$2.2M |
200% |
12% |
60% |
|
Saved in year-over-year |
Boosted PI Perform adoption rates |
Increased EBITDA |
Reduced internal email volume |
It’s not often you find an organization that is simultaneously expanding its footprint, led by self-aware individuals, and attuned to the needs — both operational and behavioral — of its people.
But something special has been brewing in British Columbia, where Club16 Trevor Linden Fitness featuring She’s FIT! is achieving the simple (if lofty) mission of creating “an inspiring and motivating environment that enables [their] members to succeed and feel like they belong.”
They’re doing it with an informed Talent Optimization strategy, which has enabled the organization to fix mis-hires, boost engagement, and cultivate top-down transparency and alignment. Since implementing PI, the company has:
PI Perform particularly has become a crucial tool in supporting the broader Talent Optimization strategy. It is a staple in daily meetings and goal-setting conversations, setting the tone for the company’s broader efforts at enhancing visibility, developing new leaders, and stemming attrition.
Perform is helping the whole Club 16 team — from the front desk receptionists to the front office — communicate more thoughtfully, run better meetings, and gain insight into the goals driving their daily efforts through clearer documentation.
They’ve landed with PI Perform and hit the ground running.
CEO Chuck Lawson and his partner, Trevor Linden, the former Vancouver Canucks star and NHLPA president, started Club16 Trevor Linden Fitness featuring She’s FIT! with the goal of providing accessible, community-oriented gyms across the region.
By all accounts, Club16 had a loving foundation. Leadership was aligned on its ultimate mission and vision, which centers around inclusion and community.
“Everyone is welcome at Club16 and She’s FIT!,” says Trevor. “No matter where you are in your fitness journey, we are here to support you in creating your healthiest, happiest self.”
But a few years in, they were wrestling with significant staff attrition and disengagement — common challenges for any business with ambitions of rapid expansion — that needed to be addressed for the company to reach its true potential.
As Trevor puts it, “Our people were good. We were just not going about our business as efficiently as we could. And we weren't maximizing people's skills.”
They needed an outside perspective to shed light on areas of misalignment and guide the team through tough conversations. Enter Talent Optimization consultant Tom Johnston of Talent Optimizer Group. Tom helps organizations within the Health, Active Lifestyle, and Outdoors (HALO) sector hire, retain, and engage the right employees so that they can better serve members and customers. Tom and Chuck met at a Fitness Industry CEO Summit, and they soon realized they had an amazing opportunity to work together
One of the first exercises Tom undertook with the Club16 team was an employee experience survey — a deep dive into the company’s inner workings, where staff sentiment and grievances were laid bare. They absorbed feedback on what they were doing well, and where they could improve.
Before launching the employee experience survey, Tom got buy-in from the top. Chuck and Trevor were committed, and recognizing their willingness to take critical feedback and use it to get better, the rest of the executive team was onboard.
It’s a commitment that’s since been reflected down the line, from the rate of hiring success to software adoption to the culture of feedback — powered by Perform Kudos — it’s fostered.
Club16 also restructured its entire organization and redefined key roles, giving HR a seat at the decision-making table, and used PI — first through the employee experience surveys, continuing through everyday use of Perform — to enhance transparency and accountability organization-wide.
The discovery process led to difficult conversations, but also essential realizations: Even the most well-intentioned, common-fated teams are prone to falling into silos.
Radha Johal, Club16’s Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, acknowledged that their processes had room for improvement: “As a team, even though we were doing the tasks and the work, I would say we weren't really collaborating together.”
Clear themes emerged from the employee experience survey: People didn’t always feel connected to the mission. They didn’t understand the details driving certain decisions and the accompanying goals.
“We had a map, but we didn't plant a flag on a destination,” explains Mark Ledesma, Director of Human Resources. “And so people didn't really know where they stood compared to what our destination was, because we didn't say, ‘Here's what it is.”
