PSIA-AASI

couldn’t find john’s thread, sorry….

vision, safety, methodology, and continuous learning are great, but one important item missing, in my opinion, in john’s proposal is how much ... a.k.a. pay range.

the snowsports performance pay range of a local resort in summit county, CO is as follows: 

category 1 (non certified) $8.50-$12.00/hr
category 2 (level 1 or 2) $10.00-$14.00/hr
category 3 (level 2 or 3) $13.00-17.00/hr
category 4 (level 3 or 4) $15.00-$19.00/hr
category 5 (level 4) $18.00-$22.00/hr

back in 2002, the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments issues a brief report indicating a living wage in summit county, CO was between $17.00 and $19.00/hr. 

and in state and local grant applications when volunteer’s are to be used as part of the applicants match, the applicant can use between $18.00-$22.00/hr for this volunteer labor.  and typically, not always, these volunteers are unskilled and untrained, but are volunteering their time for the betterment of the project, themselved, and the community. 

professional wages, maybe not, eh? 

best,
dg

Pay and professionalism are interesting bed-mates for sure. I have always advocated the advancement of education and learning as the best way to advance up the ladder in ski school pay systems. ASEA has a policy of not engaging in collective bargaining on behalf of membership since we are an educational association and not a trade organisation that represents membership to management. Just as we cannot set prices for lessons, or guarantee attendance by students, we cannot engage in setting pay scales. A well educated and informed member will be paid fairly and well in my experience. I’ll take the lifestyle over making a bunch of money with Lehman any day. By the way, here’s a link to the article in the spring 2009 issue of 32 Degrees that got this discussion going. Please have a look and share your own thoughts and ideas on the nature of professionalism and how it relates to today’s PSIA-AASI membership.
John.

Professional is in the title. Even SnowPro implies professional. The term Pro is used quite often in place of instructor at many resorts. Yet, no professional conduct statement or oath.
While most professions have oaths, they are also licensed by the state. The state statutes often mandate the ethical acts of the professional. Yet, upon matriculation there is an oath of professionalism made.
I think I understand the question, not sure I have a vote on the answer. I do believe that the Core Concepts will be a great place to glean such an oath if one is on its way.
I certainly agree that PSIA/AASI members are professionals and that a professional oath is not a bad idea. I would not be a fervent supporter of spending a lot of time and monies on a project to create, develop and roll out said conduct oath.

Pay scale is another subject and not in the authority of ASEA.
SInce dg brings it up…
I run a small business in addition to teaching skiing. I pay my employees based on market forced, business growth, performance review, certification, experience and personal traits. Why is the ski school in the habit of paying all level III’s according to a pay scale that is only based on years of service, cert level, hours taught. I think we can all recognize that there is a large gap in performance of all the level III’s in a given school. The business of same pay for all, less a few spiffs for upgrades…, is not in the best interest of a sound business model. I would rather pay a great instructor with great reviews and repeat business $40 per hour and a mediocre just-show-up-and-do-the-job-and-go-home instructor $12 per hour. Why is it so hard to pay individuals what they earn rather than using a pay scale that lumps us all in the same boat???

Looking forward to more input for more colleagues,

Greg

Hi Greg, I agree that it is an apparent anomaly that many resorts pay their instructors based on someone else (i.e PSIA or AASI)evaluation of their employee. We are a very traditional occupation in that we pay on certification in many circumstances. It is difficult and costly to evaluate a large school of people spread over several thousand acres of mountainside. Several attempts have been made to evaluate instructors purely on request private volume , which can be an accurate indicator of performance, although it can also be misinterpreted and distorted. When you say “rave reviews” what do you mean, in terms of measurable detail? Would a different form of evaluation make us more professional? I am all for a performance culture versus an entitlement culture. How do we get it done?

John,
When I mentioned performance reviews, I was alluding to a periodic performance review similar to that of any employee. In my office with 8 employees we do an annual review that is part of what determines pay. The review consists of a several factors that model employees do or do not exhibit and are scored (subjectively, which is a potential issue). As related to the job of an instructor, I can imagine the following factors: and I am sure some schools track all or some of these.
1. Schedule/Hours Available/Teaching Hours/Request Private hours/Lesson Upgrade ratio…
2. Peer Relations
3. Inter-Department Relations
4. Committee Work
5. Training Hours
6. Certification/Specialty

This is not an easy question to answer, maybe that is why we are still, as you say, we are a very traditional occupation in the way we pay. I am pretty sure that the answer is not easy and that you can’t make everyone feel satisfied. I do think getting a handle on payroll is a good idea.

Greg,

p.s. thanks for hosting the National tryout last spring, job well done.

Along with that list it might be possible to include demonstrations (Some schools grade on video shot during lessons and training) and other observations with class handling, safety on the hill, and returns to group lessons. Generating a return to group lessons is a nice thing to accomplish, more difficult than in privates I believe. Fitting into a team is really important and implies flexibility, some degree of maturity, and a healthy outward focus on others. Having a couple of zones of teaching effectiveness counts these days; ski and SB, or kids and adults, or add a specialty in there as well. Perhaps we will attract input on this subject with these ideas. How do you want to be evaluated and compensated?
Thanks for the compliment on Mammoth and the try-outs. The mountain sure dished out some tough conditions and I thought it brought out the best in people. It was a privilege to have such a group on the hill.

