In Defense of Checklists

Fitness Management has published a lot of articles that deal with checklists. Equipment maintenance checklists, cleaning checklists, locker room checklists … the list goes on and on. I have to admit, after seven years, I’d gotten tired of them. Isn’t this common sense? I’d think. Don’t all fitness centers use checklists? Can’t we stop writing about them?

After reading a Fox News article about a dead man left overnight in a fitness facility’s steam room, I think it’s safe to say that the answer to these questions is a resounding NO.

Sixty-six-year-old Thomas Dodge, a regular member of the Coeur d-Alene Tribal Wellness Center, Plummer, Idaho, apparently suffered a heart attack in the center’s steam room after swimming. A janitor didn’t find his body until the next morning, almost 10 hours after his death.

This is inexcusable on so many levels, I don’t even know where to start.

The fitness center was likely helpless to prevent the heart attack, but it could have made a painful situation somewhat easier for Dodge’s family if staff members had found the body in a timely manner. Now the facility has made national news for poor maintenance practices, and its steam room will undoubtedly be deserted. What member wants to contemplate having an emergency in the steam room, then being abandoned by inattentive staff?

“Tribal spokesman Marc Stewart said closing procedures at the center require a walk-through to make sure no one is in the building,” reports Fox News. “Center officials will decide whether to change procedures after an investigation.”

Might I offer a suggestion? How about using … a checklist?

Dangerous Trash

Do you like to dig in the trash? Me neither, but if you had some time on your hands, lived in North Texas and didn’t mind the smell, you could have found enough personal information to steal the identities of dozens of people. If you’re in to that sort of thing.

And you’d owe it all to one company: Life Time Fitness Inc.

Life Time Fitness in Fort Worth, Texas, was hit with a lawsuit after investigators found more than 100 records with customers' personal information that were dumped in publicly accessible trash bins in six different North Texas locations.

It seems Life Time Fitness discarded the personal information of people who had discontinued their memberships by simply tossing them in the trash. Nothing was shredded. Nothing was blacked out. No effort was made to protect (or respect) the sensitive information contained on those discarded documents.

Now Life Time Fitness says it intends to work with the Texas Attorney General's office to ensure that members' sensitive personal information is properly protected. Sounds like too little, too late, to me.

What is your club’s process for discarding (or, better yet, destroying) personal information? Identity theft isn’t just the subject of a techno thriller coming to a theater near you. It’s a real concern for people who put their personal information into your hands — whether or not they’re still paying dues.

Sleeping in Their Bed

There is a treadmill in my fitness center that has problems with the incline function. It seems to be fine, at first. However, when I change the speed, the incline goes back down. Strange. What’s stranger is that this treadmill has been this way for weeks, and it’s never once been repaired.

I suspect the staff at my fitness center doesn’t follow the sage advice of Miss Manners, the syndicated columnist. She has a word of advice for people expecting house guests: sleep in their bed. Not with them, but sleep in the bed in your guest room to make sure the mattress is comfortable, the clock works, there are hangers in the closet, etc. Maybe you need to take this advice when it comes to your fitness center.

Fitness managers should actually use their fitness centers. Try out each cardio machine, use the weight machines and free weights, take group classes, try the menu items in your juice bar and use the locker room.

If you wait until your members tell you that something is dirty, broken or unsafe, you may have already lost them. It is frustrating for members to keep seeing the same problems over and over. And, if you think that your members will report every problem, think again. They may be in too much of a hurry to seek out a staff member, or they may just not want to look like a whiner.

You and your staff members should follow daily, weekly and monthly checklists that cover your entire facility. But, there are some things you may not notice unless you actually use your facility — like the treadmill at my fitness center.

There are countless other ways to offer great customer service to your members. Look for more ideas in Fitness Management’s Article Archive.

Good customer service means paying attention to every detail. You may actually be losing members to things you don't even think they notice.

Do you work out regularly at your fitness center? Do you have a story about something you found that was broken, unsafe, dirty, etc.? Share it!