Hello MLC Instructors!
Just wanted to touch base with you all about current MLC topics, check in with you all, see how you’re doing … coping, living, learning, thriving, quarantining, etc. Josey, Peter and I truly miss sharing your passion with our guest through what we all do – teaching people how to enjoy sliding on the side of a volcano – and we look forward to seeing you this Summer (if we can) or next Fall to enrich the lives of ourselves, our team and our guests!
Mother Nature knows nothing of this pandemic. The mountain is as beautiful as ever with a fresh coat of snow. Wy’east will be here far longer than any of us. Enjoy yourselves responsibly while you can … most things human built are temporary – keep this in mind. Here’s the latest from your mountain home …
It’s been dumping – 32 inches of new snow!
Yes, last week saw another 32 inches of snow fall. Typically this time of year I love this kind of snowfall – Spring pow is amazing! However, given the current circumstances I’d really appreciate 70 degrees and sunny! Peter, Chris K., Chris O., Cale, myself and others have been “shoveling” out a season-long accumulation plus the additional 32 inches … from the ground floor of the Sahale Lodge so construction may resume on the new lodge. If you haven’t heard of a Zaug Snow Beast it’s a useful machine – here’s a YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFwimz9iDCw – who knew that one day as an instructor we’d be checked out as an operator of one of these! You can see Chris Kastner operating the Snow Beast in the background of the photo of Peter and Chris Olson. That machine can throw some snow!
Summer Operations On-hold – For Now
Given the uncertainty of the next few months the Mt. Hood Meadows Executive Team made the difficult decision to suspend summer operations. That said, we are not ruling out a late summer weekend or two if this pandemic is under control by then. You know that people are going to be wanting to “get outside” and enjoy the great Northwest if we safely can … from the Star Gazing Events, to the Van Weekend to the Movie Nights (from last summer that were so well-attended) – we want to gather at your mountain home and enjoy Mt. Hood if we can. Stay tuned for more details as the summer unfolds for some possible weekend operations if we are able.
Seasonal Hourly Team Members Paid Through March 27
The last pay period ended on March 27 with pay day on Thursday April 2. You should have received your pay check via direct deposit already (or shortly via mail, if you did not opt for direct deposit). As I shared before, we looked back 6 weeks, totaled your individual gross earnings by pay period then divided this total by the number of days you worked to get an average per day gross pay. We then looked at your scheduled days from March 15 at 4pm through end of day the pay period on March 27 to determine your pay for this pay period. If you worked on March 14 or March 15, those hours were paid based on your activities on those days.
We hope this financial assistance based on the perpetual stoke model is helpful to you – obviously if you were a part time instructor the pay may have been just a few days since your commitment was already completed. For our full time instructors the pay would have been more. If you are filing for unemployment benefits, your official lay off date is March 28, 2020. There were a few errors in providing the number of days scheduled for some instructors, but we caught this an corrected it, and alerted those that were affected. If you feel there was an error in the number of days you were scheduled (which would affect your last pay check amount), please reach out to myself, Josey or Peter and we’ll look into it!
No Need to Clean Out Lockers
As I have mentioned before, your personal belongings are safe and secure in your locker until further notice. We strongly prefer all team members leave their belongings in their locker for now and stay home to help prevent the spread of Covid-19. If you feel you have an essential reason to retrieve your belongings from your locker – for example: you are moving out of the area and not coming back to Meadows next season – then we will be communicating how to set up an appointment to do this in the coming days. If you are coming back next season, just leave your personal items where they are. Stay home, stay safe and stop the spread.
Team Resources Webpage
As a reminder, there are lots of moving parts to this pandemic and many resources available to you – especially with the passing of the CARES Act. The HR Team has built a team resources page with tons of great info on it to help you with everything from unemployment to food assistance – please go here for details – https://team.skihood.com/covid-19-layoff-resources/ You will continue to have access to Dayforce for your paystubs and personal info.
Exit Interviews – 26 to date – You Can Still Complete It On-line
Please complete an exit interview on the Instructor Portal – no log in required. It’s short and sweet: Are you planning to come back next season? What are 1 or 2 things that went well this season? Please share what we can do better? Complete your exit interview here: https://mhm.snowproportal.com/current-staff/exit-interview Also, only 73 out of 342 MLC team members participated in the company survey, so if you missed that opportunity you can share your experiences as part of the MLC team via the exit interview, too. There have been 26 of you who have completed an exit interview – many with some great suggestions on how we can improve the experience of being an instructor next season – thank you!
Last Call: Co-Worker and Trainers of the Year Nominations
I shared this in the previous email – we need your help nominating Co-Worker of the Year and Trainers of the Year. Once nominations are in we will prepare an on-line ballot. Usually the voting happens at the end of the season party but it is uncertain when this is going to happen so we need your help now nominating who you feel fits these roles. Please go to this link to submit a nomination: https://mhm.snowproportal.com/current-staff/award-nomination. Your nominations will be followed up with an official on-line vote, so please submit your nomination today! Supervisors and Managers are not eligible for any MLC Awards.
The Co-Worker of the Year is that instructor who was always there doing an amazing job both in their role as an instructor, but also was seen going above and beyond to help other instructors – Leads are not eligible for this award as The Best Supporting Role award recognizes the top Lead(s).
Trainer(s) of the Year: Alpine and Snowboard are the trainers on the team who you feel helped you the most, be it from a clinic, or new hire training or helping you prepare for an exam.
