5 Day Work Week Revisited
Welcome
Episode Narration:to Racquet Fuel, where we launch into great conversations and share powerful tools to help you become a stronger Racquet's leader. Your hosts are Kim Bastable, a former all American tennis player and now the director of tennis management at the University of Florida. And Simon Gale, the USTA senior director of Racquet Sports Development. Why does the racket industry seem to expect a work week to include six or seven days of work? On Racquet Fuel, we believe it shouldn't be because we have a shortage of pros in the industry, and work burnout is considerable.
Episode Narration:On this episode, Kim and Simon revisit this topic, which was discussed last season by visiting with two pros who have experienced the transition to a five day week that Simon set up at the USTA National Campus. Deshaun Dearing and Bailey Robinson share how positively the change has affected their work effectiveness and their realization about how hard it truly was to work their previous six and seven day schedules. Here's Kim and Simon. Welcome
Kim Bastable:to Racquet Fuel. I'm Kim Bastable, here with my cohost, Simon Gale. And I know today's conversation is something you are passionate about, Simon.
Simon Gale:Absolutely, Kim. This is something that we first spoke about in episode one of season one and it was the concept of modifying or looking at the typical work week for a tennis industry professional and we had just started a five day work week concept here at the National Campus. And so we want to revisit that and look at eighteen months or so on, how we're shaping up and I'm excited to have a couple of our staff members here today to be able to talk about that and not just hear it from me, but actually get some real life experience and feedback.
Kim Bastable:Yeah. I think it's an excellent opportunity for us to revisit this topic because we have now some more data that's involved, just some great ideas. So we're interested to unpack this with you today, Simon.
Simon Gale:I think just some initial setup for this too is, Kim, you've done some research and tracked typical work weeks and seen that around 75% of our tennis industry pros work a six day work week and up to 15% work a seven day work week. So basically, 90% of our industry works six to seven days a week. And over the last fifteen months presenting at different conferences, I've surveyed around 300 pros and it was by far the number one concern of a future in the industry was working a six or seven day work week and and that needs to be addressed. So it's great to be able to circle back with some actual statistics and use those to be able to fuel the conversation today.
Kim Bastable:So, yeah, I think it's a it's a question of really thinking about what the work life should be about. You know, should we be fully focused, you know, six and seven days a week? Yes. We make more money that way, but is there long term longevity and and overall thriving that takes place in that type of a work life balance, or I might add lack of balance? So I think it's great that we are really going to dive in deeply because the expectation in the tennis industry for years, as we'll see from our guests today, has been a historic, very, very long six and seven day work week.
Kim Bastable:But that isn't what science is telling us today. As you said, Jack Racquet has talked about rest and recovery and the need for physical fitness and social needs for us to perform at our higher highest levels. That's just mandatory in in really thinking about the whole person. So this will be a good revisit and I'm glad to see that you have some information you can provide.
Simon Gale:So one of the things that that I've noticed over the last fifteen months is that as soon as we added this to our interview process and when you start to list the reasons why you should work at your facility, whether it's the campus or any facility, you always strive to try and sell your story and why what's the why at my facility? And it has to be more than just tennis, it has to be the culture and benefits and pay and all those things put together. What does working at your facility look like? And you're trying to sell that to an incoming hire. So the minute we went down the road and kind of used it as a motivator at the end of an interview is, oh, and by the way, we have a five day work week for all full time professionals at the campus, immediately, it changed the tone and the interest level in the job and was frequently followed up with, I've never heard of that.
Simon Gale:I wouldn't know what that means. So right away, I I felt like it had an impact and it was something that we could use to attract good people to come and work here in addition to other things that we had to to contribute to their package. So that has been a big thing for us and I think a lot of the pros who were concerned about struggling with hours, how do I squeeze thirty five hours into five days when it used to take me six to get them, I do payroll every two weeks. I've seen what's in there, and I haven't seen a pro who struggles with it. If they do, they've worked six days for the short term to get their hours up and then move people over until they've built their hours.
