Logging coach hours fairly

Coach hours are fair when they match the sessions each coach actually took, including cover, and when the club's rules for what counts are written down. The awkward cases are predictable: one coach running two squads in the same slot, a cover coach who stepped in at short notice, time at galas. Decide those rules once, record hours from the rota rather than from memory, and month-end stops being a negotiation.

Why hours go wrong

• Hours are reconstructed at month end from memory and messages.
• Cover is arranged in a group chat, so the rota says one coach and the session had another.
• A coach running two squads at once is counted twice, once for each squad.
• Nobody agreed whether warm-up supervision, planning or gala days count.
• The treasurer and the coach have different records and no shared one.

Write the rules down

Agree these with your coaches and record them where everyone can see:

1. What counts as paid time: poolside time only, or also arriving early, planning sessions and meetings.
2. Rates, by role or qualification, and when they are reviewed.
3. Cover: the coach who takes the session is the coach who is paid for it.
4. Multi-squad sessions: one coach, one slot, paid once. The cost is shared between the squads they coached.
5. Galas and travel: how a day at a meet is paid.
6. Sign-off: who approves hours each month, and by when.

Whether coaches are employed or self-employed affects how they are paid and what the club must do as a result. Take proper advice on employment status; it is not decided by what the club calls the arrangement.

A monthly routine

1. The rota shows who was assigned to each session.
2. Changes, such as cover, are recorded when they happen, not afterwards.
3. Hours are generated from the sessions each coach took.
4. The head coach checks the month, the treasurer approves it.
5. Hours go to payroll, or coaches invoice against them.

Why the split between squads matters

Coaching is one of a squad's two biggest costs, alongside pool hire. If a coach running two squads is charged in full to both, both squads look more expensive than they are. If they are charged to neither, the club cannot see what its coaching costs. Splitting the shift fairly is what makes a squad-level budget honest. See how to set squad fees.

How Olympus Swim helps

In Olympus Swim, coach hours are logged against the sessions each coach was assigned on the rota, including cover claimed through the platform, so a coach's timesheet matches exactly what they were rostered to do. Hours export for payroll. When one coach runs several squads in the same slot, they are paid once for the shift and the cost is split between those squads in the squad finance figures. Read about coach rota and cover, coaching tools and squad finance.

Common questions

How should swimming clubs record coach hours? From the rota, with cover recorded when it happens, so hours reflect the sessions each coach actually took.

How do we pay a coach who runs two squads at the same time? Pay them once for the shift and share the cost between the squads they coached, so neither squad is overcharged.

Should coaches be paid for planning time? That is the club's decision. Whatever you decide, write it down and apply it to every coach.

Written by Joel Knight, swimming coach and founder of Olympus Swim (about).