For club owners and operators to implement good risk management practices, they need to understand what a good practice is.
Risk management is all about planned attentiveness. Club owners and operators are well served by using rare periods of downtime to focus on potential business risks. They’re more likely to notice lapses in equipment servicing, deferred maintenance issues, staff complaints and concerns, and business challenges that require their attention. However, when things get busy it can be easy to allow good risk management practices to shift out of focus.
So how can owners and operators plan for good and recognize those less-than-optimal risk management practices? Perhaps screenwriter and director Aaron Sorkin wrote it best in the TV show The Newsroom: “The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one.” For club owners and operators to implement good risk management practices, they need to understand what a good practice is.
Good practices have a few common themes. For example, the plans take human error into account. These plans purposely include redundancies to bring a point home and utilize modern tools to support attentiveness and planning. A good risk management plan accounts for the busy times when the attention of owners and operators may be pulled in multiple directions, and spells out how to best take advantage of quiet periods.
Having a comprehensive plan that is updated regularly and calls for the review and inspection of all aspects of a business during set times is a critical component of good risk management practice. When risk managers have no plan and only react to problems as they arise, they risk exposing their business to unnecessary threats.
Examples of proper risk management practices for club owners include:
- Having a dedicated risk manager.
- Implementing regular checks for updating and verifying customer waivers and paperwork.
- Investing in cloud storage for important documents.
- Developing a comprehensive emergency response plan.
- Conducting emergency response training that accounts for staffing changes all too rampant in today’s business environment.
By regularly reviewing risk management operations, club owners and operators can ensure they have the systems in place to catch minor issues before they become major problems. By working with an insurance specialist who knows the fitness niche, owners and operators can ensure they are implementing good risk management practices that will protect the longevity of their business.
