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.
Well my big boss (the one that actually hired me) decided to pay me a visit today and this is the first time I have seen him since I have made the move to the new club. He hasn’t been in to see me in a few months so I knew I was overdue for a visit. I think that is a good thing that he hasn’t come to see me in a few months though because I think that it means that I am doing something right. We had a nice long talk about getting things done in a timely manner. The main point of the talk is when there is a problem, make sure that it is addressed right away. Be persistent was another point that he made about getting the problem solved. He said that you really have to go after what you want. Just because you tell someone what you need once doesn’t mean that they will follow up with you. You have to go after them and make them hear and give you what you need. I think this was a really beneficial talk that we had and will not only help me to become a better manager, but also a better person!
So I have been without a second morning shift janitor and a second night shift janitor for about a month and a half now. It’s probably one of the hardest things to try and handle because the club is so big and needs all the attention that it can get. Well, those problems have finally come to an end because I have finally found two janitors that I would like to hire. What’s even more exciting about the new hires is that I have finally found a female janitor. This is exciting because for the time that I didn’t have a female janitor, I had to have my lead janitor come in earlier than normal in order to get the women’s locker room clean. Now we actually have someone to clean it which means that he can come in at his normal times. This also helps because the two janitors that I do have don’t have to be overworked like they have been. Janitors are a big part of any business and I have really learned that over the past couple of months. Appearance is everything when trying to sell the service of a gym.
Man this is the third time that this has happened to me since I have become a manager with the company. Yes you guessed it, I had yet another employee quit right before they were supposed to work their shift. What was different about this employee quitting however is that I kind of felt this one coming. There was a small incident yesterday that kind of led me to believe that she didn’t really want to be with the company any more. When, she first came in yesterday, she seemed to not be herself as I was told by my lead janitor. When I came in, I had an angry member waiting on me so that she could complain about her and how “rude” she was. Well like any situation, I made sure that the member knew that I would be handling the situation first. The member left, and like with any problem with people, there is always two sides to the story. I asked her what her side was to the story, not accusing her of anything, and she immediately started to break down and cry. She continued to say how the lady was lying on her and that she would never do that. Regardless of what happened, I just let her know that in any situation whether she was wrong or right, always remember to remain calm with customers. I thought we had a good talk but apparently not because I got the call early this morning that she would be quitting. Needless to say, I am not having such a good two weeks.
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