Above, you mentioned a gym that was having trouble retaining staff. Because the market analysis results showed the gym was doing as well as other gyms in staff retention, you concluded that paying more was unlikely to solve its problem. But given that the gym had an average retention rate, wouldn't higher salaries boost its rate above the average? -Sarah Gustafson, Program Associate, Durfee Foundation, Santa Monica, Calif.
Thank you for your question. You're right that some other factor was making retention difficult. The client was a YMCA that offered swim classes in their pool. There was plenty of demand for classes, but not enough lifeguards to monitor the pool; the result was that classes were being cancelled for lack of staff. The client's hypothesis was that a pay raise would help recruit and retain lifeguards. Our ACT team investigated the experiences of other YMCA's facing similar situations. We found that other Y's paying higher wages in the same geographic area had the same problem. Further research revealed that the real problem was that the candidate pool of people certified to be lifeguards (or willing to go through lifeguard training) had shrunk substantially in recent years. My guess is that while plenty of kids swim competitively, few are willing to work for hourly wages at the YMCA when they could be training, studying, etc. Thus, our team informed the client that a few more dollars per hour was unlikely to make a big improvement in attracting applicants and retaining existing employees.
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