Are we victims of employment naivety?

 

Every month my issue of Greenkeeper International falls through my letterbox and every month I read the pages so full of positivity, industry progress, achievements and success. 

There are golf clubs all over the country where a balance has been found between the needs of the members and the management requirements of a 21st century golf course and at these enlightened clubs, both members and greenkeepers are happy. But there is a hidden problem which lurks near, or at, the surface of many greenkeepers’ lives. It is a problem which is rarely mentioned and for which there seems no solution: that the professional status of greenkeepers is being undermined and that greenkeepers are not treated with professional respect.

In 1920 Walter Hagen, the flamboyant American golfer, arrived at The Open at Royal Cinque Ports to be told that he was not allowed in the clubhouse. Such was the lot of professional golfers who were at that time viewed as glorified caddies who had no place where members trod. His solution was to hire a limousine, park it in the car park, and use it as his own personal clubhouse. When The Open went to Royal Troon in 1923, he was similarly barred from the clubhouse and so when he finished as runner‑up he refused to attend the prize‑giving ceremony – which was held in the clubhouse. He invited the organisers to the local pub where he had been staying and said he would be happy to receive his prize there. They declined.

Through his prominent position in the world of golf and by his refusal to be down‑trodden, Walter Hagen almost single‑handedly lifted the status of the professional golfer to a position worthy of great respect. This leads nicely into the central subject of this piece: the lack of respect for greenkeepers.

I visit many golf courses and speak to many greenkeepers and have concluded that there is a double‑edged problem: that greenkeepers are not (in some cases) treated with respect by their course managers; and that course managers and greenkeepers in general are not (in some cases) treated with respect by club managers or committees. And perhaps there is an underlying cause. Every time we see coverage of tournament golf, courses are maintained and finished to astonishingly high standards with barely a blade of grass or a grain of sand out of place, leading to ever‑higher expectations from the club golfer. It’s not quite Augusta Syndrome, but it is not far from it.

So the course manager or the general manager or the committee (or all of them) have to absorb the mutterings, or screams, of discontent from the members who demand their course looks like the one on television ‑ and the inevitable result is that the greens need to be faster, the fairways need to be cut four times a week, the bunkers need to be edged again, the tees need to be divoted more often, the ditches need to be strimmed ad infinitum – but all with little, or no, extra resources. And who will do all this extra work? Yes, the greenkeepers at the bottom of the hierarchal triangle.

Consequently, standards are being driven ever‑higher without, in some cases, an earnest commitment to improve resources. There are, we reluctantly and honestly have to admit, cases where course managers have taken their eye off the ball or where the greenkeeping team has become complacent. In these instances where an overhaul of working practices is required, standards should be raised easily. However, changes in management structure or personnel can lead to a wholly unnecessary revolution in a drive to raise standards: incoming » general managers become the de facto course managers and consultants dictate policy, the course managers become puppets with negligible policy input and the greenkeepers are regarded with disdain and mistrust. Can we see respect in these circumstances?

Naturally, it makes sense to ensure that greenkeepers are fully motivated, as motivated staff are more productive and take greater pride in their work. It is not necessary to list factors which contribute to motivation (we all know what these factors are) and it should be a simple process for managers to ensure staff are fully engaged. Fundamental to this is a sense of belonging, and employees in any workplace will be more productive when they feel valued and part of the organisation for which they are employed. However, it is increasingly demonstrable in greenkeeping that managers are forgoing motivational strategies and resorting to different, undesirable tactics to increase productivity.

A while ago I heard a dispiriting story from a golf club. Management had asked all the greenkeepers to sign up to a new payment arrangement that would include overtime (rather than overtime being paid in addition to basic salary) and, they said, would make no material difference to their terms and conditions. Although sceptical, and without knowing too much about employment law, the greenkeepers agreed to the new arrangement. Before long, those greenkeepers were forced to work extra overtime for which they were not paid.

At another club, in an effort to increase output, greenstaff were asked to increase their working hours without additional pay. Again, most of the greenkeepers agreed to such an appalling request but not all of them were ignorant of employment law and so the request and the resulting change of contract were refused.

Yet another employer made a particular arrangement with an employee whose annual leave was less than his legal entitlement: the employer was clearly breaking the law.

There are many greenkeepers who fell into the profession through playing golf and most clubs appear to have an arrangement which permits their greenkeepers to play golf. However, there are an abundance of stories telling how management have restricted their greenkeepers’ use of the course and in many cases, this amounts to a change of employment contract. Changes in contract should be bilateral, as in they should be agreed by both parties to the contract. Ignorance of the law prevails and the golfing greenkeeper whose access to the course is restricted feels aggrieved and helpless. 

In all the cases above, employees are left without a sense of belonging and without motivation. It is likely that productivity will decrease and this could logically lead to additional management demands: thus, a very clear downward spiral is created.

 

To quote Jim Croxton in the August 2019 edition of Greenkeeper International, “we have had an ever‑increasing number of members suffering under poor management”, so this problem is finding its way to greater prominence. The Human Resources Helpline set up by BIGGA is a lifeline for put‑upon greenkeepers, but there is still a significant gap in that most greenkeepers are unaware of their basic rights and think that the employer can change terms and conditions on a whim. Who will reach for the telephone when they feel that their employer is acting unreasonably? Only the few, while the rest will go about their work grumbling and begrudgingly.

There is a great and urgent need to fill the gap – to teach greenkeepers that they have rights and that management have boundaries which should not be crossed. Without turning humble and dedicated greenkeepers into radical militants who refuse to cooperate in a reasonable way, we need to educate them in a way which reinforces their motivation and enables them to be respected by their employer. There is no doubt that a collaborative approach by all parties in the workplace yields the best results, but employment problems multiply where collaboration fails. BIGGA has a prominent magazine and website and these could be used as a platform to teach greenkeepers basic employment law. Seminars and workshops at BTME? Why ever not?

The industry should be open and honest enough to acknowledge that there is a significant problem which needs to be tackled.  Every effort should be made to promote the status of the greenkeeper (as Walter Hagen did for professional golfers) to the managers and committees who run our golf clubs, but greenkeepers must also strengthen their own positions. Employment law is incredibly complex but there are some very rudimentary principles – and greenkeepers everywhere should learn about them now.