Golf Business Canada 18 Golf Business Canada 19

So many times throughout our travels we have run into roadblocks when it comes to acquiring the perfectly balanced individual to fill a position at our respective facilities. We have had hundreds of conversations over the past ten years about filling the ‘right’ roles with the ‘right’ people. Most recently, Scott was part of a lengthy process that saw his Board of Directors transition to a new Head Professional at Victoria Golf Club where his current Head Professional had been a leader for forty years.

ASSESS YOUR BUSINESS If you are about to hire a new manager at your facility and you need to know where to start, it is time to assess your business. Your ‘Mission Statement’ and ‘Culture’ are two important aspects to be considered that define the type of people you wish to help you succeed. What is your Mission Statement? Is it known and understood by everyone in your organization? Is it a focus of you and your entire team or something you strive for each and every day? Is your Mission Statement something you are proud of and expect your team and clients to be aware of? If not, this should be your starting point.

Scott Kolb • Winston Michell

Scott is the General Manager/Executive Professional of Victoria Golf Club and Winston is the Head Professional/

Assistant General Manager of Cottonwood Golf Club (Vancouver Island). Both are co-owners of Fresh Golf

Solutions & VB Golf. Contact them at www.freshgolf.ca & www.vbgolf.ca.

What is your culture? Are your team and your clients aware of the intended culture of your facility and are you effectively achieving a consistent culture day in and day out? A Mission Statement says what you are and a Culture defines who you are. Knowing the answers to these questions provides a clear and concise message to each mind that walks through your doors and allows you to keep your team on the same page at all times. You are looking to build a group of individuals dedicated to a team effort. This effort is to constantly live up to your Mission Statement with each team member and client interaction. At the same time, you must ensure all thought and feeling, attitude and interaction revolve around your culture.

The RighT hiReThe inside Scoop on

hiring a head Professional

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A LEADER AT YOUR FACILITY Your Head Professional touches every department and interacts with all of your customers. Like it or not, your Head Professional plays a central role in the public image of your Culture. This is why it is important to make the right hire. Now that you know what type of leader you need, the simpler task of putting a job description together, posting the position through the proper channels and going through the interview process is next. The following are things you should expect your professional to do: • Bring you new customers

through instruction or innovative ideas

• Be a visible face for your operation• Be a leader and protect your

financial investment through growing your business and also by identifying efficiencies

• Developing appropriate depart-mental manual which reflect your golf club’s full employee manual

Assess your current situation in great detail and be honest with yourself about the golf community’s view of your property and if you are a destination for golf industry individuals to become successful. If not, here is your chance to right the ship with the proper hire. As the hiring individual, your task will be identifying what skill sets you need and if the candidate you are about to hire has the desire to do the things that you require. We are all creatures of habit and do the things we like or are good at, ignoring the things that are hard or not fun.

In summary, if you employ a member of the PGA who is in their office for more than an hour or two a day then either you do not have the right person or the right goals for the individual. They need to train the team around them to be the next successful professionals and they need to be available on the front line. It is what you pay them for!

Want more out of your Professional?

1 Evaluate the top five things that your Head Professional should focus in the coming year. (i.e. creating programs to introduce new golfers, merchandising, training team, tournaments, teaching etc)

2 Put a percentage of each based on importance, totaling 100%.

3 Identify tasks that are taking the time away from your priorities (i.e. are they wasting time entering inventory when you could pay $15/hour individual to do task). Does your Head Professional delegate tasks that could be done by someone else to free their time to do the things to grow your business?

Case Study by Scott Kolb, Victoria Golf Club

The Victoria Golf Club recently went through a process to hire a Head Professional for the first time in 30 years, replacing an award winning Head Professional, Mike Parker, who had been at the club for 43 years. Understandably, the GM and Board were under a lot of pressure from the membership to find Mike’s successor.

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Golf Business Canada 22

Once a Chair for the hiring process was chosen, I worked on helping them form a committee that would be approved by the membership. The committee quickly developed a timeline and more importantly had frank discussions of what they desired in the next professional and what they required to attract new members going forward. As a private club, members are everything for sur-vival. Throughout the process we reminded ourselves of that fact during every meeting. They deter-mined that although merchandise and financial skills were important, we had these skills in our present team. Instead they craved an indi-vidual that would reach all ages and both genders. One who had a great track record in teaching all demographics and if he or she was an accomplished golfer, then that would be a nice feather in the cap. Of course we wanted it all but a “face” of the property that would help us attract new younger members was a key. The next step was advertising the position. Traditionally you would post a position on the provincial PGA site and the PGA of Canada would also pick up the posting. Since we were posting in the spring, we felt that many good professionals would not be looking on the career page with everything else going on. We requested and received permission to pay for an email to all the PGA of Canada members with the job posting, posted on CSCM and we also used several LinkedIn groups that I joined and other social media postings. All were good sources for qualified candidates. In the end, 85 applied with 75 being fully qualified to become our next HP. Since we had the luxury of time I used a full month to interview 32 candidates via Skype.

It was a one on one candid conversation about the position and learning more of the individual. During this month I also contacted several of my peers to get some unbiased references (that weren’t listed on their resumes). I used a 13-point grading scale that was weighted on the skill sets identified by the committee to help my evaluation. Following the first round of interviews I presented 18 resumes for committee to review and vote on. From this we selected nine for round 2. A second wave of interviews took place via Skype for out of province applicants and face to face for the others. Remarkably the very opinionated and diverse committee chose the exact same top 6 candidates. However, we selected the top 3 to interview first. The next part of the process is a credit to the committee for their relentless efforts to fill this important role. A session of interactive interviews took place over one weekend. Each of the final three met with the committee, played nine holes with three, provided lessons to the other two and myself and then met each of the management teams in separate sessions. The Management teams were also able to weigh in with the committee prior to making their final decisions. Each candidate interviewed for 2 hours with full committee on the Saturday. A weighted survey was sent to the committee and thoughts were translated into points based on the priorities of each criterion of the candidates. Once the numbers told the final story, there was reflection. The committee then met early in the week to make their final selection and Board approved on the Thursday.

THE RIGHT FIT The right person to hire will be unique to your facility. Your Culture, Mission Statement, and business needs will likely dictate what direction you will take to seek out the Head Professional that is the right fit for you. A Head Professional should be a leader at your course and they interact with all your customers so it is important to find the right fit for your facility.

1. Leadership Experience2. Creative Experience3. Detail Oriented4. Event Organization5. Customer Relations6. Teaching Leadership7. Playing Ability

8. Financial Knowledge9. Strategic Planning10. Golf/Business Education11. Name Club Experience 12. Total Experience13. Presence & Personality

Golf Business Canada

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