Is there an instructor crisis?

[Vicko]

Who judges the benefit of a course? Isn't it the consumer who purchases the product? If any business anywhere offers a product or service to customers, and customers purchase that product, then the customer must think the product is worth it.

Isn't that how pretty much any business works?

I'm all for the free market. Apparently in this case the consumers have decided that the product is worth less than the overhead costs.
I'm also all for free speech, that's why I'm calling speciality dives a bad business practice.

 

[boulderjohn]

But looking back, I paid for a bad product/service. I think people who keep diving and eventually find quality training come to a similar conclusion. This is largely what we are now discussing in this subthread.

So in other words, the POS instructors were ripping you off and didn't deserve the money you overpaid for their services. Got it.

 

[boulderjohn]

I'm also all for free speech, that's why I'm calling speciality dives a bad business practice.

Yep. That's what I wrote earlier when everyone said I was wrong. If a scuba business offers a product the way any other business would, then they are wrong for doing so. If your business is not thriving, you have no right to try to improve that bottom line. That would be a money grab.

 

[SlugLife]

What more are they going to get out of their instructors? Let's talk apples and oranges.

Disclaimer: I'm obviously not running a scuba-shop, so consider me the guy with a beer-gut yelling obscenities at the TV about how a sports-team coach is clueless. Anyway:

1. The basic premise is mutual benefit. For example, (a) I can get you more money per student and course, but (b) we need to offer the student something extra, such as a little more hands-on training or additional skills. Exactly how one structures this might require a little creativity and testing the market. For example, maybe only 30% of AOW students want the "AOW Plus" package, so you only have a couple instructors that teach "AOW Plus."
2. Perhaps the dive-shop may need to be "squeezed" just as much as the instructor is. Reading between the lines, the people who posted here about "shops paying 2x to 3x their competitors" did so by cutting into their own margins. Instructors who are paid more, will typically be more motivated and interested in their work, which is then reflected in their engagement with students. You can also be more choosy with instructors, and attract instructors, because they hear you pay much better than other shops in the area.

Personally, I think the elephant in the room isn't the dive-shop or instructor, it's the agencies, and the massive cut they appear to take from the overall price of the course while proportionally contributing far less.

 

[DreadnoughtNH]

I think it deeper than just a decline instructors.
...
Diving is an expensive hobby. Cost wise, it ranks right up there with flying and shooting.

I think it has less to do with mindset of the younger generations as you seem to suggest. There are plenty of young 20somethings who are avid divers and invested in the sport and lifestyle to be instructors (check out any Caribbean or Asia-Pacific dive destination), so I don't fully buy your argument there. Older generations have always looked upon younger generations with disdain, and I cannot stomach that as I go into my 50s. The younger generation will always be lazy/impatient/disinterested/[insert gross generalization here] to those generations ahead of them, but in my opinion the next generation will always be better than us older farts.

Where I think you are spot on is the expense. Certain sports (shooting, flying, skiing) have a high cost of entry and maintenance. I've been an alpine skier since the 80s. Lift tickets were $50, and lessons $150 when I was a kid. This winter, one Saturday cost $210 with $1000 (not including tip) for my day long refresher instructor. Let's not forget $1000 skis & bindings every 3-5 years, $400 boots every 8, attire, lodging, airfare, gas, etc. etc.. Is that what it costs the mountain to operate and pay its employees a decent wage and show a profit, probably yes. Is that out of financial bounds for 20somethings carrying debt, starting out and trying to make ends meet, definitely yes.

Same goes for diving: if you want top end diving and top end instruction, it should be expensive to make it sustainable for those who make it a career (or even a 3-8 year stint). I don't think the agencies (and certainly not the diving cattle-car operators) have caught up with that.

I'd have to look it up (so excuse inaccuracy) but I recall a recent ski mag article that in the 90s there were some active 20m skiers per year. In 2022, the number had dropped to 8m.

