Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Thuggish and abusive staff, customers at 24 Hour Fitness Lakewood



read the whole story: http://www.thecherrycreeknews.com/thuggish-and-abusive-staff-threaten-customer-at-24-hour-fitness-lakewood/ "Grab your goddamned stuff and get the fuck out of here." That was the refrain from a 24 Hour fitness customer, working out with a 24 Hour Fitness employee at the chain's Alameda location(Lakewood,Colorado). The pair, short and thuggish, occupied a single piece of equipment for forty-minutes, while others waited. The gym's ineffective management* did nothing to constructively address either the employee or his out-of-control buddy. Threats and intimidation of gym goers now seem part of package at 24 Hours Fitness.24_hour_fitness_alameda_lakewood_-_Google_Search



For 24 Hour Fitness, it is an increasingly common story. Gym goers, educated by workout videos and on-line gurus, not old-school strength and fitness coaches, often lack any sense of civility or knowledge of conventions of working out in a common space. And turnover among 24-Hour Fitness staff proceeds at frightening pace. It seems as if few employees last more than twelve months. Beyond that, there is no effort to construct a positive, cooperative culture among gym goers.



Those failures, in part, explain the explosive growth of Planet Fitness, which while offering much less in an uninspiring context, continues to eat 24 Hour Fitness market share like some sort purple space monster.



In years past, an ask to "work in" was an invitation to cooperative use of scarce equipment, not an opening for territorial invective from dwarvish mouth-breathers. The former spirit, while far from totally extinct, is vastly more rare. And when a gym's own employees lack either the sense or the skill to redirect the aggression of their compatriots, you have a workplace disaster in the making. When you have 24 Hour Fitness management, on scene, essentially sanctioning threats of violence in their shop, it transcends disaster into the realm of something far more dangerous, particularly for customers who are just looking for a workout. A Google search for "24 Hour fitness horror stories" returns 1.6 Million results. That's a lot of bad will among the customer base.



And part of the story seems to be common among employees as well. Writing on GlassDoor, one gym staff wrote: "Invest in your current staff. Training and development can go a long way when the people training and developing know what they are talking about and are STRUCTURED. There is no structure in training and development." Another wrote : "Company has changed, its now all about threats to make numbers that can't be made. they want the shark tank - six guys fighting over enough commission to maybe made the pay worthwhile for 2. district managers can't think for themselves, insult the employees and repeat whatever they are told to say by upper management. Clueless."



The takeaway? Until 24 Hour Fitness gets its act together, and get serious about making itself a safe and welcoming place, stay away.



*The Manager's name tag said "Chad" but he failed to provide either the spelling of his name, nor, the basic tool of customer service, a business card. Much less an apology for the conduct of his employee, or the fact he failed to act on complaints for more than a half hour.



** Fitness centers on the whole have seen declining revenue since 2004. The very definition of structural decline.