Operations Update: Building Your Future Team
W
flows in predicable stages. During the class,
they establish that every team goes through
a forming stage to start the process. During
this stage, you will see the staff on their
best behavior. They are supportive of
each other and the growth of the team.
The second stage involves the team going
through conflict. During this stage, the
focus may not be on team goals but more
individual efforts. The third stage is where
the routines of the team are established.
This stage also involves the team figuring
out what behaviors are acceptable and
which are not. The fourth stage is where
the team begins to perform at its best. This
stage is where you begin to develop your
future leaders with the right direction. The
fifth and final stage is where the leaders
begin to move on to new or different
positions. This may be a club manager
being promoted to a regional manager or
an assistant manager moving on to run a
new location. It is important to understand
that this process has no timetable. As you
evaluate the performance of your teams, it
is difficult to assign a positive or negative
value to the stage the team is currently in.
Only through the completion of the stages
can you truly say that your future team has
developed to reach your goals.
For your future team to meet your
goals, and to build the team of the future,
it is helpful to establish the culture that
your organization wants to represent.
While the Planet
Fitness® training
class establishes the
stages that a team
will go through, it is
up to your leaders to
establish the culture
by Brian Cassagio
to navigate the path.
For example, if the
culture inside the team does not include
outstanding customer relationships then
during the third stage of development
it may become acceptable to the staff to
overlook greeting a member who comes
into the facility. Your future team will
develop an identity of its own, but you
can decide what that identity is made up
of. A team that understands the goals and
how to grow toward them will develop
more positive results. Helping each team
member understand that they can grow in
the company by growing inside the team
first will help establish better leaders for the
future.
It really is heating up for our business.
If we start planning now for our future
teams, teams with outstanding customer-
focused cultures, then we can stay red hot
for a long time. G
Brian Cassagio is director of operations
for Planet Central Valley. He can be
reached at [email protected].
hile the weather can be cold at this
time of year, our business is red hot.
Marketing dollars are being spent to bring
in new members. Your hard work over the
last few months to train the staff is paying
off. You have your management team
in place. The managers know the goals
of the organization, and they have hired
staff members who are customer service-
focused. The facility is clean; the members
are happy. It is now time to hunker down
and build the membership base.
But then something odd happens.
Those carefully laid plans start to fray at
the edges. The staff you worked so hard to
train begin to show signs they are getting
overwhelmed. You start to receive more
member feedback, and some of it is not
good news. When you visit the facilities, you
see lines at the front desk when members are
trying to check in. The managers are putting
out fires while the staff may seem conflicted
as to what tasks take priority over others. It
becomes easy to doubt that you are on the
right path with your training and staffing.
It would be natural to start thinking about
your future staff.
Understanding the path that your
team will take toward success will help
you decide if you are heading in the right
direction or if a change is needed. For the
past year, the Planet Fitness Corporate
Training team has been teaching classes
that tackle the idea that team development
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