A large group of pool users at the Bob Snodgrass Recreation Complex in High River have asked town council to step in on behalf of staff they say are bullied.

Dr. Linda Ormson spoke for the group and says there's been very high turnover of pool staff.

"We have seen so many mature staff members leave the pool, men and women who have credentials, who have all of the lifesaving certificates and teaching certificates and as patrons of the pool we feel very safe to have these people keeping an eye on us as we do our activities," she says.

"The 8:30 class is an example of Aqua-fitters, often is a group of 40 or just over 40 people and these are active people wanting to do their best to improve their health and their wellbeing and so that whole idea of having a centre that fosters that sort of health, wellbeing, body, mind and spirit, it kind of losing its taste when you find that some of these staff just aren't staying and we understood that many of the staff, more recently in the last couple of years, have been fired without cause."

Dr. Linda says some of the staff have been bullied or body shamed and there's a feeling of intimidation at the pool and believes it touches on the management that has the responsibility of hiring and firing the aquatic staff.

"It's not just the mature staff but some of the younger staff as well, and this is their first job and my goodness, to be fired from your first job I think that's very scarring and that just hurts my soul when I hear of this," Dr. Linda says.

Town council went in camera with the group and have directed administration to conduct a third-party review of all operations at aquatic centre.

"When we get involved with staffing issues, it needs to be taken very seriously and that's why we're launching the workplace review to our aquatics facility so that we can see where the problem areas are and where improvements can be made and where changes need to be made and that's where we're headed at this time," said Mayor Craig Snodgrass.

There's no set timeline for the review although the mayor says Human Resources will be bringing back to council recommendations for third party facilitators to do the review.

He says council will want to meet with them to make sure they have all the information available before starting their work.