Simon Gale:But as a team, we've made a real effort to try and make that pro as busy as possible on their five days so that they can enjoy their two days off. So at this point, what I'd love to do is less about me talking and us talking about what we think. I want to introduce two of the National Campus pros. They're both associate head pros at the campus. We have Bailey Robinson and Deshaun Deering here with us today.
Simon Gale:We'll start with Deshaun. Welcome to the podcast. And if you could just give us a little bit of a history of your life as a pro in tennis and kinda leading up to this moment.
Dishon Deering:Alright. Thank you, Simon. As Simon mentioned, my name is Tashan Dearing and I'm currently the associate head for the adults here on the campus. I've only been here for a mere less than a year. My time at the campus has been nothing short of a great experience and I previously came from the college coaching realm.
Dishon Deering:So I only knew work hard all the time, seven days a week twenty four seven from tennis practices to recruiting. Coming from that industry, I knew right away that the industry requires long hours and working quite a bit. So when I first saw the five day work week model, it didn't quite register with me as much because I knew I'll be coming in working longer hours as a part time initially. And now after working ten months, ten long months that is of six days a week, I find that the transition moving from the six day work week to the five day work week really create a balance in my life, not to mention the days off that I do had, I was actually able to rest. I I feel as if if working hard after six days, you might not wanna do anything on that sixth day.
Dishon Deering:In that seventh day, you're trying to catch up and be a regular human being. You know, this five day work week is is excellent and I actually found myself enjoying it much more than working myself into the ground. And I think coming from that industry where you have to work seven days a week 20 four seven, you really find yourself creating a better life balance for your your family and your personal life Whereas before, you're really trying to flex your time and trying to fit everything in when you can around the clock and you really can't give a great effort in everything that you do.
Simon Gale:Thanks, Deshaun. Appreciate it. And then we've got Bailey Robinson here. Bailey, welcome to the podcast. Bailey's been at the campus a little bit longer, so maybe you can talk about that journey and what your current role is at the campus.
Bailey Robinson:Thank you, Simon. I'm I'm honored to be here with both you and Kim, and I really appreciate the opportunity. So I'm I'm the associate head pro for the junior space. I work in the red ball zone. And I started here about two and a half years ago as a summer seasonal.
Bailey Robinson:I worked over the summer and then immediately was hired on full time. It was my first full time job in the tennis industry. And so I wasn't really sure what the work week looked like. I had no idea. But I was working seven days.
Bailey Robinson:I was hungry to learn. I was enthusiastic, but I was exhausted. And Simon was always coming up to me saying, you know, we've gotta get you to six days a week. You need time for yourself. You need to be able to rest and recover.
Bailey Robinson:And that was very impactful having someone from, you know, leadership come down and and say, hey. I really care about you as a person and I care about your longevity in the industry. And then when he introduced the whole concept of a five day workweek in one of our full staff meetings, it was you could feel the relief in the room of the pros feeling like they were gonna have two days off. That was huge. But there was also a sense of anxiety of, are we gonna be able to still make our hours?
Bailey Robinson:Are we gonna be able to work with the schedule? Is is it gonna work? And over time, Simon has proved that it it does work and we all are making our hours. We're much more relaxed. The culture's better.
Bailey Robinson:It's just a whole better experience working here overall.
Kim Bastable:That is fabulous to hear and I'm excited to pick apart a little bit more of that experience. So so, Bailey, maybe for you who's been here a little bit longer. So what did that really look like? There's some argument that many clubs say, yeah, you can do that at a big place like the campus. You couldn't really do that at a smaller club.
Kim Bastable:So you mentioned, though, even at a big campus, getting your hours was a little tricky, maybe in this case not finding courts, but on some sites, it might be finding courts. So what were some of those challenges that you had in transitioning your own personal schedule from, I guess, almost seven days down to five?
Bailey Robinson:Yeah. It's a great question, Kim. A lot of my struggles were really dealing with my clients and making sure that my schedule aligned with my client's schedule and figuring out how to build a client base that matched very well with my days off. So I did a lot of selling for sure of of private lessons, of group lessons, trying to get people into a private group, a lot of that. And that's what helped boost my hours and allowed me to transition to a five day work week.
