Since your team has been out of the game for so long, they might need a moment before they deal with members again. How do you make sure they are ready to step inside the club again?
Consider the possibility that they are concerned about their health and worried about all the safety and health instructions – just like your members. Since they are the spokespersons of your facility, it is evident they must feel calm and confident, plus understand all the rules and restrictions in order to execute them.
Training & Development
If your club has to remain closed or you can’t schedule the entire team of staff members yet, provide them with something to feel useful in the meantime. It is a challenging time for them as they are unable to contribute or help members for such a long time. Transform this difficult period into an opportunity for learning and development. Think about self-development courses, teach them what is the desired attitude in times like these, and let them achieve specific learnings and skills which are normally too time consuming.
If you would like to offer a new digital management system or a different tool to offer virtual classes, you could set up webinars or e-learnings to prepare your staff properly. During lockdown your team learned how to work together at a distance and as a result they may have become stronger and even ‘closer’ as they went through this together. Embrace this development and ‘feed’ this opportunity.
Life Fitness is here to support you and your team during these challenging times. Don’t hesitate to reach to our Life Fitness Academy, the global training and education arm of Life Fitness focused on education materials for customers, fitness professionals and exercisers worldwide. With some of the top trainers in the country, Life Fitness Academy provides a wide range of training workshops and courses, designed for fitness instructors, personal trainers, studio instructors and fitness managers. These training workshops can me tailormade and can be offered as online courses also.
Self-Esteem
Ensure your staff feels confident about returning to their jobs after many weeks out of the game. How are they feeling? What are you doing to get them up to speed again? Maybe set up a fun Covid-19 Quiz to test their knowledge? Did you set up online coaching already? Did your staff stay in touch with your clients? If not, you should facilitate this to decrease the gap of communication. Besides a ‘safe’ in-between solution to rebuilt self-esteem of your staff, it’s very important to engage with your members again. Why not kill two birds with one stone?
Interaction with members
Staff needs to be trained in how to approach and inform members properly. After you sent everything out by email, set up an online meeting (video call) as soon as possible to inform your staff. Then, invite them to the club once allowed and walk through the rules step-by-step. Teach your staff members how to handle misbehavior and coach them how to approach members. Try to do this in an interactive way, by practicing with role play you will discover their thoughts and ideas. Make them feel part of this.
Hygiene will be vital – so this means no handshaking (but ‘namaste?’ or introduce your own signature move!), handle extremely strict cleaning rules and management of member behavior. Again, let your staff be part of creating the cleaning schedule. What are their thoughts? This way you create buy-in and consensus.
Do you want to have more practical tips & tricks on how to prepare for the reopening of your gym? Our free e-book will be available soon…