John,
I didn’t think about it much but I think you are on to something with Group returners vs. Private returners. While it may indeed be a tougher job for the Pro, it is much easier for the client. Imagine paying about $100 per day for a group lesson and likely (not guaranteed) of getting the Pro of you choice, versus paying $500-$600 per day for the private.

How would I like to be evaluated and compensated? You ask?

Evaluation:
I would like to have my supervisor hang with the lesson for segments. Similar to how sales reps in our office often have their regional managers with them on sales calls. Serves several purposes. The supervisor gets to see the Pro on their best game, the Pro gets to show their “stuff” to their boss, and the client gets to have the benefit of some cool demo’s and another Pro for part of their lesson. I would like to see this occur 3-4 times per season. I know supervisors are “busy” chasing down late comers and TLC customers, but I would like to see them more active in the lessons.

I would like to have a score from the retail shop, lift operators, tickets, patrol, and any other departments that have enough exposure to rate my cooperation.

I would like to have a score from my colleagues that rates my team work skills.

Compensation:
Certification level, and divisional or national Team status, Examiner Status.

Years of service

Children lessons should be paid at a higher rate. Making children life long resort clients is very important. A great lesson or series of lessons goes a long way to promote lifelong skiers. Keeping kids safe is a BIG responsibility and should be taken as such. Paying higher rates for children lessons will sway more Pros to be interested in taking these assignments.

I would like to work for an hourly rate and not have to keep track of spiffs and commissions for lesson upgrades. Although keeping good statistics regarding such upgrades should be a consideration in the hourly rate.

Well, I haven’t saved the world, just some thoughts really. I do hope that we can get more input. Thanks again for asking.

Cheers,
Greg

Hope the best for you John. It’s been a challenging year and the changes in the business locally were not unexpected. Should have been Rusty, not you. Sorry!

Pay for instructors is shameful.  Looking at the scale in the original post, and considering that we only get paid for hours worked, not when we show up, we earn at just about the poverty level.  (For 2009, poverty level for 1-person household = $14,000, and for 4-person household $21,000).

At best, for a six-hour, all-day private it’s in the $80-$110 per day range.  For the more typical two, 2-hr class lessons, it’s $60.  Annualized, that’s right in the $14,000 - $20,000 range.

Ski school has long been a big money maker for the mountain and that’s why pay has been kept so low.

You can forget calling this a “profession” with wages like this.  It’s shameful.  And, for PSIA to fall back and say that it’s not their business, that its an educational organization is to be real chickens about the situation.  There are many ways PSIA can help with the wage issue without getting in the business of setting wages or being a union.  They can advocate for a living wage for all of us.

I advocate a similar model to the PGA teaching pro where the pro earns a straight percentage of the lesson total.  This would give us huge incentives to grow the lesson base and to encourage returns.

Bob

I am not sure the pay is shameful, I am sure that the amount of time you are paid in a 8-10 hour day is. Many PSIA members drive an hour at least, goto a meeting, line up , line up , line up, and get in a run sometime, then drive home, and may have “worked” 2 or 4 hours. At $9.50 to $35 (the range that I have seen depending on cert/yrs taught/resort) I am thinking not a good wage for the effort either. It may not be the wage but the actual hours “worked” that creates a lot of the problem.
If you work at your certificaiton, get certified, become a trainer, work at a top resort, and do a great job and create a clientele. You are doing 6 hours, 6-7 days a week, $35 per hour for many weeks from Dec to April. Looks like you might be grossing $25K to $30K without gratuity counted. Add gratuity and annualize that to $60-70K if you were working year round and not seasonal. Way above poverty wage.
I understand that is the top ski pro in a top resort. What is stopping us?
I do see the incentive of making a % of each lesson too!
Greg

A ski instructor is the worst paid job at the mountain.  And because of that I think the word is shameful. 

Ask yourself, out of ALL the employees at the mountain who show up at 8am (or earlier) and leave at 4pm, who makes less than a ski instructor?  Even a dishwasher at the minimum wage of $7.25 for an eight-our shift makes $58.00.  The answer is that a few instructors make more than that a day on many days.  But, then there are the rainy, icy, below zero days where we show up and barely work at all.  I doubt many instructors average $58/day.

I’ve worked in Vail and I know what a full time, full cert with ten years of experience and a loyal following of clients can earn. But, that’s not the real world for most of us.  As in any occupation there are the people at the top of the chain who earn a lot more than the rest of them.

I still say when a ski instructor earns less than the dishwasher, and the instructor has the most intimate customer relationship and has the most direct impact on whether a person returns or not, there is something really wrong with the system.  Oh, and couple that with the education requirements (trips for required clinics), equipment purchases, etc and the dish-washing job looks real good from a financial perspective.

I know I am beating a dead horse here, but this and the lack of respect we receive as instructors is what caused me to retire from teaching after forty years; I started when I was 16.  I tell people now that I’ve graduated to being a customer!

Getting back to professionalism, when the mountain management begin treating us like professionals with respect this will be a real profession.

Bob