376: Creating Positive Work Environments and Mentorship Strategies w/ Maggie Barragan

Transcript

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I have some people that have been at the club for a couple summers.

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A lot of them started maybe when they were in high school and they're in college now, and so I promoted them to shift leaders and they can kind of help oversee and mentor.

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So I concentrate really heavily on how I mentor them so that they mentor these high school kids, the kids younger than them, the same way.

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So it's just leading by example.

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But the point I was making was the board member was saying she's like I love I can see like how they emulate emulate you when they just start to act like you, when they're just calm, cool and collected.

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I think that's a compliment I get from people.

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A lot is I make them feel like just calm and cool and collected and no matter what stress is going on, and make people feel welcome, and that's what I want them to do as well.

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Hey everyone, welcome to the private club radio show podcast, the industry's choice for news, trends, updates and conversations all in the world of private golf and country clubs.

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Whether you're a consummate professional or brand new to the industry, welcome.

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We are glad you're here.

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This is the show where we go over any and all topics related to private golf and country clubs, and today I'm chatting with Maggie Berrigan, and she's the beach club manager at Westchester Country Club.

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I didn't realize how big of a facility and operation they have there, and so I was chatting with her about her whole career, what got her to where she's at managing the beach club and what that entails, because I don't think you see beach club managers too too often.

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And what I really enjoyed was prior to our conversation here, when her and I were chatting.

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She works a lot with the youths, the youths, the youths.

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I like youths.

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Youths are better Working with youths because a lot of the kids who work down at the beach are in high school and in college and where a lot of it was.

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No, I'm fortunate to be able to work with the kids at a young age where she can mold and kind of set an example of you know how to be a good human.

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So it's instead of seeing it as a, as a annoyance or anything, she sees it and makes it a way to teach and make everybody grow.

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And real quick, before we get to this episode, I just want to say a quick shout out, quick thank you.

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Quick shout out to some of our show partners.

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If you are interested at all in learning more about any of our show partners, hit them up, say hello, let them know you heard about us, heard about them or are reaching out because of maybe an ad or a mention here on Private Club Radio.

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Enough about us and the ads here.

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Let's welcome to the show Beach Club manager Maggie Berrigan.

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What a fun background.

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You've been in hospitality your entire career, right.

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Yeah, my whole life basically.

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When I was how old, was I?

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12, 13.

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I mean really young.

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My mom's best friend had a catering company and I used to like work in the kitchen, like work in the back of house, like doing prep stuff, just like she was like helping him out and I would help out and never I tried to leave a couple of times and then somehow it just sucks you right back in.

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But was there anything you learned back then that still sticks with you at all Like?

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Was there any like sayings, phrases or any like little, like tips and tricks you learned at that age, Just like working in the back of house, you know, like in in the roots, just in it?

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Is there anything you like picked up that still to this day You're like oh, that was.

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Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's like a tip, it's just like the work ethic that I'm watching the people around me and how hard they worked and how much fun they had while they were doing it.

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I think that's what really attracted me to the industry.

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And I started working in restaurants, like when I was in high school and I worked in restaurants and um in college and I started working at a club in college private club in college and that's what you know.

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You get to see the same people every day and talk to the same people and that's what drove me to like, stay within this, this private club industry, this sector of it.

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So it's?

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I think it's just the work ethic.

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That's what, what gets me and keeps me in it.

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Where'd you grow up?

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South Carolina small town it's called Lancaster.

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It's like right below Charlotte, so it's like basically a shove over Charlotte, North Carolina.

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Gotcha.

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And then how'd you get linked up with the Augusta?

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Yeah, so with the masters, yeah, that was so much fun.

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Um, I, they recruit a lot from university South Carolina, which is where I went.

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We had a great relationship.

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They have a great relationship with our professor there.

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Her name is Kathy Gustafson.

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She's retired since now, but she, I think actually I don't know what's the name of the GM there, his name is escaping me but yeah, him, that guy, that guy I think he went to USC and a couple other people also went to USC.

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So I went down there, I interviewed a lot of my friends.

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I ended up working and I actually was like I can't remember what position I interviewed for, but they're like, hey, how about you have, like you know, experience serving tables?

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So why don't you work on the terrace?

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And I was like, yeah, sure, I didn't know what the terrace was.

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It turned out I was working on the 18th hole, for the area only reserve, only people that could dine.

