HR Horror Stories: Does Every Gym Owner Have Staff Problems?

She's a two brain mentor, and she's the CEO and co-owner of Firepower Fitness and Wellness in Ontario, Canada. She's been in the game for just a minute, and she's dealt with some strange HR situations.

She's going to share some of those trials with you today to make you feel better about your own, and she's gonna give you some advice to help you manage your staff better and avoid the pitfalls that come with being a business owner. Andrea, welcome. How are you today?

Everyone out there is gonna feel a lot better by hearing some of the stuff that you've talked about, because when I asked about this in our Facebook group for mentors, you laid out a few things and a bunch of people's jaw dropped. So like , give us some situations. What have you dealt with

She was going through a transgender change and no problem with like, she was a fantastic coach. She was becoming a , a man and we were supportive of the journey. Everything was fantastic. We had all the accommodations needed, and as the process was going at the same time, the coach actually got herself wrapped up, unfortunately in a marriage of , um, some of our members.

And then drama started and, you know, we were trying to manage our way through this. At the same time, on the course of her transition journey, had really started to have some emotional ups and downs and, and challenges ultimately got herself into some drugs and into some situations that finally things had come to a head that we needed to let this person go.

Wow. The challenge being because of the sensitivity of, you know, the society situation and, you know, diversity, inclusion, equality, which we're totally on board with this person, had threatened us with a very public campaign that we were dismissive, that we didn't include, what was the word I'm looking for?

Um, that we were not open to her situation and that we were choosing to release her based on her gender choice super, not the case. Oh my gosh. We had to hire lawyers. We had to make sure before the firing took place, that we had everything documented properly, which is a natural process, but the cost of that, our , our lawyer was, gosh, it was $450 an hour.

Then you've got some drugs going on and you've got maybe some emotional problems. And so unrelated to anything else, you've got three difficult things and gym owners out there. I know if you're listing , you've dealt with all three of those things. Oh, oh yeah. And they're very complicated . They're very difficult.

The first thing that Andrea said, I'm just gonna point it out , uh, in some situations you are going to need a lawyer. I'll give a plug , uh, to jim lawyers.com . Matthew Becker is a great resource. He helps people out all the time.

But if you don't use Matthew, there are other ones out there as well who can help you make sure you get your ducks in a row when you're dealing with situations, because there are situations where you absolutely have to get rid of someone, but you gotta make sure you're on side of all the laws. And Andrea was the, was the money that , that you paid the lawyer worth it in the end?

We were really fortunate, and I'll talk a little bit further as we get into some of the details later, that our reputation as a business was able to shine through and we had documented proof should any sort of legal repercussion happen from her end. We were covered that side. So the legal side was covered, but then we really were worried about our reputation and our , our brand image in our town .

So that was a big piece for us as well.

So when someone's underperforming and doing damage inside your business, you kind of have to put that, you know, soft-hearted thing aside and say, here's the reality. Like, was that really emotionally hard for you?

That being able to decide where's that line, where's that line for me that we've hit the end? Uh, that was a challenge on that one.

So that wasn't , uh, effective us.

It's actually just pre it's preventing damage to your business, but it's not building it or doing the things that you really enjoy. It's certainly not serving clients. And again, there is overlap because removing a horrible thing does help clients in the end. But you get what I'm saying. What else have you got in the archives? Any other just interesting jaw droppers for us? ,

So we realize , oh , okay, we've gotta get through this event and then I've gotta call the police because we need to report this theft that happened overnight. We do, the event goes off like a hitch. Staff are fabulous while we're cleaning up. One of my coaches says, I thought we had more kettlebells than this.

So I called her up and I said, Hey, so and so , um, her father was actually in cancer treatment, so that's where she was like a town about two hours away said, your key fob was used overnight. Do you have your keys with you? She says, no, I've left them at my rental apartment on my tv. She goes, oh my gosh. She goes, I have a boyfriend and gosh, he must have got my keys. Lemme just, she called her landlord.

Nope . Keys were, were uh, gone. So she figures he's taking these keys. So anyway, she's horrified. She comes home , uh, the next day and, and we decide that it's probably this boyfriend that has come in the middle of the night taking the cash box and taking the equipment. Anyway, so she comes back from her thing and I'm sitting down on the couch with her and I'm like, oh , are you okay?

