I was very interested to read the recent feature on activity tracking (see HCM Aug 14, p40).

With wearable technology now coming in a number of forms – wristbands, watches, vests, even temporary tattoos – only a few will make it through Gartner’s Trough of Disillusionment. These will be the ones that are not intrusive or cumbersome when training, that are easy to use and that genuinely help gym members get fitter, stronger, faster, lose weight. Real value derived will ensure adoption occurs.

It would be perfectly feasible for a gym member to track their exercises, duration, speed, calories, heartbeat, blood pressure and so on and have all the information automatically uploaded, via an app, to their club ‘exercise dashboard’. Clubs would learn much more about why their members go to the gym (fitness, strength, endurance, weight loss and so on) and the activities they undertake – who uses what equipment and fitness zone, when, how often and for how long – enabling them to build up a much more informed and valuable audience segmentation model.

Using this technology to better serve members would go a long way to helping them get more out of their sessions and to helping clubs better understand members’ needs.

Fortune most probably favours the brave. The chain to adopt the right technology, offering enhanced and genuine member value, will improve member retention and acquisition.

I read the recent feature on employee management with interest (see HCM July 14, p52). Our training philosophy can be summed up in one sentence: “Unleash the core genius.” We recognise that members of our team will always have at least one part of their work they’re truly passionate about, whether that’s getting member results, exceptional customer service or great marketing. We identify that passion and nurture it to create a win-win situation, giving them greater job satisfaction and enabling them to become masters of their own destiny within our business. The result is a business culture fuelled with entrepreneurialism and motivation.

Not every new recruit will walk in as the finished article, but everyone has ambition, so our internal training is designed to expand the skillset of a team member’s specialist area and their commercialism towards the task in hand, taking training concepts from outside the fitness industry and applying them to suit: reception training from a hospitality point of view, sales training from the direct sales companies, management training from self-made entrepreneurs.

“When you hand good people possibility, they do great things.”