After almost a month of hard work and dedication, the basketball league is finally about to be underway. I finally found a worthy league director to run it and she was right under my nose the whole time. One of my Kids Klub staff actually did an internship where she was doing things that were similar to running a basketball league. We are currently in the process of putting teams together and our goal is to start the league by July the 6. Its been a long time coming and our members couldn't be more happier that it is actually about to start!
So remember how I said last week that I was supposed to have a meeting with the janitor on Monday to discuss alternatives so that I could keep him working here? Well, he never showed up for the meeting on Monday, then he decided not to show up yesterday. Needless to say, I reached my breaking point and I decided to let him go today once he got in. So I called him into one of his offices and pretty much told him that I was letting him go. I would like to keep it PG for you guys but lets just say that he did not take it too well and let me have an ear full before we were finished talking. On his way out, he also decided to throw his keys at the front desk. This was by far the worse one that I have had to fire. I really dislike having to fire people but sometimes it just has to be done.
A pet peeve of mine is when people are late no matter what they are late to. I've had a janitor that was late the past couple of days and hasn't actually said anything to me as to why he was late. So today I stopped him and questioned why he had been late the past couple days. His excuse was that he recently moved back home with his parents whom live an hour away. The guy is a great worker but tardiness is something that I just won't put up with. So, since I now know the reasoning behind his tardiness, I think I told him that we would meet on Monday to try and discuss a plan that would benefit both of us in this situation. Hopefully I am able to keep him because like I said, he is a really good worker.
We are the only club in Columbus who offer their members a steam room for daily use. Well, since I have taken over the club, there have been issues with the steam room. We've had to rip out the whole thing and redo it at one point. Well, now we have this issue where we have a leak coming out the back side of the wall and we cannot figure out what is going on with it. I've had multiple vendors come out and take a look at it and give their opinion on what is wrong but still no answers. The steam room is very popular among men and I have been receiving all sorts of complaints about it being out of order. Patience is not a strong point in this gym to say the least!
There are a few clubs in the Columbus area that are having a remodel of the club which will cause it to be shut down for a few weeks. Some of those clubs are fairly close to the one that I work at and as a result, the members from those clubs are going to be using our club for the time being. Traffic has really picked up in our gym and we also have more trainers that I have to look out for as well. This will probably be the longest 2 months of my life because all these remodels are back to back to back. It is also a chance however that our misc gross will pick up so there are a few plus sides to the situation.
Its been a full week and we still haven't heard from the candidate that I want to hire. I'm not sure why he is not returning the phone calls but I can't sit around and continue to wait on him to be ready. What I've decided to do is to continue interviewing for the position and see if I can't find someone else for the position. As I said in a previous post, my fear is that the people who originally signed up will lose interest which will force us to have to market all over again. Hopefully I can find a candidate as good as the one I found last week. I really thought he would be good for the position.
Well, I went through plenty of interviews last week and I made my decision Friday on who I wanted to hire for the league director position. I submitted it to corporate so that he could be approved for the position on Thursday and we could get started on Monday. I still have yet to hear back from corporate. I am getting really impatient because I would really like to get started. Having this league will help to increase our misc gross which is another project I am working on. Another reason that I am becoming impatient is because the members are becoming impatient. I had over 60 members show interest in the basketball league and every day there is someone different asking when are we going to get started. My fear is that if we don't get it started soon, members will begin to lose interest and then we will have to start from scratch. Lets just hope that that isn't the case!
With all the things that I have on my plate as the operations manager, it is only fitting that I find a league director to run the league for me. I will still have my hand in a fair share of the things that go on with the league but I have to have someone do the busy work so that I can keep up with the operations of the gym. With that being said I will be holding interviews the rest of the week to try and find the right guy/girl. Interviewing is not one of the highlights of this job but I have to do whatever is necessary to get this thing going.
One of the first and most important things that must be done in order to get the basketball league up and running is that we need to market it well to our members. In order to do this we did two things. The first thing was we created a sign up sheet for the league. Members don't have to pay when they sign up on this sheet as it is just an interest sheet to see how many people actually want to do it before we proceed with anything else. The other thing that we are planning on doing is floor marketing. In order to really get people interested, we need to really speak highly of it to the regulars who play basketball in the gym. Traffic is heaviest on the court during the times of 5 pm through 9 pm so during that time is when we choose to market our league. I'm really getting excited to get this thing going.
So, I am a big basketball fan if you guys haven't already noticed this about me. Well one of the projects that I am working on here at LA Fitness is to get a basketball league started at the facility. In order to do so,I have to get a few things approved by the corporate office such as referees, a league director and workers for the league. This is going to be a great project to take on because this would be one of the first locations in the Columbus area to have a basketball league. It is something that a lot of people that attend the gym want to see happen. I can't wait to bring something new to the facility. It will really help me to put my "stamp" on the club as an operations manager if you will.
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