The one thing that I don’t like about making a switch to a new environment is the fact that you have to go through that period where you have to introduce yourself to everyone. Don’t get me wrong, I am good at it but it’s a totally different feeling when you are the one who is in charge. You have those employees that will test you and see how far they can go with you before you draw the line. With that being said, it is very important for me to establish myself as the new leader and not by trying to assert dominance, but showing them that I won’t be a pushover. One thing that I have learned about myself since taking on this job as the operations manager is that I won’t ask my employees to do anything that I am not willing to do and that principle goes all the way from the front desk staff to the janitorial staff. I think this has helped me to gain a lot of respect from my employees because I don’t try and be that dictator boss.
Training problems are usually the worst problems that I have to deal with throughout the day. Training is such an expensive amenity that LA Fitness offers and is a very strict contract, so it is very important that the contracts are explained thoroughly at the point of sale. Well let’s just say that the contract is either not being explained as well as it can be today, or the member misunderstood what the contract said. I received a phone call today around noon and from the moment I picked up the phone and said hello, I heard nothing but yelling and cursing. They talked about how they were lied to and how they were tricked into signing the contract, and a lot of other mess. When situations like this occur, you don’t want to rush to judgment too fast. Make sure that you are assessing the situation from both points of view, do your investigating, and then try to handle the problem. In this case, the man actually signed the contract, and all the terms and conditions were in the contract. However, one of the terms that allows them to get out of their contract is the fact that he was moving 25 miles outside of any LA Fitness which made him eligible to cancel without having to pay cancellation fee. After they were made aware that they were indeed able to do that, the man then apologized for being so rude to me and explained that he was just frustrated with not fully understanding the principles and terms. I wish I could tell you that every time I’ve been cursed out by a member that it ended with them apologizing but that would be a lie!
Now that I will be moving on to another gym, there is a lot of planning that needs to take place. The first thing I need to do is get the hours covered for the shifts that I would normally be working. This was probably one of the more difficult tasks to handle because a lot of the workers that I had are currently enrolled in school or have kids and it is hard for them to work any other shifts but the ones that they have, not to mention that everyone’s shifts were scheduled around me being there. I would need to have every shift covered before the end of the week as I will be starting my new task on Monday March 9th, 2015. The other hard part about starting this new task is the fact that I had built a relationship with most of my workers and had really gotten things the way that I wanted them to be as far as management goes. This gym had went 2 months without an operations manager so you can only imagine how much time and effort it took to get the gym back on track. The last reason that this will be a hard transition for me is because I have also built a relationship with most of the members that are at the Grove City location and they have built one with me. A lot of them hated the fact that I was leaving and even begged me to stay. But they also understood that this was a great opportunity for me.
So I’ve just been assigned to my project for my mentorship. I currently work at one of the smaller LA Fitness locations in Grove City where there aren’t too many problems to focus on. The District Operations Manager and my mentor Kaitlyn thought it would be a great idea for me to transfer to a bigger location that is in Powell, Ohio. Right now they currently have no manager over there, which means that the structure is off in the location, no leadership, numbers are down, and a lot of the members are dissatisfied with how things are done. My main goal is to bring the numbers back up, take care of the problems that were not solved by the last manager, and ultimately put a team together that will be able to create the success that this gym once had before the last Operations manager left. I told the District Operations manager that I really look forward to the challenge. I think that taking on this challenge will not only be something that will help the company out, but I feel that this will help me out with my long term goal. Being at a smaller gym like a mentioned before, there weren’t a lot of problems that I need to solve which made the job a little boring. Moving to a bigger location where there are a lot more members and problems to deal with will really test my leadership skills for the next month. You will hear more about my challenge, goals, and expectations in one of my other sections.
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