'Hiring always a challenge': Metro's ski season, and the jobs hunt, lift off
Credit to Author: Susan Lazaruk| Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2019 01:55:17 +0000
Whistler Blackcomb opened Thursday and Cypress Mountain opens Friday with a limited base and a lot of manmade snow, but an unco-operative Mother Nature is the least of the worries for the ski hills this year.
Finding enough staff to fill all the positions needed for a huge resort — from lifties to instructors to restaurant staff — is always a big challenge for the hills, especially for the rush during the school break.
“We had some challenges last year,” said Cypress marketing director Joffrey Koeman. “I was making pizzas in the kitchen when we were really busy at Christmas.”
He said there were signs even in the off-season that the competition for human resources was going to be tighter this season, so Cypress prepared for it.
“You saw help wanted ads everywhere, on the radio and on the back of every truck and bus that rolled by,” said Koeman. “We kind of saw the signs in the summer and we decided to put more of a focus on recruitment. We started in June. We had more job fairs, more open interviews.”
Koeman concluded: “It worked. We’re better (for hires) than we normally are at this time of year.”
The hill has just a 20-centimetre base but the snowmakers have been pumping out the snow during the “really great” cold snap this week, and three runs are scheduled to open Friday, which is at or near the typical opening day.
Cypress Mountain employees have got the shovels out on Thursday getting the mountain ready for Friday’s opening of ski season. ‘We kind of saw the signs in the summer and we decided to put more of a focus on recruitment,’ says Cypress marketing director Joffrey Koeman.
Koeman said perks offered to entice workers, including free skiing and mountain shuttles, discounts on food, drink, rentals and retail, are essential to attract and keep hires.
“We’re always trying to look after our staff better,” he said.
At Whistler, which has hired 4,800 staff this year — up from 4,200 three years ago — jobs have to come with accommodation to retain workers in a small village, spokesman Mark Riddell said on opening day at the resort, which has been “aggressively snowmaking” on a 27-cm base and opened 11 runs.
And the jobs have to pay competitive wages or lose out to village businesses. Workers are also offered discounted meals and free ski passes and cheap passes for dependents.
“Staffing is always an issue,” said Riddell. “We could always use more staff, but it’s where you position them” that becomes the management challenge.
“We may hire you as a rental technician, but if you are needed to bus tables in our hilltop restaurants we’re going to make that happen,” he said.
Chris Frampton, head of the ski patrol at Cypress, says he’s excited about a new ski season on the hill. Three runs are scheduled to open Friday, which is at or near the typical opening day.
“A ski area is incredibly labour intensive,” Simon Whitehead, marketing manager at Mt. Seymour Resorts, said in an email. “We go from a small year-round staff to over 500 people in a very short space of time. Hiring is always a challenge.”
Mt. Seymour advertises “extensively” locally and overseas, holding weekly open interviews, said Whitehead.
The hill still has vacancies to fill for opening day, which is “typically mid-December or earlier if we have enough snow.”
Mid-week next week, there’s precipitation in the local forecast and 10 to 20 cm of snow for each of two days for Whistler.
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