We spent quite a bit of time poolside this year… very little involved lounging in the sunshine. More often you could find us traveling coast to coast, working with some of the best operators, programmers and poolside managers in the country. Throughout the year we picked up on some of their best practices, seasoned routines and training techniques. We’ve compiled their great knowledge in our year-end review. Here’s what we learned.

Great Operators are Planning Ahead – No surprise here. The best operators make a habit of thinking ahead. Their proactive nature means that last years mistakes won’t happen again.

• Hiring a top-notch crew gets harder every year, but the best facilities aren’t letting their expectations decline. In February this lead to our article on hiring a better team in a tough market.
• Planning doesn’t start or stop with your HR strategy. In our article 3 Months, 3 Plans we included additional focus on seasonal operations and programming preparations that should be in effect well before March.
• The best operators aren’t surprised by equipment malfunction. Rarely do we visit an exceptional pool that doesn’t have a great preventative maintenance schedule. Consider this your first New Year’s resolution.

Great Operators are Taking a Second Look – It’s not easy to ask for help, but the best operators are doing it. In 2017 we saw more operators connecting than ever before.

• Need help keeping tabs on the pool when you’re not there? Solicit the support of your non-aquatic colleagues. It’s easy to communicate simplistic poolside expectations to them, which they can help you enforce. We discussed this in one of our top-clicked articles of the year: 60 Second Audits
• Expert opinions can help with efficient cost controls, effective operations and reduction in risk exposure. When one of our experts works with your team in the pump room, great things happen. In our September article we dug into our facility survey checklist and discussed the impact this popular service was having at great pools.

Great Operators are Putting Safety First – Scary incidents and accidents made big headlines this year. We’re taking a different route and focusing on the early actions facilities are taking to keep themselves out of the news.

• A well-stocked first aid kit is you go-to accessory in an emergency. Make sure your kit is always ready to go with these quick reminders.
• A complete Emergency Action Plan is easier to make than you may think. We encourage a simplistic EAP document. The shorter the better. Our argument? If it’s to memorize now it will be easy to implement in an emergency.

Great Operators are Raising the Programming Bar – Not content with the status quo, great facilities impressed us with unique poolside programs this year.

• Looking for a summer hit? Look no further. Nothing beats a poolside movie. We explored the logistics of your Dive-In Movie in our June programming article.
• Your lap swimmers can be your biggest advocates, but they may not always play nice. In 2017 we addressed the tough-to-broach topic of lap swimmer etiquette. Rough crowd? This article may help.

Thank you for letting us be a part of your continuing success story. Cheers to a great year!