-$13...$10 for you first 10 years....$13 for the next 20...lol....and then wonder why they have near 100% turn over and/or the worst ops. Sure you can get lucky once in a blue moon and get a retired farmer who will do a hell of job for $12 an hour....but he's doing it for fun and to get away from his wife for a few hours...and doesn't need to make a living. There's a video of Stan (grooming ops manager) at Whistler on the internet somewhere likening hiring groomers to building a hockey team. You need park guys....you need older experienced guys to lead and train....you need winch guys....and even the right never evers who you can properly train right from scratch and hopefully get to keep. Whistler will hire experienced guys from as far away as Europe...but still hire a never ever or 2 that they think have the right stuff. Usually the never evers are snowmakers who know the mountain....they dangle the fact you can get transferred from snowmaking as a carrot to keep passive snowmakers around for a bit longer than they might have stayed otherwise. Their pay isn't industry leading...but it's nothing close to $9-$13 either. It IS industry leading if you factor in the quality of life there and the quality of the equipment you get to run though....and they know that...and factor it in and use it as a sales pitch when hiring. Anyways...I'm not telling you anything new I'm sure...more laying out the case you need to make to ownership to explain why the dept isn't staffed like it should be....and how paying a little bit more might actually mean paying a little bit less overall (in terms of better productivity/less broken equipment) and heading towards netting you a ski mag grooming title which ads to the top line.
Canadianbombar wrote:Thanks for the "best post of the year" vote Tom...lol. That isn't saying much since this site is unfortunately only seeing 10 posts a year! I'd re-write dropping the #$%S's if Patrick could sell it to SAM (he seems to have an in there!). Have you seen the new snow groomer magazine out of Winnipeg MB? They were likely at the show?
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