I wanted to start the new year with a sincere thank you to the Carolinas PGA Board, Officers, and Staff. It is hard to believe that I have been in this role for almost 5 years, and believe that any success that I have had during that time is a direct result of the support of those people. My relationships with each and every one of you is important to me, and I have always been proud to represent the Carolinas PGA as your Career Consultant.

This update is going to be a little different, as I'll be providing a more data heavy report for the annual meeting in February. But right now, I'd like to update you about the goals and objectives of the National Employment Committee, as those most often dictate how I spend my time, energy, and attention. With that in mind, here are the five main areas of focus for the National Committee:

• Recruiting - Given the shortage of qualified talent in the industry (and all industries), actively recruiting people of all ages to work in the industry has become critical. The Association has provided resources to PGA Career Services in the form of full time recruiters, freeing up the Career Consultants to serve more in a supporting role when it comes to recruiting. Those new hires will continue to attend job fairs, college golf events, etc to spread the word about opportunities in the golf industry. Hopefully we will begin to see some positive results from their efforts.

In addition, I mentioned at the last Board meeting that a big part of recruiting is retention, and I want to give a quick thanks to Brock White and the Associate Education Committee for reaching out to newly registered Pre-Qualifiers and offering their support. Again, I hope we begin to see positive results from their actions.

• Member Compensation & Work/Life Balance- PGA Members don't agree on everything, but they seem unanimous in their belief that as a group they are underpaid and work too hard! Naturally, the PGA Career Services team is always striving to raise the compensation and improve the working conditions of PGA Members everywhere. To support those goals, we have two important resources at our disposal. The first is tangible in the form of compensation data collected through PGA Member Compensation Profiles on PGA.org. This is the #1 tool that I have to make a convincing argument to an employer, as the facts don't lie. As you can see below, the Carolinas PGA currently has 946 members with a completed profile, ranking 6th among the 41 sections. It's not bad, but I imagine we can be better. Hopefully we can raise that number in 2022!

The second "arrow in our quiver" to influence compensation and working conditions is our relationships with employers. This is actually very easy in Executive Searches, as we generally spend weeks/months building the relationships and then use them to drive compensation upward for the selected candidate. It is much more difficult at other facilities though. Many Boards, owners, etc simply see us as PGA employees who are only acting in the best interest of our PGA Members. In other words, trust can be an issue. As I mentioned at the last Board meeting, I believe that as a section we should commit to strengthening our relationships and grow our involvement with the Golf Course Owners Association, Club Managers Association, regional Management Companies, and those involved in private club governance. Their influence over compensation, work/life integration, and advancement opportunities is vital, and we can not impact those areas without first building effective relationships.

• Member Support - In the end, the role of the PGA Staff is to serve the members, though it can often be difficult to achieve given the varied needs and requests of members. While I truly believe that the PGA Career Services team attempt to serve members everyday, the other priorities listed above can take up too much time, leaving many members under served.

Because the Association realizes this is an issue, several departments are currently being reorganized in an attempt to provide more resources in the field to better serve the member. This model hopes to deploy more staff at the local level (like myself) and should be implemented very shortly. I hope to be able to provide additional details at the February Board meeting to answer any questions you may have.

• Section Alignment - While realizing that all Sections have a unique set of challenges, the National Employment Committee hopes to create alignment between themselves and Section Employment Committees (called the Career Committee in the Carolinas). To that end, I hope to help the Career Committee align our initiatives for 2022 with those listed above. Doing so will not only give us a better compass to guide our actions, but also allow us to better leverage the resources of the National Committee to better serve members.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions, and I'll see all of you next month in Greensboro.

Mike Mueller

All Active Positions

PGA Compensation Profile - Carolinas Section Participation

Job Preferences - Carolinas Section Participation

Tab 1 - Names and emails of people who have applied to the Pre-Qualifier program. PQ applicants purchase and review the five qualifying level courses: Introduction to the PGM and the Golf Profession, PGA History, PGA Constitution, Rules of Golf and Career Enhancement to be eligible to register for the qualifying test through our third party test company virtually.

Please note that PGA HQ does not collect employment information at the time of PQ registration.

Tab 2 - Newly elected PGA Members