Simon Gale:And I would add to that too because we've had conversations and I've talked to quite a few of the pros. I think selling yourself is a real skill that doesn't get taught. It's something that either you get mentored in how to do it or you just have to learn it on the fly or you never learn it and you struggle to have hours. So some of our pros needed to be shown something as simple as, hey, at the end of every lesson, you say, look, I'll be transitioning to a different schedule in three months' time, because we gave them a window to say, here's some time to adjust. I'm gonna be available at these times.
Simon Gale:I would love to continue with you, but this is my new schedule. Well, for someone who's taught for twenty years, that's easy. For someone who's a couple years in, that's a tough conversation to sell yourself. And it was, hey, they already like they're paying money to come and be with you. Tell them your schedule.
Simon Gale:They will change. I promise. But they needed to be coached in how to do that. And so I think it's actually helped some of them learn to sell the windows of time they have versus wait for things to come to them. So it's interesting you say that, Bailey, because we picked up on that and and myself and Steve, the head of Racquet Sports, we had to invest some time and some people to get them to understand how to evolve and sell.
Kim Bastable:Were you even, say, guiding conversations, like practicing conversations? In what way were you coaching?
Simon Gale:It was almost a script. Like, say this and expect them to say that and then you go back with this. And be confident enough in yourself that they want to be with you. They're paying 80 to $100 every week to come and do it private with you. There's something there with from a relationship point of view.
Simon Gale:It's like your hairdresser. Right? If she moved down the the road, you're probably gonna follow her. If she said, I can't cut your hair on Saturday anymore, you'll go on Thursday. Because there's a connection and you like the way they do something for you.
Simon Gale:So it was fairly scripted, but then it became, hey, have enough confidence in yourself that if they can't follow you, we'll get them another good pro, but we'll work on getting you another hour and you will get there. Just trust the process a little bit. But that's that's a real art and skill, I think, of being a good pro is selling yourself, and not everybody's good at that.
Kim Bastable:It's also a good art and skill of being a good leader. Kudos to you, Simon, for doing that. So okay, Deshaun, let me ask you a question in terms of what would you say was your biggest challenge with figuring out what to do with your time off?
Dishon Deering:Well, I would say it's not too challenging to try to be a normal human being. It's very difficult to disregard the rest of your life when you actually have a life. I know a lot of folks in our industry tend to make tennis their life and which is nothing wrong with that. But you need a work and life balance to where you could still give your a 100% effort in everything that you do within life. And I will say spreading the wealth, spreading the time with everyone for me was a little bit of a easier task whereas of course my lessons were able to move, but I will also say that I was able to give hours to other pros that more so needed it as well.
Dishon Deering:I was actually working the six days a week and I was overflow quite a bit when I started working full time. So it was no problem for me to, okay, maybe this junior, this will be an excellent pro for you, or this adult this will be an excellent pro for you that still accommodate your schedule while I am able to take my time off. So many challenges that didn't quite create a hard lifestyle on me. When I have Thursdays and Sundays off, I have one weekday to evaluate my life. Set doctor's appointments, see friends, see family, normal normal lifestyle things that whereas I would maybe stress a little bit when I didn't have the time.
Dishon Deering:Okay. I have a small gap on Friday. Now I have to have my dentist appointment at this time and then I have to go back to work and just have to really stack up my day whereas now I don't have to.
Kim Bastable:Those are excellent examples and frankly just the reality of such a long work week and the inability to schedule a doctor's appointment is I mean that's just one great reason to do the five day work week. So let me ask, I am a little bit intrigued by the concept, and I was gonna ask Simon first. In The US, we seem to have an ego piece around work. We really love almost are in love with the workaholic type thing. And Jack Racquet, in in one of our previous episodes, mentioned that ego can play a part in the desire to work long hours and long days.
Kim Bastable:It just makes people feel worthwhile. And that's something I'd like to unpack is is this this is an American way. When I'm growing up in America, I've seen it. Is it so much that way in Australia, Simon? Is there a little bit more balance there or what from your other experiences have you seen in other countries?
