With the employees that I have to manage, you love having them there and you don't really think about them leaving the company. The reality is, the front desk position is not a career position at a gym. This week, I had someone that decided to put their two week notice in because they had found a career opportunity that they wanted to pursue. Once you receive that two week notice, there are two problems that I have to be handled, especially in my case: 1) You have to start interviewing immediately to find a replacement and 2) How do you keep that person motivated to continue to be productive in the workplace until they depart from the company? The interviewing part wasn't so bad since I already had experience with interviewing for the janitorial position. The hardest part is the second phase of the two week notice when I mentioned that you have to keep them motivated. If someone knows that they are about to be done with a job, they tend to start to slack off which ultimately still affects our business. The approach I took with this was pretty much if you aren't going to be productive, then you can leave now and not wait for the two weeks. I was quite blunt with the situation and this particular employee because she did have her times where she would slack off and I knew that at some point during this two week notice, she would so I took care of the situation early to see where her head was at. She responded to it in a positive manner and still put forth a good effort even though she was leaving soon.
So, the interviewing process is finally over and I have decided on who I am going to hire as the new janitor. He was a very young kid but very ambitious and ready to work and that was what really caught my eye when interviewing him. This would be my first time training someone for the janitorial position so I wanted to try something a little different. I have a lead janitor who has been with the company for about two years now so I split the training days up so that he would have 8 hours of training with me and 8 hours of training with her. My part of the training was to show him the basics of what needs to be done and how to do it on a day to day basis. What I wanted my lead janitor to go over with him was how to get in detail with his cleaning. I think going over the details with her instead of me was a lot better because she is there doing the work every day and knows exactly what the members like and how they like the gym (members are not afraid to express their opinion if they do not like how something is being cleaned at the gym). Training is probably one of the most important aspects of being a manager at any position and I don't think people realize how important it is until they actually have to go through it or train someone.
Training is very important to me because I am able to show my employees how things should be done and how I like things to be done in order to be successful. If an employee is improperly trained, the flow of the day to day operations will be skewed. If you have to retrain employees, it will also slow down the flow of your company which ultimately leads to losing money for that period that you must train them. The second day, I only had one interview schedule and would be the final day of doing interviews for the janitorial position. Going into this interview, I was a little more comfortable with conducting the interview because I had already went through two yesterday. The person that came in today for the interview never had a job with cleaning or anything that had to do with hard labor which was a downer for me as the interviewer. Sometimes with this type of job, people may get into it and not like the hassle of it which means they may not be around for a long time with the company. My main goal is to make sure that they will fit with the company and be sure that they intend to stay with us long term
So today is the day for the interview and this is actually my first time ever having to interview anyone for any kind of position. So needless to say, I was seeking advice on how to approach the interview, what questions to ask, and how to evaluate interviewees. I went to my mentor Kaitlyn to get answers. You have to love Kaitlyn because she will help you out, but with me, she lets me experience things for myself first and then helps me afterwards so that I will know alternative ways how on how I could have approached a certain situation. What she told me though when doing the interview is to look for how much energy they bring to the interview, find out how reliable they are and just get to know the person. Getting to know the person was one of the main ones that stuck out to me because it is important to know who it is that you are working with. If you don't feel like you can work with them on an every day basis, they are probably not right for the job, no matter what kind of experience they may have in the field.
The first person I interviewed came highly recommended from my facility manager who actually used to be a janitor for LA Fitness. He also had a little bit of cleaning experience with cleaning so he wasn't a stranger to getting down and dirty with his job. The second guy I interviewed used to be a construction worker so he also was no stranger to working with his hands and getting down and dirty. The only problem I had with his was that he never really looked me in my eyes when he was answering questions which made me question if he was telling me the full truth. Overall, I think the first day of interviews definitely taught me about what I look for when trying to hire people and what I don't like to see when I am doing interviews. There is always something that needs tending to when it comes to running a gym whether that is broken equipment, angry members or whatever the case may be. Today, I had the pleasure of getting the news that our water fountain was not working today. Now working at a gym, that is one of the worse things that you could have break down on you at any time because when people sweat, they get thirsty, or possibly dehydrated. Needless to say, I heard EVERY SINGLE MEMBERS OPINION when I came into work that morning. Dealing with members that are angry about this seemed like one of the most impossible tasks I have had throughout the day. The complaints just kept coming and coming. The only thing that I could tell them is that I had a work order in for a new fountain and it should be coming soon. Still members were angry about there being no water fountain so I would still here about it. So to solve the problem, we decided to go buy a few cases of water to give to the members as they came in so that they had something to drink. The members ended up being satisfied with the solution that we provided. I think the lesson to take away from this experience is that there is always some kind of solution that can be provided for any problem, you just have to find the one that fits the customers needs and put it into place.
Don't you just love when you have angry members come in for something that was totally out of your power to control? That was exactly what I had to deal with today with a married couple. So to paint a picture for you on how this whole thing came about, I have to first explain to you what different sections we have within the gym. I am the manager over operations, which means that my decision overrides any decision made in the gym. We also have a general manager in the gym who oversees the sale of memberships and the marketing of the gym. Then we have the trainers where there is a head trainer that oversees the trainers and the training contracts. I usually have the most problems out of the training aspect of the business because their contracts are totally separate from the gym contracts for one. The other reason I have problems with them is because the contracts are usually year long contracts and members sometimes feel like they can back out of paying them once they sign up regardless of the fact that they signed up for a year. There are only three ways that you can exit a training contract: You have to pay 50% of the remaining balance of your contract, move 25 miles outside of an LA Fitness, or have a medical excuse from your doctor that forbids you to do any physical activity.