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There were members and players.

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So it was pretty wild.

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It's all tables of like round tables of six and there's two managers there and they're just basically seating anybody anywhere.

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So you can have like a two you know Arnold Palmer sitting there with a friend and then you're just you know Joe Schmoe is coming to sit with him and you're just constantly moving around and it was crazy just the amount of people that would go through the doors during a four-hour lunch period.

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It was a lot of fun, though.

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Great experience.

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You're pretty involved in the yoga world too, right?

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Yes, yeah.

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I've been teaching for just my 10th year, teaching 10th, 10th year.

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Yeah, I did.

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I taught full time for took a little break from the industry in 2014, 2015.

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Part of 2016, I taught, was teaching full time down in Charleston, moved to LA for a little bit, but just wasn't I don't know One.

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You don't get paid a lot of money teaching yoga, so that was certainly something, but I miss the industry and now I still teach like part-time now and it keeps me a little bit grounded what?

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was there anything in that time period or just anything with the yoga that you've been able to bring over to the hospitality of the club world, the management side?

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Um, you know, because yoga is very fluid and movement and sometimes I feel like clubs are more rigid and not uh.

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So I think it's a funny like mesh there yeah, I would say so, um, I mean, I bring it into my.

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I say I bring it to my everyday life, my yoga.

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You know, I think the important part is yoga.

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So you know it's a physical practice, right, but there's so many different elements to yoga.

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So you want to live your life, um, off the mat, the way you live it on your mat.

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So you know it's a physical practice, right, but there's so many different elements to yoga.

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So you want to live your life off the mat the way you live it on your mat.

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So how you practice is how you live.

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And you know, in the club industry, every day you're challenged by, you know, maybe your staff, or maybe it's a member or a board member or a committee, and how can you like take a deep breath, pause before you react to something?

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I think that's probably the number one thing that I brought to my everyday career is just taking a pause tell us about the unique to me, I think it's a unique position that you're in now beach club manager.

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That sounds so much fun yeah, it's very, I mean my.

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I get to walk around in sneakers and sunglasses all day long and it's probably the favorite part of my job is getting to wear sneakers and run around.

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I mean, you know, I'm outside all day long, the members are just.

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It's a different environment, right, like even from our main club, which is, you know, there's the golf course and there's, you know, the racket sports and there's the gym there and it's just.

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It's much more formal at the main club.

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But when people come down to the beach club, you know there's no dress code whatsoever.

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Pretty much they can wear t-shirts, they can wear jeans, they can wear cutoff jeans, they can wear pretty much whatever they want, like I said.

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But they're more relaxed and they're in a better mood sometimes when they come down to the beach club and I get to just walk around.

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I get to just walk around.

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People are hanging out at the bar and I just all I do is basically just walk around.

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I check on my staff, I get to check on members.

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We have we do have like one formal restaurant at the Beach Club, so it's, you know, a little more.

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You know you can't wear jeans and you have to wear a color shirt, but for the most part it's just a casual atmosphere and we'll see anywhere I think on 4th of thousand people there, which was pretty wild Uh, lots of, lots of people running around and that was we did our, probably our highest numbers we've ever done at the club.

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So it was.

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I feel like I'm yes, I feel like I'm still recovering today from it, today's Monday.

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No four days later.

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It's a lot of people.

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That's a lot of people.

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You know, and it's very big, the beach club is 62 acres.

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So I I mean I probably walk 15 to 30,000 steps a day, just depending on how busy we are.

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So I'm always I'm just walking back and forth and like sometimes I need to get from like this part of the club to this part of club in a very short amount of time, like I need a segue, but um, and then you get stopped every five minutes or something, like just wanting to chat or like you know, oh, my chicken sandwich was burnt, or whatever it might be, or they just want to stop and chat with me for a few minutes.

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Sometimes it's so hard to get like down to where I'm going, but by the time I get to where I'm going I'm like I don't know why I'm here.

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So it's a lot of that.

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yeah you definitely need a golf cart.

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No westchester country club, so so what else is going on there?

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I forgot that there's so many aspects to it.

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Yes, three golf courses.

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Well, two 18-hole golf courses, a nine-hole executive course.

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We have the sports house, which houses a gym, an indoor pool.

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This is all the main club Squash house we have oh gosh, I'm thinking how many tennis courts.

