Unfortunately, many business owners are now coming across a society that has turned into a litigious one. Often people will take advantage of minor issues for monetary gain. Fitness facilities with their heavy machinery and large potential for slips can be the most heavily targeted by these types of people. So, how can you protect yourself from these potential litigation? The following list entails some of the best ways to protect yourself and your facility.
Liability Waivers
If you’ve ever joined one of the larger franchise gyms, then you will be very familiar with the liability waiver that you are asked to sign at the beginning. Companies do this not to have an excuse not to keep their facility clean and safe, but from people who have a predatorial sense of wanting to sue. Any size fitness facility should counsel an attorney in order to draft a well-crafted legal document. Although this does offer a good level of protection, it is not full proof. If you present a facility with clear dangers that could have been fixed, this waiver will not protect you. Thus, as we protect ourselves from these risks, we should also protect our members from potential dangers.
Continuous Employee Training
After working in a gym for a while, it’s easy to start losing focus on the important aspects of it. Therefore, we highly recommend implementing continuous training for your employees. Since so much of fitness training relies on a variety of feedback it can be easy to accidentally cross over into what some individuals may interpret as harassing behavior, regardless of the intent behind the feedback. Having readily available training and resources such as literature can help your employees constantly improving performance and keeping your business professional and effective.
Maintain the Equipment and Facility
Training and waivers are all well and good, but if your equipment isn’t being kept up to code, then the risk of litigation is solely coming from you. Understandably, fitness facility maintenance can be a costly expense. However, having to go to court and potentially losing will no doubt cost you tens of thousands of dollars all for a repair that could have only cost at most a few hundred to fix.
Though it is impossible to remove all risks from your business, being proactive can surely lower the chances of being sued. Simply adhere to the recommendations above, and you will no doubt decrease the probability of going into litigation.
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Tim Lyons is an avid gym goer that takes his workouts as seriously as his commitment to the business of fitness. Tim not only talks the talk, but also walks the walk. Tim is the founder and CEO of ProFit Marketing Solutions and Pulse Fitness Training Facility (est. 2008). Tim has spent the last decade as a gym owner and operator in the fitness industry. Tim knows firsthand the challenges of gym ownership and understands the need for reliable, results-driven marketing solutions. As the creator of Pro-Fit Marketing Solutions, Tim has devised industry-specific marketing strategies to help other club owners get better results for their business.
Tim is a featured speaker at conferences, workshops, and podcasts helping fitness professionals learn how to market personal training services and to progress into a lifestyle of profit and freedom. As a published writer, Tim has written articles on the business of fitness and marketing strategies for gym owners for trade journals, wellness lifestyle publications, and contributes regularly to national publications such as Funnel Magazine.
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