Millennials in the workplace – How to KEEP your millennial employees happy in your fitness business
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Hey, so I want to share with you a different perspective on managing millennials and younger generations, that has really helped me save a lot of talented coaches on my team, and really create a good working relationship. When it comes to managing people that are younger than you, and you’re the business owner, there’s a couple things to understand. The first thing is empathy getting in their shoes, where are they coming from, and something that is really profound about a first job experience, because a lot of times, that’s what you get, you get somebody out of high school or college that really wants to make a name for themselves and fitness, they will, they’re willing to attach themselves to your brand. But there, they haven’t worked out the kinks, they may have never had a performance review before, they may not know certain decorum expectations that you have as a professional. And so one of the first things I always advise people who are owners working with a younger kind of first job coach is to give a lot of elbow room and not assume that they come to the table knowing exactly what you want. So I’m gonna give some examples here, because we’ve probably hired, I don’t know, 5060 different coaches over the last 10 years and enjoyed a lot of them. But I’ve had some friction at times in the working relationship. And it’s for things like those booty shorts, not on the floor. Why? Because we’re going to ask you to move and groove in specific ways. And I do not want you having to do some kind of a hanging knees to elbow opening and closing your legs in super short shorts. That’s an okay conversation to have really good if you can put that in an employee handbook do not make the mistake of believing people will actually read that I think our employee handbook is 26 pages, a bit of overkill. So highlighting in a initial conversation like this is their expectations. And the heart behind it. I think that’s the most important thing as a manager is always explaining why. How many of us were told by our parents? Because I said so. Was that super effective for you? Did you go cheese thanks mom and dad instant light bulb moment. Now I’m bought in. Of course you didn’t. In fact, it almost created this little seed of resentment. Because like really, your was insulting my intelligence, because you’re not really telling me the reason why that exact scenario has to be solved. When you hit adult to adult, it’s time to have a conversation. And looking at it as this is my perspective. I am here to help you succeed, period. Therefore, my feedback is not a slap on the wrist. It’s how to help you rock in your role. It’s not to make you feel demoralized, ashamed and bad and guilty. When you go home. It’s to make you go Oh, got it. Now I have more understanding more context. And I understand why. So with that young girl, let’s just say he’s wearing those booty shorts. And damn, she looks good. But she’s up there doing these hanging nice elbows, I have to tell her Hey, picture the audience in front of you picture the clients that are watching you. And picture how uncomfortable you would feel if you realize mid move that you’re going to demonstrate this. But your underwears creeping up or, or something’s going on that makes you self conscious. Now you don’t know how to demonstrate and position your body in a way that doesn’t feel violating and you’re in a tough spot because you’re on the floor. And you can even say it like that. And so there’s a lot that I think when we work with younger people, we don’t want to assume we definitely want to explain why. And we want to be more than anything of their cheerleader. Here’s the best part. If you’re in fitness, you know what it is to be a coach. A coach is not a cheerleader. A coach doesn’t just say go for it. You’re amazing. It says you’re gonna be so amazing. But hey, you can be better I see it, I see your potential, I see what you’re made of. And I see how you can improve. I want to just make this slight adjustment and bam, there it is, and you’re crushing it. That is exactly how you speak as a manager to somebody younger coming in, they’re eager to please they want to work for you and with you in a really meaningful and cool way. And they need to be proud of that combination of you’re gonna give me a slight adjustment so that I can get to that level of success, you know is possible for me. They are not there to prove it to you. They are not walking in the door with an insane rap sheet of all of their amazing skills. Most of the time and fitness. You’re gifted with a fairly clean slate and see it that way. Because if you realize you’ve got somebody that’s got good energy, they’re walking in there wanting to help you and they’re coming in I’m wanting to start and I don’t care if they’re 60 years old, and they’re making a career change most of the time when they want to be a trainer in your gym, it’s either because it’s a part time thing that they’re excited about, or they’re reinventing themselves in some way. So it’s not about so much being young or ageism, it has a lot more to do with experience than whether you’re green in the job. At any point, what I can say is leading with heart, you can’t go wrong. And a lot of times, as managers, I think we can resent the relationship because we feel like we’re parenting people, or we feel like we’re, they should know things. And I think the sooner we can let go of those expectations. And the sooner we literally say, as I am with intention with my athletes and be as intentional with my coaches, and I am their coach, I am their career coach, I am here to make them successful, and to get them the results that they want. And if you don’t know what their objectives are, you don’t know what they want. That’s an amazing conversation to have. And there’s no answer that you should be intimidated or worried about having, they might say, I just want to be here for two years. Fine. That doesn’t mean you pull them off the schedule to mean you get vindictive, it doesn’t mean that you stop educating them proactively. That means you’re gonna get the best out of them in two years, and they’re gonna walk away saying that was the best job I ever had. Because they invested in me, they cared about me. And I could be honest and open about what my objectives were, and they didn’t hold that against me. That’s the kind of manager you want to be. And if you can be that you have the magnetism, and you have the draw to you, that is so rare, but it begs loyalty at Janaza, we have an average turnover of like, four years, I want to say by now, our industry is six months, there is a very intentional difference between that the amount of time it’s going to take you to get somebody excited about your brand, treating your customers right and like actually have skills on the floor, you better be a good enough boss and manager to want have the want to be with you for more than six months. Because it takes about six months to get them to that point where you’re really excited about them. And they’re a huge asset in your business. And if you’ve invested that far, it is definitely worth doing the groundwork to keep them there longer, your clients will be happier for it, and you’ll be happier for it. That’s what I can say. If you’re a fitness business owner, you like this kind of content, you’re trying to figure out your business and you want tips and actionable tricks to be able to navigate and steer your ship into a profitable and really rewarding path. I want to invite you to like and subscribe now. We’re going to put out more and more content to help you get these little nuggets of how you can crush it and operate your business and make it something you’re really proud of. Go ahead and leave a comment if there’s a topic you really want us to cover and we’ll go ahead and put it in the queue for upcoming videos for you.
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