Well, the couple came in furious because they were being charged $160 on top of their monthly dues that they are paying for the gym membership. I had to explain to the couple that the had both indeed signed up for training and that they were in a legally binding contract. I then explained the 3 options that they had in order to make their contracts null and void and they later understood. They later thanked me for my help because they said that they had not been made aware of those options upon signing the contracts. Here are a few things that I learned from this experience: 1) Always acknowledge there is a problem, it lets the customer know that you are in fact trying to take control of the situation. 2) Address the situation and give options to the customer. 3) Assure the customer that the problem will be taken care of. On Friday, I had to go through the experience of firing someone from my janitorial staff. Firing someone is one of the worse feelings I have ever experienced but it was for the good of the company so the only thing that I can do from here is to move on. Moving on is what I intended on doing today so I began going through applications and resumes so that I can replace the old one. Going through resumes is probably one of the most time consuming and difficult tasks that I've done so far too. Trying to sort through the many applications and find which one sparks your interest the most is a tough task! I think that one thing that makes the selection so hard for me is that I am somewhat a perfectionist. So when I look at the applications, I tend to be a little picky but its only because I know what is best for the club.
I ended up finding a few applications that I really liked so the next step for me was to call the applicants and set up for an interview. When calling the applicants and setting up for the interviews, I have to be firm when setting the times for the interviews. So what I did was I set up time blocks that applicants could potentially come in and have their interview. This would help to set the tone for me to let them know that my time here is very valuable and that they need to be able to work around my schedule if they are going to work in the company. I ended up scheduling interviews for this Thursday and Friday. Let the interviewing begin! Today was a very interesting day to say the least. Managing a gym is pretty fun job, but can be a pretty difficult job as well. As the manager of the gym, I manage the front desk staff, as well as the janitorial staff. The janitorial staff is one of the most important jobs in a gym because a clean gym leads to happy members. If the gym is half done, it leads to angry members and a lot of complaints that I have to hear about when I come in for my shift. Well, when I came in for my shift today, I was immediately notified of my evening shift janitor and how he hasn't been producing like he should be lately from members and my lead janitor. I am the type of person that wants to see the work for themself before making any long term decisions just because I feel that is fair to employees. Since I am not at the gym during the evening hours and my lead janitor comes in at 5am to start her shift, I had her take pictures of everything that was missed by my evening shift janitor for the weekend so that I could get a better feel for what was going on. Needless to say the pictures told the truth. My morning shift janitor was basically cleaning for two every day that she was coming into work and that is not fair to her.
I have never been in a position where I had to fire anyone but I felt as though the time to do so was now. At the end of the day, it was a business decision for me and the company. I think that I handled it pretty well considering it was my first time firing someone. I think that if I could go back and change one thing about how the whole process worked, I wouldn't have taken so long to actually let him go. I think that for a while, I let my emotions make the decision for me instead of me actually making the decision based on a business aspect. In any type of business, you have to be firm on your decisions and don't waste time thinking about what you should do. We need to act off of instinct especially if we know that it will cost the company money in the long run if nothing is done about the situation. Thursdays are usually the days where business tends to pick up. With our company, people pay their bills by having a credit card on file and an automatic withdrawal happens once every month. A lot of times, people will change their credit card, have it stolen, not have enough money on it or whatever the case may be, and the money is not drafted to their account. Our job is to get a hold of the members so that they can update their account with the correct credit card information. During the day, we usually take around 4 hours to make as many calls as we can to members around the nation who are suffering from this problem. This is one of the main ways that we bring in revenue for our particular gym and is what a lot of gyms are lacking in.
For this particular task of generating revenue for the gym, it is important to come up with a strategy to motivate the staff I have to perform at a high level when making the calls, but also creating a strategy to maintain the performance level. The approach I use to keep everyone motivated is to turn it into a competition for who can get the most. Everyone really responds to a competitive side in the company because the majority of my employees played sports in high school and they still have that same competitive drive that they had in high school. And now we are in the middle of the week where everything else needs to be inspected to ensure that the everything in the facility is in tact. So after I make my deposit to the bank, I always perform a walk through of the club and check for things that may be out of order or out of the ordinary. So while I am looking, I look for lights that may be out, carpet that may be torn up, mold in the restrooms, bugs, just anything out of the ordinary that will hinder day-to-day operations or anything that may be uncomfortable for customers to workout around. One thing that I found out today that turned out to be a huge problem was that our water fountain went out the night before and we needed to replace it. This was probably one of the biggest issues that I've had to deal with as a manager of a gym for the simple fact that I do work at a gym. People depend on the water fountain for before, during and after their workouts. You can only imagine the amount of complaints that I received for the fountain being out. In order to fix this problem, I had to put an emergency order in to have one delivered and to also have it installed by our facility maintenance manager. Hopefully the rush order will have it in soon because the member will not let me hear the end of this until the problem is resolved.
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