Club16 needed to make structural and functional changes, and Tom introduced PI Perform as the tool that could drive those changes day-to-day. Perform could embed the details this group needed into their daily workflows, but only if they committed to its adoption. They needed an internal Perform champion.
Managing Partner Carl Ulmer proved pivotal in this capacity. By his own admission, Carl felt uncertain of his role prior to using PI, and needed the structure and transparency that Perform enables.
“Perform has really almost forced our hand to use PI and the behavioral assessments,” Carl says. “Because when you're in a meeting with somebody, you have their assessment in front of you, their cautionary areas, and so on. And that's been such a valuable tool.”
Because of Perform, Carl can manage each person effectively and efficiently. Before he sometimes felt overwhelmed, like he had too many direct reports. Perform is very tactical, but it can also be very strategic. Case in point: Perform firmly supports Club16’s restructure.
He was skeptical at first, having seen other collaboration solutions fall flat, but he dug in.
“[PI Consultant] Harry Davis worked with me and got me real confident in Perform, and then boom — I just started using it. And as I was using it, I saw all the value that it was bringing me individually. For example, I saw the amount of emails that I had to send out and in and out and in start to minimize.”
And to hear Chuck tell it, that commitment to Perform has accelerated Carl’s growth as a leader:
“He really is championing Perform. He tells anyone he manages that this is how we communicate, and he uses Perform to manage things. There is always a place to go to see what’s going well. He’s actually more connected to the goals himself.”
Using Perform’s agenda- and goal-setting features, Carl began holding himself and others more accountable, not only to the work, but to the communication style he needed to adopt based on who he was working with. With his coworkers’ behavioral data right there in the 1:1 meeting workspace, Carl has the tools he needs, in the moment it is needed, to understand a colleague’s behavioral tendencies. And he had the structure he needed to document, track, and update everyone in real time.
The results don’t lie: $2M+ in savings a 12% increase in earnings, plus climbing Perform adoption rates, and less email.
Carl notes that while PI’s impact may start with (and be headlined by) hiring improvements, the payoff shows up all over. They communicate and collaborate better now, organization-wide. Carl can point to his direct reports and see the fruits of their labor every single day:
- Turnover costs are down more than $2.2 million year-over year.
- The organization hasn’t lost anyone during the restructuring process.
- Perform adoption rates have risen by 200% on certain teams since implementation.
- Internal email exchanges have been reduced by as much as 60%.
- And bottom-line earnings (EBITDA) are up by 12% YOY (year-over-year).
“They’ve gone through the experience with me where I've said, ‘You know, if it's not challenging, it's not worth doing. And you're going to save time once you're operationalizing it.’”
He says his own reports are now having similar conversations with their General Managers and Fitness Managers — the people responsible for day-to-day club operations and customer service.
“And they share that same story, from their perspective. I went through the same thing. But now what I'm seeing is I'm getting 60% less emails.
So imagine if you could press a button, or if you could work [in Perform] for two weeks and have 60% less emails, never drop the ball on something… would you not work those two weeks just to create that habit?”
In the process, the company leapt a hurdle that trips up so many other organizations: It found its tone-setter. In Carl, through PI Perform, Club16 Trevor Linden Fitness featuring She’s FIT! has found a tool that helps them practice their organizational values every day, at scale.
“I don’t think we’d be in as good a spot as we are [without PI],” Chuck says plainly.
Trevor, his partner, doubles down: “Club16 is becoming a brand that people absolutely want to work for in a very competitive market.”
Tom puts it plainly: “PI is helping to put money on [the] balance sheet.”
The revenue opportunities are there now, but it required some introspection and self-assessment for Club16 to get themselves in a position of opportunity. They had the love, but needed to communicate it in a manner that engendered trust.
Transparency breeds trust, and trust breeds a flourishing fitness community — the ultimate goal for Trevor and Chuck, and their entire team.
Source: The Predictive Index
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