FindingandRetainingSwimmingInstructorsforYourSmallSwimSchool[2026]

Combining groups because someone is sick, calling parents to reschedule a lesson, jumping in the water yourself for an extra hour: this is what a week looks like when your small swim school is missing an instructor. Large pools manage this with a flex pool. You don’t have that luxury with only two or three people on the payroll. This article is about finding new swimming instructors without an expensive campaign, and about retaining the people you already have.

How severe the shortage of swimming instructors is

The shortage is structural. Employers’ association WiZZ calls it a problem for the entire sector and launched a labor market campaign to put working in pools back on the map.

About 1100 vacancies open annually

Each year, around 1100 vacancies open up at pools and swim schools in the Netherlands, mainly for swim teachers, supervisors, and hospitality staff. WiZZ mentioned this figure at the launch of the campaign "Let Your Enthusiasm Work." For a small school with three instructors, this does not bode well: one departure immediately means a quarter of your staff is gone.

The hassle caused by one unfilled position

Without enough instructors, the measures are almost always the same. Groups get larger, lessons are canceled, opening hours shrink, or the waiting list grows. In Groningen, a pool kept the recreational pool closed from Monday through Wednesday and removed evening lessons from the schedule. Optisport called the shortage during the same period worrying for national swimming safety and internally trained twenty-five people to fill the gaps. For parents, this means their child suddenly is no longer in their own group.

The same issue abroad

In the United Kingdom, Swim England calculated that about 667,000 children miss swimming lessons due to the shortage of swim teachers. To grow lesson programs, an extra 26,000 hours of lessons per week would be needed, and of the 73,000 jobs in the UK aquatic sector, nearly 12,000 were vacant. The same calculation applies to pools in Germany, France, and Spain: there is water, there are children who want to learn to swim, and there is no one to lead the group. Swimmigo is used in five languages, so the school that approaches this smartly can also reach those people across language barriers.

Why small schools have it harder than large pools

There is no reserve team

At a large pool, a sick instructor can be covered by a colleague from another location, an intern, or someone from the flex pool. At a school with two or three instructors, one absence immediately means the lesson is canceled. The continuity of your entire school depends on a handful of people you cannot replace through a temp agency.

Large organizations train their own staff

Optisport has been training people through its own academy for fifteen years, offering two to three courses annually for employees. A small school does not have such machinery. What you can do: let someone start and facilitate their training yourself, instead of waiting for a ready-made instructor who already has a job.

Candidates compare you to the municipal pool

A starting instructor looks at hours, travel costs, contract type, and growth opportunities. The municipal pool offers a permanent contract with a collective labor agreement scale and a pension scheme. On paper, you don’t win that. You win on the things that matter in practice: a fixed group, short travel time, influence on your own schedule, and guidance in the first weeks instead of just a key and good luck.

Four mistakes that make recruiting unnecessarily difficult

Mistake 1: only start searching when someone leaves

Recruiting under pressure almost always results in hiring the first candidate available. Do it also in quiet months. Let an intern shadow for a day, keep in touch with a former colleague who has one day off per week, and collect names of people who cannot work now but might later. A list of five names is worth more than a vacancy posted online for three weeks.

Mistake 2: using the same vacancy text as every other pool

Sentences like "friendly team" and "flexible hours" say nothing because everyone writes them. Mention what a candidate really wants to know: on which day and at which pool, how large the group is, who provides guidance in the first months, whether there is room for extra hours during holidays, and if the fixed lesson day is negotiable.

Mistake 3: only competing on salary

The pay scale from the collective labor agreement for Pools and Swim Schools is a minimum, not a ceiling. Paying above that minimum is allowed and can make the difference for someone comparing two offers. If that’s not possible, there are other forms of appreciation: travel expenses, free swimming for the family, a fixed lesson day, or paid time to keep track of progress.

Mistake 4: letting a new colleague lead a group immediately

A newly trained instructor who stands alone in front of a group on day one is more likely to drop out. Let someone shadow an experienced colleague in the first weeks, agree on who answers questions, and briefly discuss how each lesson went. This costs you a few hours of guidance and saves you a new vacancy in three months.

Where to find candidates you don’t know yet

Most small schools post a vacancy online and wait. There are more routes, and some cost almost nothing.

