Saskatoon paddling pools see closures amid staffing shortages

Families wanting to cool off with their kids at Saskatoon paddling pools may be out of luck.

The City of Saskatoon has said it’s having trouble finding staff to work at the pools, leading to closures throughout the city.

“Over the last several years and following COVID, the city has had difficulty hiring the appropriate number of people for these programs and services,” said Jody Hauta, the manager of recreation, facilities and programs for the City of Saskatoon.

The city’s Summer Play Program runs out of paddling pools, spray pads and youth centres throughout the city. They have weekday and weekend programs for kids to partake in.

According to Hauta, the entire summer program team is working at a capacity of approximately 150 people. The program needs at least 165 staff for full operation.

“It’s difficult for us to bring on staff mid-season, (so) we do our best to try and recruit as many people as we can prior to the season,” said Hauta. “From there, we’ll make the adjustments to the program accordingly.”

The summer programs that operate out of paddling pools in the city require staff to develop programs and games for the kids who drop in. No formal lifeguarding experience is needed, but staff need to enjoy working with kids.

According to Hauta, programs like this are more difficult to staff simply because of the short length of the program. The job is only seven to eight weeks long, so people looking for a longer period of work don’t tend to apply for the position.

“The short nature of it does see some movement of staff into different positions or into other opportunities that might be available in the community,” said Hauta.

He explained that staff are moved around when needed to different pools in the city, so that one area isn’t closed for a prolonged amount of time.

At least two staff have to be present at a paddling pool or spray pad in order for the program to be able to run for safety reasons.

A former paddling pool employee who will remain anonymous due to a contract she signed with the city said that moving around from different locations was something she did quite often.

“It would be difficult having to go to new parks and figure out the whole way that they set up their park for the day (and) their new rules,” she said. “It would be hard to be thrown into a position where you’re expected to know all this stuff.”

She said it would be difficult for staff to work with different children every day and to bounce between locations that are far away from where employees may live.

The former employee said the city tries to prioritize paddling pools to remain open and staff to be sent to the locations in low-income neighbourhoods of the city because the city feels kids in those areas benefit the most from these summer programs.

That would typically look like paddling pools or spray pads on the east side of Saskatoon being closed to accommodate the west-side pools that need to be kept open.

“Prioritizing the more low-income paddling pools in the city was a good thing but it still sucked that they had to close down some of the paddling pools and spray pads in order to do that,” the former employee said.

She claimed that to apply for the position, the city asks candidates to have a bachelor’s degree, first aid training and experience with children. But she said many of the people who are hired are only teenagers and don’t have a degree.

She also noted some problems she faced with people in management, and their skill level for the job.

She explained the city would hire people for the management positions who had previously worked in managing roles for other sections of the cities. That meant the managers for paddling pools had experience leading a team and directing staff, but didn’t necessarily have experience with children or had ever worked in a paddling pool before.

“They would put people in the position who never actually had worked in the position instead of hiring people who had been summer playground leaders for five, six, seven years,” said the former employee. “They would have new managers and they would be asking workers stuff.”

She noted that in her time working at paddling pools, the on-boarding and training process was quite difficult, and up to 25 staff would typically quit within the first month. She said the process was also unorganized, and a lot of the documents staff would submit to work there would be lost.

“I would always submit all my documents and every single year they would lose them, which was annoying,” she said.

Closures for paddling pools and the rest of the Summer Play Programs are hard to predict, as they depend on the number of staff able to work each week. Closure updates and hours can be found on the city’s website.

The Summer Play Programs are continuing for another few weeks; the weekday sites will be open until Aug. 23.