Simon Gale:It's a it's an interesting question because I've been here since my mid twenties or so. So I was pretty young when I was in Australia. So it's hard for me to reflect from personal experience, but just talking to friends when I go home or if I talk to to family and friends in Australia now, they comment on some of that that, you know, typical in America is two weeks paid vacation per year and you work and work. And and we joke all the time here about, you know, when you go on vacation, are you taking your computer with And a lot of the Americans say, yeah, I'll be available. And I when they ask me, I say, no.
Simon Gale:If the place is burning down, you could call me. But otherwise, don't call me. There's other people who can do my job for the week. And I think as a country, and I'm not gonna speak on behalf of the whole country, but when we're off, we're off. And I I don't think and, again, I'm not judging America or speaking on behalf of the whole country, but there is that mentality.
Simon Gale:It's a bit of a joke, you know, that we're saying, you know, are you gonna bring your computer with you? But it's amazing how many of you are available when you're on vacation. And so for us, it's you're not available. And so I I think it's different, but, you know, in order to get ahead, I got to keep moving up the ladder. I need to work harder than the person next to me, and I don't subscribe to that.
Simon Gale:I think it's working smarter and just being really good at your job. Putting in long hours doesn't make you good at your job. It just means you work hard. But if you're good at your job, you're efficient, you can get it done in in a shorter amount of time, that shouldn't stop you from being promoted or or given opportunities to move forward. So I think there's a cultural difference, but I'm very being very careful here because I'm American citizen and Australian citizen.
Simon Gale:So, you know, I fly both flags now, Kim.
Kim Bastable:I know. I set you up on that. My apologies. Except I am intrigued by the whole Aussie experience. I mean, I just think I'm more intrigued at the American way of life and how much emphasis we put on the work, the accomplishment, the feeling of worthwhile, you know, worth that we get from our work.
Kim Bastable:And what I think is really also interesting is the realization that premium athletes do a whole lot of training and they do very little competing. And that's just generally the way you will perform at your best level is by training your body in order to compete. But the corporate athlete, as Jack Krop would say, is a forty hour or more work week person. And the question is how much are they training to do that job? It's almost a flop.
Kim Bastable:They're they're working constantly and training very little. And so the science behind it, I believe that Jack and Jim Lehrer's program called the Corporate Athlete would say is you really have to focus on that health aspect and the stress reduction aspects and we just aren't Energizer Bunnies that can go and go and go and never stop. So we really, the body needs those rest periods to recharge, the mental recharge, obviously the social recharge to be able to build family and friends. And so what I think somehow the American mentality has missed is that it's more beneficial to go make more money at your commission job teaching another lesson than it is to go have dinner with your grandma or, you know, spend time with your children, which is a trade off that is just, I think, misguided. And so that's where I think we need as a culture to believe it doesn't require one more lesson to have full on whole well-being and saying I'm not available on a Sunday or Saturday is okay, and people will not forever kick you out of your club or your job.
Kim Bastable:However, I do realize you've got a big ship here, a lot of people, and a club that has many small, you know, small one pro, couple assistants could have a totally different challenging experience. So do you have recommendations, Simon? Have you spoken to smaller environments and how this has worked for them?
Simon Gale:I can talk to one personal experience. Prior to coming here from 2003 through 2015, I was at Yonkers Terrace Center and we interviewed Joe Curteau, the owner, during season two. And we had a five day work week there probably about five years in. Of the thirteen years I was there, we started it there as well. And so that was a small six court indoor club, no outdoor, where court time is at a premium.
Simon Gale:It is much harder to get court time at an indoor club around all the seasonal courts and contract courts. So we had 10 to 12 pros, and they all worked five days a week, except one guy who had a very large family and needed to make extra money, but that was by choice. But everyone worked five days, so it's not a new concept. And I I would challenge that and say, well, if it's not five days, maybe it's some pros work five days, and you transition some later. Or can you have some flex scheduling that once a month, you're off two days a week?
