 Poster: A snowHead
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When I taught for ESF Avoriaz way back in '89, The "Liste de Priorité" was posted on a big white-board in the changing room, the booking staff had copies at their desks. If I recall correctly it worked like this: The first position on the top line was the director, followed by the technical-director and then all the full-cert moniteurs/trices in order of their number of seasons with ESF Avoriaz. Then came the stagières in the same order to line 122.
At the start of the week group-lesson classes were allocated from the top down, with most of the top half of the list only taking them in low season. Non-named privates were then allocated from the top down, with the senior instructors claiming the best/easiest and the rest filtering down to mid-board. Request-privates were given to the requested instructor, but it was not unusual for a client trying to book a stagière to be told "your guy is unavailable", and the lesson allocated to one of the guys nearer the top. (For this reason we were taught by the french stagières to always go in with your guest when they book.)
After the number and name columns were columns for disciplines taught and languages spoken, for each instructor to tick-off themselves. All 122 lines had the "english" column ticked.
Stagières were paid around 35% of the "1-hr Private" rate for each hour taught (although the take from their group-lessons was normally more than a 1-hr Private). This cut went up in bands as you climbed the list reaching I think 75% at the top of the priorité. At the end of the season, the operating-costs and overheads, subs to ESF, etc. were taken out of the season's balance (more than half of the school's total takings); and the remainder (maybe 30%?) divvied-up amongst just the full-cert instructors. I don't know if they all got an equal share or if it was also on a sliding-scale. Yes that does mean the guys at the top got paid considerably more than they earned!
I'm just curious as to whether things have changed very much, how other countries do it, whether the other schools in france do something similar? Do you think it's a fair system (both for the clients and instructors), what are the alternatives?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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> Yes that does mean the guys at the top got paid considerably more than they earned!
Interesting. Sounds an awful lot like Lawyer's partnerships or IT consultancies I know of.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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My nderstanding of ESF is that very little has changed.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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shep, As Marcellus has also said, that is pretty much my understanding of how it works today, based on what ESF friends have explained to me
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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My understanding is that pretty much everything works like this here... My girlfriend operates a market stall in the summer, and those traders who have been in the association longest get allocated the best plots on the market. Newcomers have to work their way up the chain and away from the back of the car parks.
Back in the skiing world, a friend is a fully qualified pisteur and has explained they operate a similar 'dead man's shoes' system for allocating shifts. Two years ago he got lucky and replaced an injured guy for the whole season, but last season by end of January he still didn't have any solid work and had to accept a job in a shop to make ends meet. This season he hasn't even bothered trying to get on the pisteur lists and accepted jobs in a private chalet and a shop from the start. He's late twenties, local to the area, fully qualified and has good experience mining etc. Of course by taking a season 'off' he has lost his place on the list and will have to start at the bottom again, not really worth the hassle in his opinion.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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I know it's not France but I do know that one of the bigger ski schools in Verbier operates a similar system at the start of each season.
At mid point the list gets re-worked with a significant weighting to the amount of requests brought in, and upselling achieved (eg 2 days privates booked...extra three days subsequently asked for).
That school is not a co-op so no final season divi-up.
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Thanks for the replies guys! It would have been good to tease out some other comments on the "fairness" issue, but I'm happy to have documented my recollection before my memory totally fails  . Perhaps it will serve as a reference for future discussions...
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