I believe we will see the same in dive community as older generations retire (or expire) from diving -- although I hope you and I have many years left! -- and younger generations do not replace the ranks of instructors because it is not financially viable to become one.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

So in other words, the POS instructors were ripping you off and didn't deserve the money you overpaid for their services. Got it.

No. I wouldn't call the instructors pieces of sh!t. That is quite a projection there.

As I have stated repeatedly, I do not believe I received sufficient value for what I paid. Now you may say that is a rip-off. If the courses were say as expensive as a proper course like fundies and I received this , then yes, it would be a ripoff. But these were $150/$250 courses. I don't know why you are so triggered by this. You have to understand that some of us believe that part of the problem that the industry has is that training results are underwhelming. Take open water courses. I say that "if you were placed on your knees, whatever you paid was too much." These courses are just not worth the time (my opinion). Add some meaningful performance requirements that are objective, then yes, they become worth it.

We can do better and we should all push the industry forward to do better. I see a dramatic difference in retention from my own instruction from when I was a sh!tty on-the-knees instructor to what I am now. Most of my early students do not dive. Pretty much all of my later students do dive.

I don't see why you are not on board with this given your own efforts 12 years ago to move the industry towards teaching open water neutrally buoyant (and I'm assuming trim as well).

 

[boulderjohn]

Personally, I think the elephant in the room isn't the dive-shop or instructor, it's the agencies, and the massive cut they appear to take from the overall price of the course while proportionally contributing far less.

In the example of the specialty classes that are so universally reviled, the only cut the agency gets is if the student wants a certification card with the course. Many of them don't. In that case, the agency not only doesn't get a dime, it does not know the student took the class.

So why is the agency involved at all? Liability. If you offer a class you have created on your own, and something goes wrong, you will be totally on your own to defend your conduct in that course. You will be asked to prove that your requirements were within best practices. If instead the agency has thoroughly reviewed the course requirements and approved them, the plaintiff will have a hard time convincing a jury that your course requirements were outside of best practices.

Take one of the specialty courses I created--Understanding Overhead Environments. It is a course that goes through different kinds of overhead environments and explains the different levels of dangers and the different levels of skill and equipment needed for the full range, running from swimming under the anchor line to cave exploration. I had a very hard time getting that course approved, and the requirements were carefully examined before I got that approval. I would not have dreamed of offering that class without approval.

I know you think offering the class must be a greedy money money grab on my part, but I thought it was a valuable class.

 

[tursiops]

I see. So no one here has ever seen any criticism of an instructor or dive shop offering a specialty class. Amazing. They have never heard of it being a "money grab." Amazing.

I did a quick search for "money grab." Lots of posts denigrating shops, instructors, courses, agencies. It may well be the default criticism used if someone wants to be negative.

 

[drrich2]

So who’s fault is it for the low pay?

It seems to me that if local dive shops hogging lucrative profits were the main issue, we'd see a lot more independent instructors. My first dive instructor was (and I suspect still is) an independent PADI instructor.

Of course, the independent route doesn't sound like a bed of roses, either. You've got to promote/advertise yourself to get customers, and may not have dive shop referrals. No one wanders into your non-existent dive shop to look at gear and ask questions.

But if instructing were generating big profits and 3rd parties were robbing the instructors, seems like we'd see more independents. Yes, the certification agencies would still get a cut.

Wonder what % of recreational dive instructors in the U.S. are independent vs. shop-affiliated?

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

So in other words, the POS instructors were ripping you off and didn't deserve the money you overpaid for their services. Got it.

You know, when people walk in to a dive shop for the first time and want to sign up for dive lessons and see the price sheet, all they see is the bottom line of what it’s going to cost them to get a card to be able to go diving. How are they supposed to know how that price is broken up?
To think that people getting OW certified are thinking their instructor is a money grubbing POS because the price is $600 let’s say is a little misguided.
They don’t know who’s getting what cut, they just think it seems a little pricey. Maybe a little more education to the general public on why the price is what it is would be better that bagging on the general public and scubaboard for your pent up attitude about everyone thinking they are POS price gouging instructors.
I don’t think people think that at all.