Like, this must be so stressful for you. Listen, you missed our staff party. Here's your Christmas bonus. And I gave her a card, can I help with anything? Are you got like , do you need anything right now? She goes, no, I'm good. But you know, thanks for helping here. And uh, this was a coach by the way, that we were elevating to become a manager, like one of our lead managers.

She was that good with people that good of on the floor and one of our competitive athletes too. So a couple days later she sends me texts, Hey, can we meet at 9:00 AM for coffee at this particular restaurant? I just wanna start building a plan of how to earn some more money. No problem. So we make the time, she know shows the meeting. And that's not like her, she's usually extremely responsible.

So she knows, shows me and I'm 'cause I had a lot of stuff on that day. I send her a text, I'm like, Hey man, I'm sitting at this restaurant waiting for you like a , are you okay? And b kind of a waste of my time here. So I head off to the gym and uh , my husband's there and a few of our coaches are working out. And I get a text message and it's from her and she says, help me. And I'm like, are you okay?

No, I need help. Okay. Do you need us ? Are you at home? Yes. And uh, anyways, I then grab a few of our coaches. One of our , uh, coaches was a Toronto staff sergeant. So we get my assistant, I bring the , the staff sergeant with me. He calls a few of his detectives from Toronto meets us up at her place in, in Mississauga, which is about halfway. Their detectives are sitting on the street.

And the police officer, myself coach and uh , my assistant, we go in her apartment and it was door was open , the light switches were not working. We go down the stairs and we find her bound and gagged with duct tape on her bed. And of course I panic, I'm crap in my pants. I have no idea what's happening.

We have to go call 9 1 1, you know, police, ambulance, even the media starts showing up because they were following the scanners. So they take her away to the hospital, they do all the tox screens, rape kits, all this stuff and nothing shows up. And as the now we have a second police department, and I should say this is probably only two weeks after the property crimes theft.

Now I have another towns police department. Uh , and that goes escalated from, you know, police to SBU major crimes. And ultimately it was found out that she staged a rape on herself and found and gagged herself with duct tape. Called us for help, traumatized us in the meantime. But she was trying to deter the fact that she was the one that had stolen all our cash box , our equipment.

So she was trying to throw the first police group off by setting this random stage for the second incident. And it just, I mean, it's deeper than that Mike . It goes on and on and on. But this was someone that I was like, I love you. Let me, I'm hugging her. Well she's got duct tape on her telling her how much I love you. Like, we're here to help you. And it was all fake.

We didn't realize that she had been going down this rabbit hole of mental decline. We didn't see it's

But everybody was in the note . Everybody was on , um, watch worried if she was gonna come in and try to make any problems, any scenes try to have, you know, any apologies. So it never happened. She just, she ended up going away. So luckily it didn't require a firing, but yeah.

But there was one period where protein supplements were regularly missing and regularly and like to the point where it was beyond even my own incompetence with retailing. Someone was taking stuff and we never figured out who it was. But when we put a locked display case with a key, it stopped.

Oh , so that's a way hundred percent . You had key fobs, which is the same thing. But if you do something that's trackable, then you can start to put things together. And I know that some gyms have security cameras and so forth. Make sure you cover all legal guidelines on where you're doing with surveillance and things like that. Make sure you stay side of everything.

But you are definitely going to be able to figure out who was in your business. If it's just like a metal key. Yeah. You can't really tell. And we all know that metal keys end up, there's 50 of them out there. Right? They're all over the , the place. No one knows what's going on. But if you have an alarm code individualized to the person, and I remember doing that.

I was putting those codes in place and someone was , why are you doing this? And I was like, huh. That's an interesting question. And I know Chris Cooper had one where someone asked him, does , uh, does Chris or ask another staff member, like, does Chris review the , uh, security camera footage regularly? And the person was like, oh yeah. And the person quit the next day. The person who asked the question quit .

And Chris said the joke I think was that Chris didn't, they weren't even on or something like that. But the person was like, some had done something in the building that she assumed had been recorded and didn't wanna deal with the , the fallout of it. It was something I, I don't have the details exactly right, but Yep . ,

But at the time, that was our policy. All coaches knew it, everything was done.

'cause the two clients that are in the class, I worked out with them this morning, so they weren't here. And then we start saying, okay, well somebody put some people in the class and , and did the thing. We knew who it was, it was the coach. And we approached him and said, Hey , uh, looks like this took place and that that's , uh, fraud.

