No lifeguard shortage but staffing issues persist: Vancouver park board

Vancouver’s park board says it has avoided the lifeguard shortages of previous years, but the city’s pools and beaches are still struggling with staffing issues.

Last summer and in 2022, the board was forced to reduce pool opening hours or leave beaches unguarded due to a lack of qualified employees. This year, the supervisor of aquatics for the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, Tony Syskakis, says the city is back to pre-pandemic numbers of lifeguards, but their availability is posing a challenge.

He says the problem is not that lifeguards don’t show up for their shifts, but rather the shifts that they want.

“Many people nowadays would like to work at times that are convenient so they could have social time with their friends. Weekends and evenings tends to be when people get together. Our challenge is that weekends and evenings are also the same times that we need our staff the most,” said Syskakis.

He said that the majority of his staff are young people, between the ages of 16 and 24, and they can be preoccupied by other jobs and responsibilities.

“The many demands, and pressures and choices being made today by the people who are younger in our in our work pool, are little bit different than they would have been, let’s say, 10 to 15 years ago,” he said.

Syskakis says the closure of Kits Pool has helped make “six to eight” more lifeguards available more often.

He says to address the staffing challenges, the park board is working to develop a better culture and remind employees why their work matters.

“A lot of it is about the intrinsics: trying to get people to understand how much of an impact they have every time they teach a swimming lesson and have a child learn to swim and and be at less risk when they go to the beach this summer. The intrinsics are a big part of why people come to work. It’s not just the money. Money matters too. The pay is a good paying job, and the commitments aren’t necessarily high, but the intrinsics, I think, are what we’re really trying to focus on.”

—With files from Michael Williams.