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We have 24 tennis courts, I think.

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I think about 24.

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Six to eight paddle courts, just.

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We're almost finished with our pickleball courts.

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Those are, I think, they just paid to the line, so those would be ready, I think, within the next couple of days.

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Two ballrooms, a hotel with 40 guest rooms, residences we have 40 guest rooms and we have 40 apartments, member apartments with about 60 members living on property.

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What else do we have?

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Giant driving range golf simulators.

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Okay, what don't we?

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have.

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I know, yeah, not much.

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We don't have Padel, that's.

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I don't know that.

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People are like, oh, you got to get Padel now.

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I'm like, oh my God, another racket sport.

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But yeah, we have a lot of everything.

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That's pickleball where you can just.

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It's the whole room, right, I think it's the whole room, it's just.

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Everything is like a fair game, no matter where the ball hits.

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I'm pretty sure.

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I've seen people play it on.

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My husband showed me some videos on youtube with it.

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Um and it's.

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I think there's a pinel court here in connecticut somewhere.

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But yeah, I think it's in glass.

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You're just like the balls coming out from everywhere.

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But just it never stops yeah, never stops, yeah endless yes and then what's usually funny is it has to be awkward to play, because I've only seen it like watching from like a second level down.

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Yeah, it has to be so intimidating just to have like all these in, like a little box, all these balls flying at you.

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Oh, that's all these people just staring as well.

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Yeah, so how many employees total are at Westchester?

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Inside of the season we're just under a thousand, I would say yeah.

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So about three ish hundred of those are at the beach club, all seasonal employees, and on just about out of that, 300, I would say probably 250, or like high school, college, eights kids.

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So between the lifeguards for all of them um, I don't have to so much oversee the lifeguards, thank god.

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Um, but yeah, all food and beverage um front house, back house.

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Yeah, that falls under my, under my purview now, I, I, I, I remember when we, we, we first chatted briefly, uh, and you, I, when I, when I, we started talking about this and I was like that's a lot of students, and you stopped me and made a point and you said you actually enjoy it because you can be a learning you're, you can be in a position to, to, to teach these kids to, because they are so young and so malleable that you can train them to be good people.

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Uh, and that's why I really want to chat too, like, oh, that was such a good because so it's such a good point of view, because so many people and it is so easy to go like, oh, it's these kids these days, because, like I know, I find myself saying stuff too, but like, just that narrative and that frame of mind and that mindset I just loved.

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Can you touch more on that?

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yeah, for sure, because I feel like I've heard it so many times referred to as like I think we're the same age, like our generation, like maybe the boomers are like oh, millennials this and millennials that.

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And I don't want to ever fall victim to just looking at kids, because I was in that position too.

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We were all like 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, once 18, 19, once like just being I wouldn't say dumb kids.

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It's just you don't know like how to necessarily act in the workplace or in society, right, but no, I like I love the kids that work for me.

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I try my best to like lead by example with them.

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I even have like a board member I was talking to the day and she was commenting no-transcript making, was the board member saying she's like I love, I can see like how they emulate, emulate you, when they just start to act like you and they're just calm, cool and collected.

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I think that's a compliment I get from people a lot, as I make them feel like just calm and cool and collected and no matter what stress is going on, and make people feel welcome.

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And that's what I want them to do as well, and know how to care for people.

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And I remind myself too all the time like, hey, we're not here, this is not a hospital, we're not saving lives, we're not curing cancer here not to demean what we do for a living but at the same time like, take a breath, like it's at the end of the day, it's not all that serious, but I still want you to care about what you're doing.

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So I do want to go on the record for a second time saying you are saving lives, alfredo.

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I have the episode out with Alfredo and he said we're not saving lives and normally I would agree, but think about some people.

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Like you know, mental health is a big thing, that's true, and you don't know.

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You know people are coming in.

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They might not be, you know, in the right, but because you and the team are so nice and friendly, you know no, that's a good point.

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Or like you, you don't, like you know, and then even like an employee I was talking, you know it could be an employee could be happy to have culture, like, oh, a good place and they're happy to have, uh, but no, that that was just, but no, I, I, I totally with you with that.

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What are some so like you know, as as be, like what, what's a day in the life you know at, at the beach club of you, beach club manager, what are some of your KPIs?

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You know what?

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are your, you know when, when, when things are firing, you know, just like this past weekend, what was it?

