6 Staff Management Tips for Your Sports Facility

As the owner of a sports facility that provides classes, training programs, camps, or lessons, you likely manage a staff that helps train clients and athletes, walking them through critical exercises every day.

You love working with these athletes – after all that’s probably a key factor in why you got started – but what about managing a staff of trainers and instructors?

Unfortunately, it isn’t always as easy as coaching, and it might not be something you’ve done before. These six staff management tips, however, will make it easier to ensure that your employees are taking care of daily responsibilities and working to motivate your athletes.

6 Tips to Manage Your Staff

1. Unite Your Staff

A guiding mission statement is a great way to unify your staff and ensure that you’re all working toward the same goal. Make sure that employees clearly understand the mission of your business. Are you helping young athletes move closer to a professional level? Is your mission to help your clients to achieve their personal goals? When your mission is clear, your employees will feel motivated toward a bigger purpose, and better communicate that with your clients.

Orangetheory’s staff mission states “Orangetheory is committed to encouraging, facilitating and upholding an environment centered on diversity, equity and inclusion across every facet of the Orangetheory brand. We will work to create a sustainable culture that supports a healthy space for learning and growing, valuing and empowering every employee, inspiring a diverse franchise network, and uplifting the members and communities we serve.”

This is a vision statement that all employees can rally around. It unifies the purpose of the business with the intentions of the company culture.

Download our Brand Strategy Guide to help craft your unified message! 

2. Share and Maintain Accurate Staff Schedules

Successful staff management ultimately stems from successful staff empowerment.

Are you empowering your trainers and front desk associates to give their all, every day? A great way to start empowering them is by arming them with the tools they need to do their best.

Software that allows them to manage their schedules, set their own preferences, and track commissions is a critical tool for your business.

Platforms like Upper Hand make empowering your staff easy, and have other benefits as well.

Within Upper Hand, a customizable calendar overlays staff and resource availability so your trainers and coaches are never double-booked and schedules are always accurate.

3. Communicate Clearly

Another critical staff management tip is to have clear and open communication channels.

Communication is key to both preventing problems and handling them when they arise. Create open avenues of communication within your sports facility, from letting instructors know how to contact you if you aren’t available on the premises to holding regular team meetings where you talk out successes and challenges together.

A few ways to build strong communication within your team:

• Have an open-door policy that makes it easy for staff to come to you with problems or ideas. This will help build trust.
• Be open to reciprocal feedback, and understand that constructive criticism goes both ways. Showing that you’re willing to accept feedback is part of being a successful manager.
• Try out several methods of communication to understand what your team resonates with best. Do face to face meetings have more of an impact than an email? Is a quick video call more practical?

The more you communicate with your staff, the better you will understand what is going on at your sports facility every day–and the better you will be able to head off potential problems.

4. Build Relationships

Building relationships with the instructors will help all of you work more effectively to help athletes meet their goals. You’ll understand the occasional fumble or mistake, learn more about each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and prevent conflicts as a result of personal relationships between the members of the team.

Team-building exercises can go a long way when it comes to building relationships. They allow staff to interact on a personal level while having fun in an informal setting.

Hosting a team-building session at your facility could be a great idea for your staff. For example, if you manage a crossfit gym, consider taking an afternoon to put your staff through a partner crossfit workout challenge!

Check out our Event Planning Checklist!

5. Lead by Example

What are the core values you want your training staff to embody? Start by embodying those yourself. As an owner, the most effective way to lead your team is by example. Show them how you want them to interact with clients who come to your facility. Demonstrate effective training protocols or how to handle difficult trainees. When you lead by example, you give your employees a confident presence to focus on and follow, as well as further building their trust in you.

Additionally, make sure you’re taking ownership for your decisions, including your mistakes or errors. Showing your team that you’re willing to learn can be big for building trust.

6. Offer Training

As you bring in employees, remember that training methods are always evolving and you need to help your team of instructors adapt. Offer training demos and classes for your staff! Providing them with group instruction will help build your team dynamic, while also keeping everyone up to speed with latest techniques. The more you educate and train your employees, the more effective they will become. Not only that, you’ll build a workplace environment where employees really want to work.

As you get to know your training staff, you’ll discover more about their unique needs and preferences in the workplace. Over time, you’ll build an effective team that’s eager to come together and develop better trainees meet their goals. In the process, you’ll meet your own business goals, help your staff meet their training goals, and discover a better workplace for everyone involved.

Get a demo of Upper Hand today, and see how our platform can give your team the competitive advantage.