Facilities - Supplies - People

Managing is in the Details

We operate daily with clients who feel that the facility is more than a business—it's their second home.

By Rod Heckelman

You remodel a large portion of your club at great expense and feel very proud of your accomplishments. Several members pointed out the improvements that this project has made to your facility. Overall, the response is business as usual, and life at the club continues.

Then one day you replace your weighing scale in the locker room, and it’s as if you have discovered a cure for a major disease. Almost overnight the attitude of the club has been lifted. Compliments and accolades are abounding and it only took a few dollars. You just spent very few bucks in the big scheme of things and have greatly impacted your membership.

This is a perfect illustration of how the members may perceive the quality and character of their club. It’s all too often that the little things make the difference. The reason is that these little things are not little things to the members. Measuring your weight accurately might be the most important part of a member’s day. They’ve been working out, trying for months to get in shape, and that scale is their only way of measuring their success or failure.

Life can be full of surprises. What will the traffic be like, what will the workday conjure up, or what will the children bring home from school? There’s so much that your members just don’t have control over, and it can be very exasperating. When they come to the club, they don’t want that same experience, they want that scale to work the right way every day, with no exceptions. If you look closely at your facility, you will notice several areas and functions that fall into this category. Try as you may, you will never find a way to keep many of these factors under control every day. Your best approach is to just accept the fact that your club will have several functions that are vulnerable to change and erratic behavior. The best approach to this challenge is to make a list of these areas and create an agenda that will allow the monitoring of these areas.

Here’s a list that might work for you, or at least get you started in the right direction. We might as well start with the scales. Take the time to check that they are adjusted correctly every day. Scales can get moved around when cleaning and can lose their accuracy. Speaking of accuracy, how many clocks do you have in your club? With classes and court times, you need to keep everything synchronized. This is especially important to members because many of them will take off their watches when working out, playing, or swimming. They become completely dependent on the clocks in your building. It can be very disruptive if someone is playing on the tennis courts where the clocks are off by several minutes, and you have designated court times.

Locker Room Scale and Pool Temperature

One thing that is constantly subject to member scrutiny is the room temperatures. If a yoga room is too cold or a spin cycle room too warm, you will get an ear full from the members using that space. As much as you would like to lock down the thermostats, it’s not uncommon to have employees and even members try to adjust them. There’s also the possibility that the AC or heating system may have mechanical issues that need to be addressed. Even more important than the temperature of the rooms is the temperature of the pools, Jacuzzi, steam room, or shower water. If there is any variation in the temperature of these amenities, members will take notice. Even a single degree can be detected by an experienced swimmer. Don’t take their comments lightly; the pool temperature is important to serious swimmers or those who are using the pool for rehabilitation.

Water Pressure

Speaking of water, do you have a way to monitor your facility's water pressure? When you fill the pool, does the pressure drop in the showers? Members are acutely aware of this pressure, and since water conservation is everyone’s concern, you need to let your members know that you are on top of it. Some will say that you should lower the water pressure, while others will want it to be very strong. For instance, in showers to save water, while others, especially those with long hair, will tell you that it is wasteful not to have good water pressure because it will take so much longer to wash the shampoo out of their hair.

Little Things with Big Importance

Finally, there are several products that you provide your members for their daily use. They count on these products being available 24/7. Are the water dispensers filled and cups available? If you provide coffee, do you have the cream, sugar, and decaf always supplied? Are all the soap, towels, and paper supplies kept filled? Are the chairs around the pool stacked properly and kept clean? Are the tennis court scorecards available for use? There is a myriad of items that require inventory awareness and regulation. This is why you need to not only have a list but also look towards expanding that list as your club evolves.

Punctuality is King

A trademark of a manager who pays attention to details makes a point of never being late to meetings or appointments. When a person is late, or constantly has to change the agenda, it portrays a person who puts their needs before those they interact with. It also results in a loss of an agenda, or personal discipline, which helps overlook the day-to-day needs of the facility. Keeping a schedule goes hand-in-hand with the ability to stay on top of the details of the facility. You will know when you have a handle on the details of your club. Those will be the days when you hear nothing from the membership.

The Power of a Walkthrough List

That’s how the details work within a club. They may be the most important aspects of a club operation, but essentially go unnoticed until they are a problem. Do yourself a favor and create a walkthrough list to help you remember those things that you don’t want to hear about. Whatever resolution you come to, you will want to keep things consistent and stable. Stabilizing functions at the club is always important when there are different opinions as to what is best for the club. This will come up in the area of music that you may provide in certain areas of the facility. Not only is the volume important but also the type of music played. It will take some effort to find what works best for everyone, and to make sure that effort is not wasted, monitor the music daily so that the issue doesn’t come up again.

Ambience

On the subject of ambiance, review your lighting daily. Are the lights staying on too long? Have you adjusted the timers for seasonal time changes? This is an area that is also important for safety. A bulb that has gone out and has not been replaced for a few days can be a liability if it is located in a traffic area. Lights burn out, and they never give you a warning when. Only a daily checkup will keep you abreast of this. If you have a facility that has different sports available to members, many of those sports use equipment that needs daily monitoring. The height of the nets on the tennis courts, the lane lines in the pool, or maybe the equipment used by some of the fitness classes, all need to be kept up to snuff so that the members can enjoy the sport or class consistently.

Too often we seek out managing the big picture, which is not necessarily wrong, but our industry operates very differently than most, in that we operate daily with clients who feel that the facility is more than a business, it's their other home. Keep that in mind when and don’t let that quest to see the big picture overshadow the value of the details and atmosphere of your facility.