And he said, whatcha talking about, oh yeah, it's falsification of information for financial gain. My sister's a police officer and one of my best resources,

I hope you don't have to fire her. So we let him sit on it and about three or four days later, I sat him in my office and I said, you know what, we've done some more investigating. And I had a little USB key thing, little USB uh, thing. And I said, I've got it on camera. Who did it? You wanna see this? And they slid it across the desk and he burst into tears because he knew he was found out.

Now here's where things got crazy. We said to him, yes, this is fraud. There is no statute of limitations on pressing charges for fraud. Um, and he was horrified, cried. And we had this conversation and he's like, I just needed the money so badly. And I'm like, why wouldn't you come to me? You trust us. You know us.

Um, and we had this discussion where it got challenging is the business, Mike, is that this gentleman was a key member of our CrossFit competition team. And if we fired him right away, the entire team loses their opportunity. It was our first chance at an international competition that we had qualified for.

So our little team in Ontario, homegrown competition team, our first international competition was coming up in the next three or four months. And then we said, what do we do? So we knew we had to let him go. At the same time he offered, I want to make this right, I will work for free for the next three weeks. And we let him, we let him, we had to, we didn't have to, we chose to, I clarify that.

We chose to, I trusted him to deliver the service on the floor. We knew he was feeling just awful about his situation and what he had done. A few months had gone by, the team was able to compete and our intention was to let him go that Monday afterwards. I'm, I knew he knew. So the week before the competition he said, I just gotta let you know I found another job. And we're like, that sounds pretty good, .

So we didn't have to execute the firing. We should have , but our emotions were tied to the team that had worked for years to get to that stage. And I just felt so unfair to them because they all would've been able to, or all would've lost their opportunity.

We can't control the stupidity that people get themselves into. We've had to finally understand that other people's lives impact our ability to run our gym , our business that doesn't, it's not exclusive to the gym business. It's not exclusive to, you know , a corporate. It's not exclusive to, you know, an environment at a , you know, police fire. It doesn't matter.

People will do what they're gonna do no matter what, no matter what in what industry they're in. There's fraud and theft in every business. There's affairs and you know, people stepping outside their marriages and coworkers having affairs or clients and staff having affairs. It happens how we deal with it and how where your line is that you'll choose to stand up for, that's what we have to choose.

But it is just part of the game and with experience comes, this will pass.

Internal stuff, HR departments, the whole thing. All of it's built to protect the businesses. As a gym owner, it's really great. These stories are horrible for living with one right now my heart goes out to you because I know the struggles. Andrea feels the exact same way. So like take some consolation that , but try not to take it personally.

Obviously in all the three examples that Andrea has put out, you see people who have like some personal issues going on, deep personal issues that are being, that are affecting the business. But it wasn't like they decided to attack you. And I know there are some people out there that have done that, but for the most part it's probably best if you sit there and say this is just a thing that happens to business owners.

Many of them I'm just gonna deal with it and move forward. Do you agree with that Andrea?

So like what, what else have you learned here and what can you advise people to, to kind of get through these experiences with, you know, as little dirt on them as possible?

I'm not gossiping and there's a difference in my opinion between I wanna gossip about it or I gotta get this off my chest and I needs some insight how to deal with it. So we have a network of trusted advisors. I talked about my sister who's um , a superintendent police officer.

She is such a great resource for me because sometimes they are criminal cases and sometimes there's potential for a civil case or human rights issue that might come back on us. So I always get clarity, is this criminal, is it civil or is it a human rights case? So she's such a great resource. Secondly is , um, our legal team.

I have lots, I they're on speed down because if you run a business, you better have a good lawyer . Matt Becker's fantastic one . We relied on his , uh, advice and and his counsel for a number of things.

Uh, so having a great legal team but also having experienced mentors or people that you look to that are in business, similar situations that may have gone through some of this before, but you trust their privacy because we gotta keep this private. You have to learn how to manage the backlash. You have to learn how to, what can you share with staff? What can our staff learn from this and what do members need to know?

And in , in cases of staffing that is a person's private, you know, HR information. So we have to be very strategic on what information is positioned to your membership, why person's no longer there. And especially when members know our communities are tight in the micro gym . So everybody knows everything.

