Divewise, a PADI Five Star Instructor Development Center in St Julians, Malta, chose to deliver the PADI (EMEA) Advanced Training Academy to all their staff as they wanted to focus on training and empowering them.
The dive center’s management team believes that empowering their employees and having strong, knowledgeable and safe dive center staff will help retain their workforce and offer a best-in-class experience for their divers.
Learn how they used the PADI EMEA Advanced Training Academy to train staff to offer a wide range of courses.
Q: What business challenge did you face?
A: Instructors who were not confident in teaching a range of courses.
We wanted to go above and beyond to ensure that all staff felt a part of the center and were given the tools to feel confident to teach any course. Sometimes when an Instructor is new to teaching, they don’t feel confident to instruct all courses, so all staff were asked to create a ‘yes vs no’ list of courses; ‘yes’ to those they felt comfortable with and ‘no’ to those they would like to have more training or assistance to teach confidently. Several instructors cited the Rescue Diver and Divemaster courses as their weaker areas.
Q: How did PADI help you solve your business challenge?
A: PADI EMEA offers the Advanced Training Academy, which is available to all instructors – new, returning or experienced.
To help build a strong team at the start of the season and to share knowledge and previous experiences, we offered the Advanced Training Academy to all staff, and they all opted to be a part of the program. The training included staff members new to Divewise, instructors who had recently passed their IDC, and long-standing members of the team. We wanted to create a group of instructors who can teach any course, whenever called upon, to allow for greater flexibility and availability when allocating courses and meeting customer requests.
We closed for a day, pre-high season, for all staff to complete the “Conducting a Successful PADI Rescue Diver Course” from the EMEA Advanced Training Academy, offering a dry workshop in the morning and a wet workshop in the afternoon. This also functioned as a great team-building exercise and allowed all instructors to bond together. We ran the “Making the Most of the PADI Pros’ Site” and “Risk Management and Best Practice” workshops in the classroom and will run the “Conducting a Successful Divemaster Course” presentation over a series of three hour-long sessions.
Q: How is it working now?
A: All the staff have been involved in the training.
Staff members were given the choice to participate, and everyone chose to do so because they saw the opportunity for personal development, the chance for additional training to build their confidence in lesser-taught courses, and a wonderful moment for group discussions. Following the Rescue Diver training, the store has taught multiple Rescue Diver students, and different members of staff have been given the opportunity to teach these courses, including one new instructor who completed the IDC/IE just six weeks earlier. Whilst being nervous to teach their first Rescue Diver course, they felt more confident that they could deliver a high-quality course for the students and knew they had staff around them to whom they could ask questions, if needed.
The “Conducting a Successful Divemaster Course” presentation is planned in a few weeks, just prior to a new cohort of Divemaster candidates starting. The training for these candidates will be shared among the instructors and the on-site Course Director.
We believe the sessions taking an in-depth look at the PADI Pros’ Site and the presentation on “Risk Management and Best Practice” have been invaluable in reiterating how important paperwork standards are — that they should always be adhered to — and that safety should always be at the forefront of every instructor’s mind.
Q: What advice do you have for others in similar situations?
A: Invest in your staff – they run your business!
Every staff member should have the ability to teach every course, as they are a representation of your business. They should be able to demonstrate a high level of skill and knowledge across the PADI curriculum.
Closing the store for a day to deliver staff training was a long-term investment for both the instructors and the store, and it means we are not limited by which courses certain instructors can and cannot teach. In a resort environment, we need to be agile, flexible and reactive to what courses customers are looking for, so ensuring all our instructors are confident teaching all courses – including Rescue Diver and Divemaster – is vital to our business.
Are you ready to learn more about all of the benefits of the PADI EMEA Advanced Training Academy? Contact your PADI Course Director or your PADI Five Star IDC store. If you have any questions, please contact the Instructor Development team at [email protected].
