Tips For Retaining A Director of Tennis or Head Tennis Professional
Retaining a Director of Tennis, as the economy improves, is one of the hardest tasks facing a country club. A great Director may be approached by a panoply of other clubs as he or she makes a name for his or herself in the industry, and keeping that Director happy at your club is a salient responsibility.
The most important initial factor into the retention equation is that the Director’s qualities and strengths within the industry fit the requirements with your position, the club, and the environment in which the role exists. This is why it is important to have a very strong job description which is related to the past issues and the future goals for the club.
Usually, the opportunity of hiring a new Director of Tennis or Head Tennis Professional is a chance to reflect on how the previous holder of the position could have improved the department and program from the members’ perspective. A survey of the membership is a wise choice to encompass not only the membership in the idea of hiring a new pro, but also garnering ideas and viewpoints of the program that a smaller committee of members may not see or even be aware of.
Secondly, the pay must be commensurate with the level of job and the level of the applicant. Pay for a Director can be handled in many ways, between salary and on-court revenue along with merchandise and stringing sales. There appears no stead-fast or formulaic basis for compensation across our industry. That being said, a search committee needs to have reference materials and comparisons to other local, area and regional country clubs to ensure that their compensation is in the appropriate neighborhood in terms of pay scale. Both committees and candidates for any position should check what the local and regional compensation levels are as well as on-court fees at competitive institutions.
In today’s stressful world, the work environment is very important to any tennis professional. From the ethos of the club and its members through to how Human Resources reacts to employment issues, the workplace needs to be a happy and enjoyable location to help retain good professionals. Employment benefits, especially to the younger professional starting out and the older professional who might be facing some health issues, are increasingly more in demand across our industry.
The relationships at the country club are extremely important to the professional in regard to job satisfaction. The relationship between the other department heads at a club along with the bond between the General Manager and, at larger clubs, the Assistant General Manager and Accounting are crucial. The bond between management and the tennis department is crucial as it helps solidify the tennis professionals base within the club structure and cash flow for the bottom line.
Finally, the support of the tennis committee or the board is integral. Often, a new hire is not supported by the entirety of the committee. Several reasons, we have seen from our work, can provide a splinter group within a committee: the letting-go of the previous tennis professional; the way in which the search was conducted to find a new pro; the decision on the new hire might not have been unanimous; the lead candidate turned down the job offer. All of these and more need to be hammered out – and often it takes a mediation from a third party to help all committee members understand the need for solidarity.
