Developing An Organizational Development Plan For Lonsdale Fitness

Lonsdale Fitness went through a rapid expansion and all franchises were left to function as independent units.  Lonsdale Fitness wants to increase client satisfaction and has now decided to standardise the way in which the franchises operate.  Complaints received from clients have initiated this change.

This is what is intended – same systems developed and used in head office, same customer service techniques, same fitness classes and changed monthly

The CEO and Board are very keen but are also expecting resistance from some personal trainers who believe they create better routines than head office.  No one is aware of the impending changes.

You are being given the responsibility of developing a detailed organisational development plan  which will clearly address what is needed to be developed, how and why the development will occur

Identify and list the key elements in each quadrant. Get these down on paper as the first step.

This is where you discuss the reasons, advantages and disadvantages of the current situation:

• Discuss the factors that have shown that the change is needed.
• Discuss the advantages of this organizational development and the need for clear planning
• Discuss briefly how resistance and reluctance to change will be managed.

The SWOT analysis consists of four main areas including strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. SWOT analysis of Lonsdale Fitness has been taken into consideration here.

The biggest strength of Lonsdale Fitness is that this is a very fast growing company in the country. The company is giving many additional facilities to its customers like free parking, free Wi-Fi facilities and the fitness centre remains open for 24/7 access (Dao and Vu 2016). The dance and yoga classes are bringing in more women customers in the gym. The location of the center is in itself its biggest strength. The cost of doing exercise is also very less and affordable (Muennig and Bounthavong 2016).

Since the gym is very popular, it remains overcrowded all the time. New people hardly get the opportunity to do their exercise under a trainer as they are engaged. The staffs are very rude to the customers. This has created resentment among the customers. The fitness center is not properly maintained for a long period (Fritz et al. 2014). The washrooms are not very clean. The music which runs in the center is not properly selected.

There are many opportunities for the fitness center. The center is located in the area where there are a number of hotels, business parks and supermarkets as well. The gym goers do not like to drive for more than 10 miles for exercise (Chan 2014). This is an opportunity for them to attract more customers in the fitness center. The fitness center can make proper utilization of other promotional tools like banners, advertisements in the newspapers and in radio.  

Many renowned fitness institutes in the industry are able to generate more revenues (Kim and Mauborgne 2014). They are having up-to-date equipments. Lonsdale fitness has the greatest disadvantage of having very less franchises all over the country. The competitors of Lonsdale sell various nutritional products and various items of retail sports from their centers for generation of more revenue. Lonsdale is not so much ahead of them. Another threat comes from unfavorable government policies, downturn in the economy that can have adverse effects on the spending of the consumers. New competitors are emerging around the same location where the center of Lonsdale is situated.

The change has become inevitable due to various reasons. The behaviors of the staff were not good. Complaints were coming from them on a regular basis. On the other hand, Lonsdale fitness did not have many franchises in the country. They were needed to expand their business and also revenue. Lonsdale wanted to enhance brand loyalty and attract more customers. So, they have opted to bring in these changes in the organization.   

This organizational development will help the company in business expansion and increase the brand awareness. This would lead to generation of more revenue. The centralized decision-making will help to operate the centers in different locations effectively (Hrebiniak 2013). There will be uniformity in all the branches. The vision of the company remains focused. There is a chance of faster execution of all activities. Conflicts among the heads of different franchises may be drastically reduced through the centralization process. The top management, taking the initiatives and implementing the critical decisions, tends to reduce the burden of others (Wu, Ellram and Schuchard 2014).

Strengths

Some people will never respond to change management, to be implemented in any organization. In this scenario, some trainers from some franchises might have the chance to resist these changes. The management should look into the root cause of the resistance. The trainers feel that they create better routines than the people at the head-office do. The management should discuss with them and try to mitigate the issue. They should be made to realize the importance of change management. The trainers must take into account one fact that work will be much smoother because of centralized decisions and there will be no conflict.  

