Hiring Gone Wrong

When hiring staff for your fitness center, there are many things to consider: experience, friendliness, hours available to work. But what about citizenship, criminal history or the potential for being creepy? An LA Fitness in the Phoenix, Ariz., area apparently didn’t care about those last requirements, considering it hired an illegal immigrant who was caught spying on women in the locker room.

According to a news item from the East Valley Tribune (May 25, 2007), a man “believed to be an illegal immigrant” who was a janitor at the East Mesa LA Fitness broke into the facility’s ceiling and watched women as they changed. Police also said that he fondled himself while peeping and, on one occasion, stole a woman’s cell phone from her gym bag. The man, Francisco Salgado Martinez, was charged with voyeurism, burglary and theft.

So, how could this have been avoided? LA Fitness should have first determined Martinez’ ability to legally work in the U.S. Next, a criminal background check should have been performed, since voyeurs tend to have committed this same crime in the past. Finally, there should be safeguards in place to keep staff members from having access to the ceilings or walls around locker rooms. At the very least, employees should be accounted for during work hours, since this guy obviously committed the crimes when the facility was open. For more information on hiring and staffing, check out past articles from Fitness Management.

Can you guarantee that something like this won’t happen at your facility? Are you thoroughly screening your employees, and then keeping an eye on them while they are in your facility? Your members expect privacy and safety while in your fitness center. If something like this happened at my fitness center, I would simply quit. I’m sure many of your members would do the same.