Start with the people who already know you

Parents who have been in the waiting room for years know how your school works and want a good outcome for you. Ask if their son or daughter aged sixteen wants to help with supervision, materials, or guiding the youngest group. Those who enjoy it can grow into instructors. Former students who just earned their C diploma themselves are often surprisingly good guides: they know exactly how exciting the first year in the water is.

Career changers are the largest untapped group

The strongest candidates don’t always come from the pool. People from healthcare, education, or hospitality have already learned to work with children, handle difficult conversations, and be punctual. What they lack is swimming technique and the diploma. If you facilitate the training and set clear agreements, that is more attractive for many people than a job in a sector they have been tired of for years.

Use the free training routes for young people

WiZZ and the National Council for Swimming Safety collaborate in Next Generation Lifeguards. Young people aged 12 to 30 can follow free short courses and gain practical experience through this project, and organizations that let them shadow can use subsidy options. For a small school, this means you can introduce someone without needing a training budget immediately. Check the WiZZ website to see which routes are currently open.

Collaborate with training programs, clubs, and lifeguard brigades

Sports training programs look for internship places, and swim clubs have members who maintain their swimming skills but have no paid work at the pool. One call to the coordinator of the nearest club or brigade usually yields one or two names. Young people with a lifesaving swimming diploma are also one step closer to the instructor training.

Stay visible where the sector looks

ZwemNetwerk is the job platform of the swim sector, where candidates search by function, region, and hours. Post your vacancy there and also use your own channels: your school’s socials, flyers from the app, and your existing parents. A call in the school app or waiting room reaches people who already trust you, saving a lot of pre-selection.

Keep a list of people who currently say no

Almost every time you ask someone, they say no. Note why: too few hours, too far to travel, just got another job. If you send those people a message twice a year, that’s a talent pool that slowly fills. If you can’t find someone full-time, see if two part-timers can split the group. Two people working eight hours each is better than no lesson.

How to retain the instructors you already have

Finding an instructor takes months. Losing someone costs you students, because parents notice who their child is attached to. It pays to work just as hard on retention as on recruitment.

The first three months determine if someone stays

New employees rarely leave because the pool is boring. They leave because they feel lost in the first months: no fixed contact person, unclear expectations, a schedule that changes every week. Assign a new instructor a fixed buddy, accompany them for the first three lessons, and make time for a twenty-minute conversation at the end of the first month. That conversation costs almost nothing and provides the most important information of the year.

Scheduling that fits a side job or family

Many swimming instructors combine the work with studies, a family, or another job. Fixed blocks on fixed days make that possible and immediately make your school more attractive than a pool that publishes a new schedule every month. Publish the schedule well in advance and leave room for swaps. Those who know their schedule three months ahead stay longer than those who have to wait week by week.

Less administration is a labor condition

Updating progress on paper often happens after the lesson, on the couch, in the evening. Instructors name that administration as one of the biggest energy drains of the job. If you register scores during the lesson on a phone or tablet and updates go automatically to parents, an hour disappears from your employee’s week. That hour is a concrete improvement of working conditions without needing extra salary budget. Want to know more? Read how work pressure and administration relate for swimming instructors.

Paying above the collective labor agreement minimum is allowed

The collective labor agreement for Pools and Swim Schools is generally binding and runs until December 31, 2026. The pay scale in it is the minimum you must pay, and the agreement itself says positive deviations are allowed. If you really want to keep someone, a higher scale or an earlier increment can make the difference between staying and leaving. Don’t rely only on salary: travel expenses, free swimming for the family, and a permanent contract after six months weigh heavily for many instructors.

Give people a next step

Those who feel they will be doing the same thing in five years start looking elsewhere. Make growth concrete: their own group, responsibility for the waiting list, a role in Saturday coordination, or the task of training new colleagues. Larger organizations call this career progression. In a small school, it’s easier to arrange because you don’t need a formal job structure to give someone more responsibility.

Take work pressure and physical strain seriously

Teaching swimming is physically demanding: lots of bending, lifting, climbing, and standing in humid environments. Instructors who last five years have learned how to protect their bodies. As a school, you can support this by alternating the schedule between groups needing a lot of manual support and groups that swim more independently, and by investing in equipment that reduces lifting. More about this is in the article on ergonomics in teaching swimming.