Stakeholder Management

The government officials need to be trained properly to let them know about the policies and procedures of opening a gym or a fitness center. Sometimes, they do not have the adequate knowledge about the legal issues of a fitness center.

The employees of the center need to be trained to properly behave with the customers, to keep the center clean and look after the equipments.

The investors need proper training in order to allocate the money properly in different segments like equipment, building materials and purchase of other resources.

Training should be given to the suppliers so that they can provide the equipments and other resources on time and maintain their qualities.  

The opposition of the center needs training about how and when to raise issues in the meetings when there is any illegal activities being carried out.

The friends and family members of the employees need to be trained about the usage of new fitness equipments and the different types of yoga to be practiced at home.

The development of the training activities include showing the employees about how and when to use the first aid if anyone gets hurt in case of any emergency. The training activities will also include arranging seminars for demonstration of how to behave with the customers, how to do exercises, how to ensure the safety rules and showing alternative ways of doing exercise. The investors will be invited for a separate session where different financial analysts will sort out the best ways for allocation of money.

Separate interactive sessions will be arranged for the employees, investors, friends and family members and leaflets will be distributed to them where everything will be there in writing. People will be trained through online media also. Awareness about the proper usage of fitness equipment will be ensured through the supply of soft copy as well as hard copy materials.

The risk response plan helps in mitigating the different types of risks associated with a fitness center. Any new initiatives from a fitness center would involve risks whether it is from the cost of implementation or any other outlays. The risk management plan needs to be used along with a risk register (Pritchard and PMP 2014). The risk register is used as a log to jot down the risks, to be identified by the company.  The probabilities of risk will be identified, their consequences need to be assessed and countermeasures need to be planned.

The sources of uncertainty can be inefficient and ineffective human resource management, inability to attract high quality trainers, unable to attract more customers in the new branches and the probability of the center to meet the objectives as stated (Booth 2015).

There are opportunities for promoting the change using the various marketing tools. The different types of threats need to be considered and ways need to be found out to mitigate the risks.

A new team is to be built who can communicate with the trainers, the front desk employees and with the customers in person, through mail or over phone.

They will be interacted in person, as it is the best way to convince them about the changes.

The potential users will be asked to provide their feedbacks through questionnaires and reviews in the social media.

I shall ask the groups to provide their reviews in social media groups, over mails or creating a website for lodging any complaints or requesting any modifications.

References

Bloomfield, M.C., Antopholi Software, Llc, 2015. Facsimile to E-mail communication system with local interface. U.S. Patent 8,941,888.

Booth, S.A., 2015. Crisis management strategy: Competition and change in modern enterprises. Routledge.

Chan, P., 2014. Barriers and facilitators for physical activity and exercise among adult Indian American women in central Texas (Doctoral dissertation, The University of Texas School of Public Health).

Dao, N.L. and Vu, A., 2016. Customers’ purchasing behaviour between Airbnb and hostels when travelling to Helsinki.

Dunn, W.N., 2015. Public policy analysis. Routledge.

Fritz, T., Huang, E.M., Murphy, G.C. and Zimmermann, T., 2014, April. Persuasive technology in the real world: a study of long-term use of activity sensing devices for fitness. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 487-496). ACM.

Hrebiniak, L.G., 2013. Making strategy work: Leading effective execution and change. FT Press.

Kim, W.C. and e Mauborgne, R., 2014. Blue ocean strategy, expanded edition: How to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant. Harvard business review Press.

Lundgren, R.E. and McMakin, A.H., 2013. Risk communication: A handbook for communicating environmental, safety, and health risks. John Wiley & Sons.

Muennig, P. and Bounthavong, M., 2016. Cost-effectiveness analysis in health: a practical approach. John Wiley & Sons.

Pritchard, C.L. and PMP, P.R., 2014. Risk management: concepts and guidance. CRC Press.

Wu, Z., Ellram, L.M. and Schuchard, R., 2014. Understanding the role of government and buyers in supplier energy efficiency initiatives. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 50(2), pp.84-105.