But how we communicate it and how my staff will message and how they communicate it, I have to make sure that we're all connected.

Especially in a tight business like a micro gym or a coaching business, if you tell a staff member, it tells another staff member. And how many times have you out there, our listeners been in a conversation where someone says, ah , between you and me, I shouldn't say this but . And they tell you some stuff and you're like, yeah , whoa , if you told me this, how many other people?

And all of a sudden you know that the secrets are in the world. I really like to compartmentalize parts of my business and my life. And a really good way to do that is to talk to say a two brain mentor.

So when we've had problems we call our mentor because our mentor doesn't live in the same city, is not connected to any of the people that are involved, is not emotionally attached to anybody and is obviously sworn to secrecy because you have this very privileged relationship and a , a high degree of trust.

And we, we talked to Chris Cooper personally actually about this one time back when Cooper's still doing mentorship calls , uh, but a staffing issue. And he gave us some great advice that was not tied to motion. 'cause I was very emotional. It was tied to like data and details. Chris was never gonna say get back to that person or start talking to my mentors. And it's a great way to compartmentalize your life.

You can have those same relationships obviously with lawyers and other professionals. And again, as a small gym owner with wearing all the hats, you might be like, do I really need a lawyer? At some point you are going to need a lawyer and it can save you a ton of money. So don't hesitate to do that again.

I'm gonna plug jim lawyers.com there again because Matthew Becker does do consultations there and can help you out with stuff and tell you this is what it will cost and this is what it will save you. So do look at some stuff like that and it's really important that you do those things. What changes have you made as a result of all the things you've gone through?

And I get there's probably a laundry list 'cause you've been in business 20 years, but what are some of the big HR kind of things that you do now to try and prevent as many of these situations as possible even though some aren't preventable? Hmm ,

I throw everything in there just so you can prove that this is, you know, get it outta your head, get it onto paper , um, what you did, what was the response, who was involved? And document everything. As soon as you feel things might be going off the rails, good, bad or indifferent, get it down

Everybody had a key fob and they had access whenever they wanted. I wanted my staff come in whenever you want and then we kind of went, no one's allowed in here after 10 30 at night and you won't get in. You cannot access the gym before 4:45 AM

So I never wanna force and say you did this, you are fired. I can simply now say you no longer meet the code of conduct we've set for our operations. It's time for you to go. And that has had to happen unfortunately for both the member side and staff side. But that is an easy way that we can lean into in my code of conduct.

I have a , a line in there called moral turpitude, but we've also added a piece that says if you negatively affect the mental health of the members in the community around you, that's grounds for being removed from the community. And of course any of these situations that we described earlier negatively affect the mental health of the community. So that is a big, big, big piece.

There have been many questions over the years. Can you stop people from having an affair? Can you tell staff not to have a relationship with a member? We can't, I can't legally tell you to. And we in our case, and many others have as well, have had so many relationships grow, flourish, you know, come into amazing families, have kids, all the things because they started a relationship at the gym, which I'm proud of.

But when it starts to negative , negatively affect the mental health of the people around, then we get a problem. And that's why I can lean into the code of conduct with no pointing fingers. You know, you slept with so-and-so you did this, you did that, sorry, you no longer meet the code of conduct that we have set for our business

And it's a little easier than saying , uh, you know, according to some vague standards that I've never communicated in my head, you kind of crossed a gray line that we're not sure about and you gotta go and then it's a fight. Whereas if you can hold up the sign at least it's like, it's a pretty good asset at that point. So I'm sure you've had to do this with clients, you've used that with clients. No doubt

I don't have to get into the details, you know, they no longer met the , the code of conduct that we hold our community standards to .

Gossiping is then like trying to win, trying to sle , you know, let's throw some slime on someone on the way out or whatever. It's not good and it doesn't make you look good.

And then of course if you start doing it, they start doing it, then you see these horrid Facebook threads with just, I've seen them gym owners fighting with departed staff members and negative Google reviews and all these attacks, litigation and slander and libel and the whole thing. It's awful. You know? So code of conduct is a really good one. Keeping your trap shut is another really good one.

Limiting as much information as you can hold yourself to a high professional standard . That code of conduct applies to you listeners as much as it does to your staff members and your clients. Is it good policy as a business owner to, to share private details about people as they as you fire them? It's not, don't do that.

