Well I told you guys last Thursday that I was having trouble with one of my janitors and the trouble continues. Over the weekend, he was supposed to work from 9am to 3pm. When I came in to work today, I was informed that he came in late on Sunday and also left early. Not only did he come late and leave early, but he still clocked in for the 6 hours that he was supposed to be there which is considered time card fraud. He not only committed time card fraud for one day, but he did the same thing today! This is where I draw the line and I have decided to let him go.
I want to hit our misc. gross goal for this month and I think I have found the perfect way to do it. I decided to have a competition to get my workers excited for the trying to hit the goal. I’ve always tried to keep a competitive bunch of employees since joining LA Fitness because they are easily motivated to do their work. What better way to keep them motivated then by sparking up the competition? The rule of the competition are if we hit our goal as a whole, I will take everyone out to eat with at the end of the month. For the person that has the most misc gross, I will buy them dinner on top of us all going out at their choice. Needless to say, everyone is really excited for the competition and there has been a lot of trash talking! I love it! Let the games begin!!!
So, I seem to have bad luck with janitors because in both facilities, I’ve had janitors that just simply are lazy at their job. Now, the reason I have such a problem with that besides the fact that they are lazy is that we work at a gym where a lot of germs are spread on equipment and throughout the building. If you are lazy at your job, you are exposing people to the many germs that are in the gym. With that being said, I had a janitor call off today saying that he had some event that he had to go to. He told me yesterday that he would not be in today but the fact that he told me the day before he wasn’t going to be here is what really rubbed me the wrong way. This is the second time this week that he has called off without giving me a few days notice and I am just about at the end of my ropes with giving him chances. It really makes me mad because when he takes off like that, it forces my other two janitors to have to pick up his slack plus continue to do the work that they already have to get done. It’s not fair to them that they have to work harder because a worker decides to come to work when they want to. So I plan on having a talk with Isaac once he comes in on Monday about his performance and to pretty much give him a warning that if he doesn’t pick up the slack, then we will move in a different direction.
Well, it’s the beginning of a new month and now that I have been able to get things to run the way that I like at the new club, it is time to set some goals and accomplish our goals. Today, my district operations manager called me and said “What are your goals now that you have your legs under you?” My response was to hit our misc gross goal, and to attract more members to our club! I think that the misc. gross goal is very obtainable because since I have moved to the new facility, I have spent countless hours training my staff and making sure that they know the ins and outs in order for us to hit our goal. As far as bringing in more customers, my plan to make that happen is to get a little more personal with the members that we already have at the facility. I think this will help to get more members for one reason: WORD OF MOUTH. In a gym setting, I think there are a two things that customers really want and need in order to be happy at a gym 1) Great equipment and 2) Good personnel at the gym. I’ve had countless people at the gym that I was previously managing tell me that they love the fact that I dress up every day and greet them with a smile and it makes them a little feel welcomed in the facility when they come. Keeping the customers happy is my main priority when at work and I refuse to fail at my job!
Sales are probably one of the toughest jobs to have in any industry just because there is so much pressure on the employees to hit numbers. It is no different with selling gym memberships. At some gyms (not all) there are those sales counselors who will do anything to hit that number so that they can keep their jobs. Then there are the ones that do things every now and then that don’t seem to be right and I have to correct what is wrong. I came into a situation today where I was forced to have a sit down with my sales team and break down the do’s and don’ts of their job. Before I got there, sales was stepping on the toes of the front desk staff by flipping some deals and ultimately taking away commission from the front desk and sometimes ripping off the customers. When I sat down with them, I pretty much told them that I wasn’t going stand for that type of behavior and that it ends now. As a manager, I always want my members to have the best deal possible for them. I am all about the people and I think that working for this company has really taught me what my calling is in life: I need to be in a career where I can help and service people!
I told you guys on a different post that I took it upon myself to make sure that the Grove City location is taken care of after my departure because they lack leadership at that location. Well it hasn’t been the easiest task to take on. The employees over there are angry because of the lack of leadership and it is hard for them to stay focused and do their jobs while they are there. On top of that, they don’t really want to come to work because of the lack of leadership. So this week, we have been struggling to get people on the schedule to work. Since we couldn’t find someone to cover the day shift, I volunteered myself to go over and cover the shift. I thought it would be kind of cool to go back over there since that’s where I started out at. I also think that there is a lot that I can fix over there as well before the new Operations Manager takes over.
You guys know the saying that the customer is always right, after this week, I am really starting to rethink if that is always true. Today has been the most stressful day for some of the smallest reasons. It seemed like I was dealing with a lot of complaints that I already knew about. The thing about the complaints is not the fact that they are complaining but the fact that there are so many complaints about the same thing. But when in customer service, you have to remember that the customer is always right. And in this particular setting, there is always going to be something going wrong because it is a gym and things tend to break down. Since there are so many complaints going on, I will do a club walk every two hours just to see if there is anything wrong with the club so that I can get it fixed before anyone says anything about it and the members really appreciate it. Some have even told me that they have never had anyone take the time out to do such a thing for the club which lets me know that I am doing something right. If you stay on the member’s good side, they truly will show their appreciation.
So, as you all know, I switched gyms to take on the project of bringing numbers back up as well as getting the employees refocused and take care of problems with the building. Well, I also have taken it upon myself to help continue to manage the Grove City LA Fitness location to the best of my ability. Most of what I was doing was making sure that the schedules were filled out for whoever needed to work that week, getting supplies ordered, and anything else Kaitlyn needed me to do. Needless to say, my schedule is booked solid all the time. I found myself getting a little stressed out taking on these projects at this point as well because I am trying to juggle so much and it sometimes shows in my performance at work. Some days I would be absolutely dragging into work because of how exhausted I was. But I think it will all be worth it in the end because I can look back later on in life and say that I did that. It will also help my resume to grow as well as I am getting some really good experience taking on all these tasks on top of what I am doing for my new gym.
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