As a 22.7-acre water park with 400,000 annual guests, 17 water slides, a wave pool, a lazy river and more, Zoombezi Bay needs a lot of lifeguards. Two hundred to be exact. 
Yearly lifeguard recruiting efforts at Zoombezi Bay start when there’s still snow on the ground, which can often make it difficult to find quality summer hires. After the economy picked up, competition for talent became even tougher. When the Powell, Ohio-based water park reviewed its lifeguard lineup in March, there were only 72 lifeguards for the season, which started in May. “It was crunch time, and we needed to make some changes,” wrote Carman Wirtz, the water park’s senior vice president of human resources, in its Optimas application.
After a meeting with HR, operations and the aquatics teams, the group saw two changes that needed to be made: a raise in the lifeguard hourly wage and better communication about flexible work schedules.
So the New Day at the Bay campaign was born.
Immediately, it was launched on social media, seeing speedy results with applications flowing in. As many lifeguards are also involved in sports, the New Day at the Bay team met with athletic directors to set up employment tables at wrestling and track meets, driving more people to apply.
Vinyl window clings were also created and given to the lifeguards once they completed their lengthy certification process. This was meant as a token of pride for their accomplishments, as well as a way to brag to friends. The aquatics team also regularly communicated its appreciation of the group.
Efforts from New Day at the Bay led to great success as 205 lifeguards were hired. When conducting aquatics operational audits, Zoombezi Bay found it earned “exceeds” ratings in all audits, which was granted to only 5 percent of water parks in the U.S., according to Zoombezi’s application.
“Not only did we hire the number of lifeguards needed, but A New Day at the Bay has raised the level of lifeguarding at the water park,” Wirtz wrote.
For its efforts to find and hire more lifeguards to meet its water park safety needs, Zoombezi Bay is the gold 2015 Optimas Award winner for Recruiting.
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