Typically it's a member that everybody else gets upset about. And at that point I can say, I need you to trust me. This was the right thing for us. I don't have to answer anymore. I didn't have to give the details because we've worked very hard at building that reputation and that does not come overnight.

Do you remember in Covid when people were starting to lose memberships and everybody was so hopeful that their members would keep paying and support them? And I said, nothing you are doing at this point will save a membership. It's everything you've done in the five years leading up to, you know, March 17th, when the world shut down here, that will save your business.

And so you really gotta think about that when you say things to other people about the , those other people you are telling them that you will gossip about them when they're not present. The best thing you can do is keep your mouth shut. Or even go so far as to defend people when they're not around and say, Hey, we don't do that here. That's a high standard a hundred percent .

Another thing that Chris Cooper taught me , uh, your staff are not your friends. And that's an interesting one because as you grow up, as a, as a brand new gym owner, a founder, you might build up this thing where, oh, you're a great athlete and friend and buddy becomes your coach and blah blah blah .

And all of a sudden you've got these awful situations where you need to change things for the good of the business, but you're now trying to deal with your best buddy. That's really, really hard. So as you professionalize your business standards, practices, SOPs, codes of conduct procedures, everything that goes along with being professional in your business, and that means that your staff are not your friends anymore.

My wife and I had to deal with this where we had our staff were very much our friends. We had them over for family gatherings and dinners and holiday stuff. And those were wonderful, but it made it very difficult to make changes over the course of the whole thing.

So after a while we started to pull back from that a little bit and I still feel sort of regretful about that because I really liked the early days in those relationships. But the fact of the matter is, is our business has evolved and we no longer wanted to be friends because that made the business so difficult. Have you, did you have something like that happen over your 20 year career?

So they are friends, they're staff, but then I have to very clearly say, okay, who am I calling when my car breaks down at three o'clock in the morning and I'm on the side of the road? That's a friend. You know, I don't, I don't call every one of my staff members, even though, gosh, if I needed to, they would be there as I would for them.

But you have a few of those wake up calls where you're like, ah , thought we were friends. But

Uh, the thing that I would do, the simple solution for me would be regular staff evaluations on a schedule. Make sure that it's, it's understood that you are going to come in every, you know, three to six months or whatever on a schedule. We're gonna do staff valuations at those staff valuations . No matter who you are, I'm gonna give you something to work on and improve.

It doesn't matter if you're an a plus , I'm gonna make you even better. We're gonna go a little bit further so that no one says, oh, you're picking on me, or whatever. You just giving them something to improve every single time. 'cause everyone can have an area of focus to improve on. So that's a really great way to keep your staff in line, keep the doors of communication open.

And uh, truant has tons and tons of resources for staff development that we help clients do exactly this with career roadmaps and evaluations. Andrew , as we close this out, I'm gonna ask you for this one 'cause you are a mentor, you do deal with gym owners all the time.

Let's say that someone's listening, what is a step, an easy first step that they can do right now wherever they're at in their entrepreneurial journey to start getting a little bit better at making at , at staffing and HR issues? What can they do today to just move a little bit in the right direction and maybe prevent some of these problems down the road?

Just being confident to let your staff know this is a new way we're doing. Maybe you lean into your mentor. I often tell my clients, blame me. I'm helping you professionalize the back end of your business and this is helpful for them. So when you put these structures in place, you don't have to let staff think that they've done something wrong and that's why you're doing staff agreements and, and evaluations and such.

This is a good way, this is how we professionalize our business. I wanna make you guys the best you can. And that is a simple way that , uh, be comfortable with professionalizing the backend. Even if it is a small business, you've only got one or two staff, you're setting the stage now for growth.

How many times, and I've done this 17 times myself. Have you had a person who's trading a membership for cleaning? Just go away for the weekend and not do the cleaning, but still get the membership? It happens all the time. That's the simplest example I can give you.

You can prevent a ton of this stuff if you just lay out the details, talk to a lawyer if you need to, but get all the details of standards of employment in place. If you start doing that, even in one small situation like your cleaner right now, you're going to be in the right step . So Andrew, thank you for giving someone's people actionable stuff they can do today.

And thanks for sharing some of those details, which I'm sure probably hurt your heart a little bit just now.

I'd love to have you in that group. It's Gym Owners United on Facebook, or go to gym owners united.com to join. Do it today.