I have written a lot in the past about how culture is important in a company to completely differentiate itself from its competitors. In fact, now with technology and equipment more readily available to all, it may be the only thing that truly makes one stand out from everyone else.
We often get asked “how do we maintain our company’s culture?” One simple way we perform this is through a key aspect of our culture, which is to constantly appreciate and reward exceptional performance.
Often in our industry, in our day-to-day operations we tend to focus mainly on the constant complaints, suggestions and negative activity of the business. It is important to always take a step back and really focus on all the good that is going on in your company. Here at Gainesville Health and Fitness we celebrate our company’s culture through a variety of ways. Next to all of our suggestion boxes around the club we have our employee recognition program set up as well. This program consists of what we call “eagle boxes,” which allow our members a venue to voice their appreciation and observations of any employee that goes above and beyond the call of duty.
At the end of each month we post all of the written notes to our staff for all of the employees to be able to see and read. At the same time, the management team will pick the top comments and we bring the team out to dinner to commend them for their hard work. We hold monthly staff events ranging from beach days to going to a water park, to encourage team development. For our personal training team we hold regular team meetings for ongoing education and to again recognize a team member’s hard work and efforts. In our weekly sales team meetings we start off by having each member of our team give us an example of our company’s culture in action.
In order to keep your company’s culture strong and always top of mind, it’s a good idea to take the time to focus and recognize all that is good in your company and your staff, rather than thinking only about what’s going to go wrong next.
Adrian Antigua is the operations manager for Gainesville Health and Fitness in Tioga, Fla. Formerly a desk manager, Antigua is heavily involved in customer service and staff training. For questions on operations, e-mail Antigua at AdrianA@ghfc.com.
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Rachel Zabonick-Chonko is the editor-in-chief of Club Solutions Magazine. She can be reached at rachel@peakemedia.com.