Simon Gale:And how do you just start to look at saying, hey, I see how hard you work, and just because I did it doesn't mean that's how the industry keeps moving forward. I think it normally means you're going backwards, right, if you keep doing the same thing over and over. But if you can start to pay attention to it, there are some small changes that you can gradually implement over time and make a difference to your loyalty, to your attention, to the health and well-being, and you will get better pros out of it because they're more energized when they actually come to work. I would challenge that if somebody came to me and said, can't do it at my club. But I also know two or three clubs who since listening to the first episode have gone on and made this change.
Simon Gale:One at a very large club, one at a smaller club, and they said it's changed the culture completely. So it's great to hear that that's starting to happen. Can it happen at every club? Yes. But it might happen over time and you have to implement it over an extended period of time or do it different.
Simon Gale:But be creative and try and make an impact. I understand a country club in the summer, you might work six or seven days a week for three months, but then in the off season, can you work four days a week somewhere or teach your your Padel paddle or platform or tennis in the Northeast four days a week and have a good balance so that there's a lifestyle balance over the year, but maybe the summer is busy for you. I understand all those factors, but there is a way to address it.
Kim Bastable:Yeah. That's good. Bailey has just come out of the University of Florida, I'm proud to say, a few years ago before this experience. So I'm curious, what are your peers doing? What types of jobs did all those good friends you had in college end up in?
Kim Bastable:How many days a week are they working? How does Tennis compete? Because we would like a lot of Baileys in in our talent pool. How do we compete or compare to the other industries?
Bailey Robinson:It's a great question. A lot of my friends, they have your typical nine to five, lovely job, forty hours a week, and they're working remotely or, you know, they're going maybe on a hybrid schedule, things like that. When I was working seven days, I was very envious of their schedule for sure. The one fantastic thing about the split shift schedule of a of a tennis coach is that you have typically 12 to two off. So it's really great to go home, eat lunch, you know, spend time with maybe if you have an animal at home, but just take time to relax and then come back to work again.
Bailey Robinson:I really I really love having the middle of the day off. I really enjoy that. And sometimes, you know, I have mornings off or I get one evening off. And then along with having the five days, it's really great in terms of the schedule overall. And I think if clubs can get down to five days a week for their pros with the way that tennis is set up, I think it's gonna be highly competitive.
Simon Gale:Let me pick up on something there too because, look, you can make a good living in tennis. No doubt about that. But you're probably not gonna be a millionaire being in the tennis industry. So there's a reason we do what we do too, so kinda the why of of tennis, the impact you could have on people. So when you talk about what other people do, because we all face this choice, do I go down this career path?
Simon Gale:I was gonna be a school teacher. And then I my passion was tennis. So I went to tennis, much to my father's disappointment at the time. But it all worked out pretty well. How much does that play into your choice of career?
Simon Gale:Like, you put up with the split shifts and you do other things, or could do other things with your life, but you do it because so compared to some of your friends who may be doing a job, yeah, it's nine to five remote, that sort of thing, that connection to people and the ability to impact people, how does that figure into your decision with working in this industry?
Bailey Robinson:A lot. I have a passion for people. I love helping people. I love what tennis does. Tennis supports a healthy lifestyle.
Bailey Robinson:It builds community. It does so much for the individual and I love having the opportunity to give somebody that gift every day.
Simon Gale:So the trade off of, say, a split shift or working some longer days in in in the start of your career was worth it, right, versus having the perfect setup from day one. 100%. Okay. And Deshaun, how would you respond to that?
Dishon Deering:I would piggyback off and say the exact same thing. One of the main reasons I see a lot of our constituents in this career is based off solely passion. They love the sport of tennis and they put so much time into the sport that they don't mind working these long hours. But on the contrary, what happens a lot in this industry is that we have young professionals that want to be pros, they wanna be aspiring pros and then they come into the industry and they get burned out quickly. They get burned out because well, this is a lot of hours, I can't do stuff with my friends, I I can't live a normal lifestyle along with this career.
