Manager Aquatics

Organization Overview: 

At Vivo we are a charitable enterprise on a mission to raise healthier generations in Calgary and beyond. We want Canadians of all ages to achieve their optimal health at home, school, work and play. We’re creating local, evidence-based solutions to support individuals and whole communities be more active and connected by charting a course to make 10% shifts - shifts in people’s lifestyles, shifts in the care and design of communities and shifts in decision making at organizational and government levels. 

With the support of new experiences and innovative built environments created with and for the community, their success stories will be proof of our mission in action. They’ll serve as powerful motivation for others, in Calgary and across the nation, to make their own changes for life. 

Role: 

As Manager, Aquatics, you are responsible for the co-creation, development, resourcing, delivery, evaluation, performance and evolution of the aquatic operations, aquatic leadership and aquatic programming.  You will create and connect with our customers, community and employees in ways that are impactful in driving and advancing our cause.  You will re-imagine, oversee and evolve all aspects and functions of the aquatic team’s play based and curriculum-based experiences to bring Vivo experiences to life.  You’ll lead and foster accountability and capacity in the team to deliver strong results and impact.   

Hours : 40 hours per week - Flexible days and nights and weekends based on business needs

Reports to:  General Manager

Responsibilities: 

Leadership Impact

• Oversee, evolve and provide leadership and direction to the aquatics in the form of talent acquisition, training, performance management, team in-services and training.  

• Develop, monitor and evaluate work-plans and performance targets for the aquatics.  

• Empower and hold the aquatic’s team accountable for achieving established work-plans and targets through the regular follow-up, feedback and coaching.

• Recruit, onboard, train, coach and performance manage the team utilizing Human Resources best practices to ensure a high-performing team of 40+ staff including, designing and running effective training and in-services, and scheduling and running recertification for Supervisors, Instructors and Lifeguards. 

• Perform regular scheduling and payroll for all of aquatics (programs and operations/lifeguarding), 10+ Supervisors and 30+ Lifeguards & Instructors and leadership/admin team members. 

• Design and run effective training to continuously develop staff to be equipped to deal with high stress emergency situations in accordance with Lifesaving Society Standards and Standard First Aid standards.

• Co-create, collaborate, and foster healthy teamwork amongst programs and services managers in order to develop strong experiences for the community. 

• Champion the Vivo instructor certification including, providing mentoring, facilitation of training and on-going evaluation. 

Business Management

• Lead day to day aquatics, maintaining aquatic health and safety standards, first aid incidents analysis and prevention, equipment & supply inventory and ordering.

• Continuously test, evaluate, recommend and design signature programs and experiences for all ages, optimize the space with our instructors. 

• Seek out and explore trends and practices. Ex:  experience and place making for water-based environments, new ways of experience delivery, equipment lifecycles and maintenance, etc and recommend solutions. 

• Develop and pitch business cases for the design and implementation of play based and curriculum-based learning experiences for aquatic programming & run aquatics public education campaigns.  Incorporate Vivo’s existing framework into program offerings to keep people moving more frequently. 

• Track all pool-based stats and submit summaries on a monthly basis.  Present in the Building Operations Committee meetings as required. 

• Own the aquatics budget and understand and monitor key components that influence targets and revenue generation. 

• Ensure all supplies are tracked, kept in good repair and replaced in alignment with budget. 

• Assess, revise, and revamp operational policies, procedures and training manuals for aquatics to ensure they are aligned and support the new business model and team practices.

• Work in collaboration with all teams on school, birthdays, and community driven experiences for the aquatics area.

• Build strong relationships and co-create with our aquatic audience to determine their needs and what they value in play experiences and translate learnings to the team to test and implement the overall customer experience.  

• Ensure the team is set up for success to engage with members and guests with an educational lens on their experience. 

• Participate in re-imagining the aquatic development process through a service design thinking lens with the team and then implement and build capacity in the aquatic operations team to do the same. 

• Implement and integrate learnings and evolutions into team’s work in “real time” as a result of experimentation and testing. 

• Present ideas, research, and recommendations to leadership team through strong communication in the form of verbal presentations, business cases, and facilitation of meetings.    

• Champion Vivo at special events i.e. everybody plays, open house, community events, etc. 

• Support online registration and refund experiences pertaining to registrations and reactivation of memberships or other online payments.

• Oversee the AVOCADO updates for your area and work with our inhouse team to ensure all programs are properly entered. 

Qualifications: 

• Minimum 3 years of aquatic leadership and supervisory experience 

• Post-Secondary Diploma and/or University Degree in kinesiology, recreation or customer service management, business, etc.  

• Proficiency with Microsoft Outlook, Excel, Word and PowerPoint

• Current Intermediate First Aid (previously known as Standard First Aid) and CPR-C/AED certifications 

• Lifesaving Instructor Trainer, National Lifeguard Instructor, First Aid Instructor considered assets.

• National Lifeguard and/or Lifesaving Instructor or equivalent is required.  

Please visit our careers page to see more job opportunities.