Carlile Swimming mandates staff vaccination

Carlile Swimming has introduced a mandatory vaccination policy for all teaching and customer facing staff, becoming the first learn to swim provider in Australia to do so.

Carlile has more than 450 staff across nine pools, normally providing more than 20,000 swimming lessons a week.

Carlile Swimming General Manager, Jon Harker advises “we’ve done it because it’s the right thing to do. It’s what our families would expect from us. We have a duty of care to everyone who comes into our swim centres. Vaccines reduce the impact of the virus and its rate of transmission.

“We work in an industry where children, who right now can’t be vaccinated, need to be held and supported to be safe in the water. Close contact can’t be avoided and being vaccinated just makes sense.

“We’ve been encouraging staff to be vaccinated for some time and it was heartening to see, even before we announced the mandatory policy, that more than 90% of our staff were either vaccinated or planning to be vaccinated.”

The move comes at a time when a recent poll of swimming school operators by Royal Life Saving found the majority believe governments, not businesses, should mandate vaccination for staff.

Harker adds “we expect that when we reopen there will naturally be strict COVID-19 protocols that need to be followed. We are examining every option to ensure our pools are as safe as they can be.”

Carlile Swimming uses best practice technology to ensure air and water quality, has strict hygiene protocols in place and to date there are no known cases of COVID-19 being transferred in properly treated water. The virus itself can’t survive in chlorine.

Image courtesy Carlile Swimming