Dishon Deering:And I think implementing this kind of setup early in a young professional's career would actually not only give them longevity for their career, but I actually think it will keep them in the industry because I do see a lot of retention, especially some of my friends who are high school players, college players. There'll be a tennis pro for a short period of time, you know, they'll go in the industry, oh, they're a pro for two years, three years and then that's it, they'll go and do something else. But I think they just got burned out very quickly and there's they wanted to see another option where they could still enjoy their life and possibly still make the same if not more amount of money. And I've seen that quite a bit actually, especially with my college teammates and former college players. So implementing this right away early, that will increase the longevity and the retention.
Kim Bastable:So I think we're we're coming down to the the reality that in this situation, it's been a win at at the USTA. I mean, could you summarize for us, Simon? I mean, was it what you expected when you made the change? Was the kind of the reaction of the people and what you expected? Did you get some hard questions like going, what do I do with my Saturdays?
Kim Bastable:I mean, what was it you know, overall, you're looking back eighteen months. What would be your summation?
Simon Gale:Look. I think anytime you wanna do something progressive, you're rolling the dice a little bit and you're going with a little bit of a a gut feel on whether something's going to work. But I think if you really believe it's good for your people, I I don't think you can go wrong. Because if you if you lead it with with a passion and you believe in where it's going, we worked very hard to make sure there were hours for the pros too. And we worked with programming and worked with head pros to make sure programming was sufficient enough to make sure there were hours and and if they struggled selling themselves to pick up those extra few privates, we worked with them on it.
Simon Gale:So it wasn't as simple as just, here's your new schedule. We worked with them knowing there would be a six month transition period perhaps, but the long term gain is is, you know, these guys are, this isn't being coached today, what to say? This is a real reaction to real life experience. So I think knowing that I'd done it at another facility, it wasn't something brand new to me, but it was new to the campus. And I knew the stage we were on here that if it failed, you know, there's a lot of eyes on this place.
Simon Gale:So it was a big decision, but it wasn't a difficult decision, if that makes sense. But I think if you want to see retention, like the turnover we've had over the last twelve months, we could change in a day, it's the tennis industry. But what I'm seeing as a trend is encouraging. When we ask these these pros how it's impacted, the feedback's positive. I don't hear anyone complaining about hours.
Simon Gale:If they did, we would work with them to try and pick them up to the number they need. And I would say that from a recruiting point of view, it's been a huge asset for me to be able to say, x y and z is our package, plus you as soon as possible, we'll get you to a five day work week, if not immediately, and you combine that with everything else, it's a legitimate career path that we can show somebody. And it came from motivation of watching how many 25 to 30 year olds quit and said, I'm just done. And it was always schedule. Can't be with my friends.
Simon Gale:All the things these two have commented about. So that was my motivation. So I I think it's been nothing but successful. We'll continue to tweak it. We'll we'll work with pros to make sure this works for them.
Simon Gale:And, you know, we're trying to create a trend here in the industry and see if we can make a difference.
Kim Bastable:Yes. I think that's the moral of the story is that we'd like to see more feedback, more thoughts, more comments from any of the listeners that might try to implement this type of situation. I think it sounds like from Simon's situation, it was not linear. There were lots of sort of changes and adaptations and adjustments, and there continue to be in in making any big leadership change. So it's always something that will be a a work in progress getting better.
Kim Bastable:But I think from the industry perspective to be able to have young people stay in our profession, not, you know, work crazy hours and for Bailey not to have to say no to all her friends and Deshaun not to say, sorry. I can't be there. I gotta work. I mean, that's just we can't constantly be expecting our employees to do that. So I think it's a it's a positive something very positive for us as an industry to work toward.
Simon Gale:So, Bailey and Deshaun, thanks so much for being part of the podcast today. I kinda threw you this opportunity at the last minute, so I appreciate you taking the time to be with us, and, we'll see you out on the court soon.
Episode Narration:That's all for today, but we're not out of fuel. You can find more information and resources in our show notes and by visiting racketfuelpodcast.com. If you like what you just heard, please subscribe, and also leave a review, which helps other people join the mission to become stronger Racquet's leaders.
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