Yesterday I told you why I pay my coaches their hourly rate for private lessons. There’s more to it than just that though. At least five times every season a new gym owner asks “How do you pay coaches for competitions?”
My answer is way more simple than the half-day, full-day pay rate calculations given out by other gym owners in other groups.
I look at the competition schedule and determine when my coaches need to be there. I then schedule them for shifts throughout the day. They use their phones to clock in and out for those shifts.
If they’re clocked in, they’re helping warm up teams, gather athletes (sometimes from their team and sometimes from another team), playing music, walking tinies and minis back to their parents, and even sometimes just motivating athletes in the stands. They’re always available to help anywhere they’re needed. When they’re not clocked in, I encourage them to go shopping, go out to eat, hang out in the coaches room or even just take a break away from the noise to do what they want to do. Some choose to stay. I get that. I enjoy watching other divisions too. I never ask those coaches to help out unless it’s an emergency – and then I clock them in and pay for their time.
So how do I pay coaches for competitions? I pay them their hourly rate and provide them with a schedule in advance. They know this is “flex time” if a schedule is running especially late. So, if they’re scheduled until 2 p.m. and their team gets pushed back to compete at 2:05 p.m., they clock out once their team is done and they’ve completed score check.
Why did I shift away from the half-day/full-day payments I made in those early years when I was listening to other owners? My staff is valuable to me. I never want to pay them less than they’re worth. How many times are you stuck at scorecheck for an hour? One time a few years ago, we were there until midnight. Our team had competed at 9:30 p.m. My coaches were grateful they were getting paid their hourly rate. The measly half-day pay they would have previously gotten was not a sign of appreciation. In fact, it would have been less than minimum wage.
When it comes to travel, I use the government’s policy. I pay for all of their travel, their rooms, the standard per diem rate, and if they have to use their own cars – mileage. I also go above and beyond and we also do some staff bonding on travel trips. We’ve been parasailing, on a ghost tour down Bourbon street, on a Hollywood tour and a fanboat tour through gator country.
If you’re sitting back thinking, “I can’t afford to pay my coaches hourly AND pay for their travel,” then you NEED Next Gen. You NEED Shelley’s help developing a budget that allows you to do that without breaking the bank at the gym or in your gym parents’ pocketbook.
Like I said yesterday, our industry is not a unicorn. Just like our cheer gym has competitions, my restaurant had long days of catering and food festivals. During those days, our restaurant staff was given a schedule and they clocked in as normal for that. When we could give above-and-beyond perks, we did!
