by Nicky Budd-Thanos, on June 24, 2019
Last week, we hosted a webinar about the three key building blocks on which you can build a successful and productive front line with Tracy Toomer, VP of Operations and Allison Falls, Operations Manager. Both Tracy and Allison are team members at United PF, the largest Planet Fitness franchisee with over 150 locations.
Tracy and Allison drew on their combined 24 years of experience to share how focusing on three key areas internally has helped the United PF team grow to serve over 1.1 million members in a little over two years.
1. Communication
As Allison explained, prior to adopting Crew, United PF was more of a disconnected organization, using “a lot of different communication outlets. There was email, there was word of mouth ... And then each individual manager had their own communication style. [Now] we've kind of centralized and streamlined our communications to where it flows from the top down - from the support center to regional directors to district managers, then to the club level.” 
Being able to consolidate communications into one, more structured environment has made for a much more connected organization, making it easier for everyone to stay on the same page and to collaborate more effectively, even across many locations. In Tracy’s words, streamlining their communications allows for “a meeting of the minds”.
2. Recognition
United PF puts huge importance on not only recognizing the efforts of their members, but ensuring that their accomplishments are widely shared with the rest of the team, across locations and levels of the organization.
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Tracy and Allison differentiated between individual and collective recognition, noting the importance of each. For individuals, they’re recognized when their efforts at work go above and beyond, but also on their birthday and ‘Planetversary’ with the company. When it comes to collective recognition, United PF makes sure that everyone is aware of new club openings with company-wide announcements and pictures to celebrate additions to their team.
3. Culture Building
Even as United PF has experienced explosive growth since forming in 2016, maintaining a consistent culture has remained of utmost importance - or as Tracy put it, “growing really big while trying to remain small”. Both she and Allison refer to their culture as more of a family, and emphasized the importance of “taking the team along” as United PF continues to expand.
During the webinar, we went over some of the industry-wide stats on the importance of culture (check it out below) and the anecdotes that Allison and Tracy shared with us contributed to the understanding of just how critical culture is in any organization. 
Culture is playing an ever-bigger role in the engagement of employees and the success of a business. A critical piece of the positive company culture at United PF lies in investing in their employees in many different ways, including private trainings and one-on-one exercises with frontline employees to understand their values and how they work best.
You can hear more from Allison and Tracy on the three essential building blocks to foster engagement with your team by tuning into the webinar recording.
Keep an eye on our blog and Twitter for more content and events, packed with actionable insights, coming soon. You and your team can access the recording to 3 essential ingredients to a high-performing front line at any time.
Let us know what you think of the webinar’s takeaways on Twitter!
