12 Essential Aquatic Maintenance Training Topics for a Successful Summer

Well-trained maintenance teams are essential to summer pool successes. Here are 12 in-service topics to help you organize your weekly meetings and ensure your teams success.

Safety Data Sheet Training – We all keep SDS documents, but has your crew dug into them? Do they know what to do when something goes wrong with a chemical? An SDS training explores the chemicals you store on site, and how to use them safely. This topic is expanded through the next two in-service suggestions.

Chemical Storage – We’ve got some dangerous chemicals in our pump room. Does everyone know how to properly store them when they’re not in use? Train your team to have a keen eye when it comes to storage hazards in the pump room. Our post on pool chemical safety covers many of the essential topics for this training.

Personal Protective Equipment – Continuing on with your SDS training, make sure your crew knows what PPE is required for each chemical they use. Document attendance at this training and then hold your staff to the highest expectations of PPE usage.

Emergency Action Plan – Maintenance crews are great at being accessible and quick to respond to facility needs. Utilize this quick response time and make them part of your facilities emergency action plan. They can be a big help when something goes wrong. Consider having your entire maintenance team trained in basic CPR, First Aid and AED usage.

Swim Test – If your crew is working around the pool, they should be able to self-rescue in the event that they fall into the water. Sounds goofy right? Well, accidents happen… sometimes overnight, with no one else around. You’ll feel more confident when your crew can prove that they can jump in (fully clothed) and climb out on their own… just in case. Not ready to take the plunge? You can skip this in-service if you schedule your overnight team to work in pairs, or limit overnight poolside maintenance and housekeeping activities.

Lockout/Tagout – Electricity and water just don’t mix. Remind the crew about the safety protocols needed to work safely around aquatic related electricity. Not familiar enough with LOTO to teach your crew? Check out OSHA’s training protocol here.

Chemical Checks – If your maintenance crew is checking the chemicals, you’re relying on them for essential information. Proper chem checks are the basis for an efficient, clean and safe pool. Make sure everyone’s on the same page. Start by digging into the instruction manual for your chem test kit. Note the variables that lead to inaccurate test results. Limit these variables and your team will test much more consistently.

Barriers to Entry – Pools are an attractive nuisance. How do you ensure that no one is in your facility when you don’t want them to be? Set up strong barriers to entry and regularly maintain them. Your entire maintenance team should be involved in the barrier inspection process. A simple walk-through training can be tremendously helpful. Point out barrier expectations, and how to quickly remedy non-compliant situations with your doors, gates, fences, locks and security systems.

Chemical Delivery – When it comes to adding chemicals to pool water, there’s a lot to consider. Manually (by hand) and automatically (mechanical feeder) adding chemicals requires lots of consideration, and thorough training. Take the time to make sure your team is adding chemicals correctly.

Preventative Maintenance – Got a pool? You’ve got a lot of expensive stuff. It’s up to you to protect the investment. Get your team involved in planning your PM schedule. With increased engagement in the planning process, they’ll have greater buy-in.

Heater and Boiler Training – When you scheduled your PM training, you probably realized you could have spent two days talking about heaters and boilers. Break out this training to its own freestanding in-service. Bring in a factory trained technician to go through their PM protocol while your team takes notes.

Chemical Disposal – It’s the end of the season. If you’re shutting down, where are those chemicals going? The EPA cares how you dispose of ecotoxic pool chemicals and so should your team. Make sure you talk about proper storage of what you’ll keep and disposal of what you’ll get rid of.

Questions about these training topics? We’re happy to help. Give us a call at 1-844-482-1777 for implementation tips and more ideas to help your team stay at the top of their game this summer.