I ended up leaving this position due to the appalling behaviour of my regional director. But first, a little background:
Upon being promoted to assistant manager, I sat down with our RD and had a long discussion regarding salary, managerial requirements, training, and forecasting company growth for the next 2-3 years. I was told that after four months of A.S. training, I would step in and take over as club manager, when our current manager was set to leave to open another new club. It never happened.
After being fully trained as manager, I began taking on all of the daily duties that came with the title - training, accounting, banking, paperwork, customer complaints, scheduling, and general maintenance of the gym. But my salary never kicked in. It wasn't until SIX weeks later that I was finally able to get a meeting with our RD and ask her what was going on. Her response? "If you wanted your salary that bad, you should have asked for it." She then went on to tell me that my leadership abilities were non-existent, that she never really saw me as a manager, that I should stick to "doing my little church group things where you talk to people, because you're really good at that". I was absolutely shell-shocked. I had no words.
In addition, the backstabbing that I saw between upper management as well as upper management and front desk employees was appalling. Managers would outright lie in order to get certain employees fired, simply because they refused to comply with the gossiping culture or didn't find favouritism with management. I saw this happen three times in my own club.
The managers that I saw go on to succeed with Planet Fitness were men and women who had no problem compromising their integrity to get ahead. One club manager was even found to have been sleeping around with his employees. It was overlooked because of favouritism. I, however, was unqualified for management because I went bowling with staff - or, "formed too personal of relationships with the employees at my club".
Planet Fitness is an amazing franchise. I was madly in love with my job there, and I believed (and still believe) in what they are doing to help promote an active lifestyle to those who would otherwise fall between the cracks. But there are fatalities in the management infrastructure that cannot be overlooked - at least, at the chain of clubs that I worked for. Either you compromise your character to get ahead with upper management, or you fall from grace by trying to be honest and professional.