Ask what’s going on yourself

An exit interview is too late. Twice a year, ask the same three questions: what is going well, what irritates you, and what would you like to change in your schedule or tasks? You don’t have to solve everything. Just asking prevents irritations from piling up into a job application at the pool around the corner. That’s exactly what parents notice: changing instructors cost your child weeks to months of progress, especially if a child is attached to a fixed teacher.

What the Swimmigo app does for this

Swimmigo is built for independent swimming instructors and small swim schools. Part of the work that would otherwise be on your plate happens automatically. You notice this doubly: it saves you time as an entrepreneur, and it makes your school more attractive to people coming to work.

A new colleague is up to speed within a day

The app shows your groups, levels, and progress per student all in one place. A new instructor doesn’t have to go through folders of paper or ask how the previous colleague recorded scores: they open the group and see where each child stands. Skills are assessed with a score from 0 to 6, divided over seven levels and 86 exercises. That is the same language parents see, so a substitute can start without explanation.

Team roles: owner, administrator, instructor

You can add your team in the app with their own role. The owner sees everything. An administrator can view administration and revenue and assign rights, for example who can send messages to parents and who sees assessments. An instructor sees the groups and children assigned to them. Rights are fixed per role, so you don’t have to worry someone accidentally changes your school’s prices. New team members request access themselves, and an existing member approves it.

Statistics and School Pulse as early signals

In the dashboard, you see the occupancy rate of your groups, how long children take to complete a level, and where progress stalls. The system itself signals when a group drops below sixty percent occupancy, when children stay on the same level longer than six months, and where capacity is lacking. For your personnel planning, you thus see when you need a second instructor and when a group can be merged so someone can make extra hours instead of leaving.

Informing parents without endless messages

Parents see progress live in their own app as soon as the instructor updates, and they automatically receive a notification when their child reaches a new level. They can send messages to the school with read receipts, and the school can turn this function on or off. Notifications are displayed in the recipient’s language, from five languages. What this saves you: no more evening-long messaging, and thus fewer reasons for an instructor to work after the lesson.

Create diplomas and certificates yourself

When a child completes a level, the school can issue a certificate or diploma. The diploma maker in the app has multiple styles and themes, your own logo, the names of instructor and swimmer, and the date. You print it yourself or send it digitally, without needing a designer. For new instructors, this is a fun task to get: it yields visible results and parental appreciation.

What the app costs you

Swimmigo works with two subscriptions. You start with a thirty-day free trial, which begins as soon as you link your first student. Parents always use the app for free.

In both cases, the number of students is unlimited and there is one fixed monthly fee. You can cancel monthly. Want to know what else is in the app? Check the features overview or the page for swim schools and instructors.

Conclusion

The shortage of swimming instructors will not resolve itself, and for a small school, every vacancy is one too many. The best results come from two things you control yourself: keep recruiting even when there is no gap, through parents, career changers, and the sector’s free training routes, and treat the people you already have so well that they don’t look elsewhere. A fixed lesson day, guidance in the first months, less administration, and a fair position above the collective labor agreement minimum cost you less than a new recruitment round.

Sources

• WiZZ Employers in Pools and Swim Schools: labor market and impact of staff shortage, consulted September 2026
• WiZZ: Next Generation Lifeguards, free training and subsidies for organizations, consulted September 2026
• MarketingTribune: recruitment campaign started to tackle pool staff shortage, 1100 vacancies per year, July 11, 2024
• Optisport: shortage of instructors worrying for national swimming safety, consulted September 2026
• RTV Noord: staff shortage at pools in Groningen, some activities canceled, September 20, 2022
• WiZZ: collective labor agreement Pools and Swim Schools 2025 and 2026, generally binding as of July 29, 2025, consulted September 2026
• Swim England: 667,000 children miss swimming lessons due to shortage of swim teachers, April 16, 2024
• Swimming Teachers' Association and Swim England: 12,000 of 73,000 aquatic sector jobs vacant, June 9, 2023
• ZwemNetwerk: job platform of the swim sector, consulted September 2026