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What was that like for you?

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I mean, I can refer to like the 4th of July was our Super Bowl, as we call it, so it's like the height of summer for us.

00:17:27.820 --> 00:17:34.573
We knew we were expecting it and there's no reservations necessarily for the club, so it's you don't really know what to expect.

00:17:34.633 --> 00:17:35.255
Black Friday.

00:17:35.255 --> 00:17:37.902
You're just opening the doors and just whatever rolls in.

00:17:38.329 --> 00:17:43.453
Yeah, I mean we all got there at like seven in the morning and the club opens at 10, but like 9.15 people are walking in.

00:17:43.453 --> 00:17:44.636
I'm like what are they doing here?

00:17:44.636 --> 00:17:48.846
And they're like they're going to reserve chairs and they're we do like the swimming race at 10 o'clock.

00:17:48.846 --> 00:17:51.575
So like I mean they were getting there a little bit early to do that, to get ready for that.

00:17:51.575 --> 00:17:53.039
But I was like, oh my God, they're all here already.

00:17:53.039 --> 00:18:18.069
Um, but normal day I mean like there's no normal days, I would say, but I'm, I'm, I'm coming in, um, no-transcript.

00:18:18.069 --> 00:18:27.640
So I usually I work out or I do yoga or something like along those lines, and then I head to work, usually just check in with my management team, make sure everybody's got what they need to get the day started.

00:18:27.700 --> 00:18:30.723
Sometimes we do like on the fourth we were doing a girl's station on the beach.

00:18:30.824 --> 00:18:38.865
So you know, having our, our maintenance team helped me set up these girls on the beach and we made some really cool banners and making sure I have two interns as well.

00:18:38.865 --> 00:18:46.699
So they helped me with all of our um, our branding and our signage and, you know, food signage and we had these cool surfboards we painted of a chalk paint and we can paint.

00:18:46.699 --> 00:18:56.290
You know details on them, upcoming events or what the station entails, um, but just making sure all those things are in place, making sure everybody showed up to work I will say it's been a great summer with.

00:18:56.290 --> 00:19:03.778
I've never had even last summer I've never had anybody not show up to work, which I think says a lot for for what we're, the program that we're putting out.

00:19:03.778 --> 00:19:09.597
You know people want to come to work, so yeah, and getting the team excited, making sure all our decorating was done for the fourth.

00:19:09.597 --> 00:19:13.344
Um, the day was such a blur, oh my god.

00:19:13.344 --> 00:19:15.313
And you know it's like a 17 hour day and I don't know.

00:19:15.353 --> 00:19:29.166
I can barely tell you what we did that day, but it was just like a lot of running around and making sure things are in place, making sure people showed up and you know we had a lot of meetings prior to the day and making sure people knew exactly what to expect and making sure our staff, for their first summers, knew what the day was going to entail.

00:19:29.166 --> 00:19:34.098
And grill stations and we had we do like a Hoffman 500.

00:19:34.098 --> 00:19:35.301
So there's like a swimming race.

00:19:35.301 --> 00:19:36.594
It's 500 meter swimming race.

00:19:36.594 --> 00:19:43.471
So making sure that that team you know the aquatics team handles that and we have an egg toss game the day of what other games do?

00:19:43.471 --> 00:19:45.920
We have Tug of war big thing.

00:19:45.920 --> 00:19:48.934
Everybody shows up for tug of war.

00:19:49.035 --> 00:19:50.298
That is fun to watch.

00:19:50.740 --> 00:19:51.633
Oh yeah, right on the beach.

00:19:51.633 --> 00:19:58.239
Um, but it's, you know, a normal day is, it's it's just me making sure people are in place and having the the how do they have what they need?

00:19:58.239 --> 00:20:00.894
This summer has been terrible with our refrigeration systems.

00:20:00.894 --> 00:20:12.212
You know, we're right on we're literally right on the water, so salt air is constantly coming in.

00:20:12.212 --> 00:20:13.116
So I spent a lot of time walking around checking refrigerators.

00:20:13.116 --> 00:20:15.527
To be honest, that's a very big part of my job is checking equipment, making sure things are working, calling our service providers to come in.

00:20:15.527 --> 00:20:17.413
So it's just checking things, that and being a support system for my chef.

00:20:17.413 --> 00:20:19.224
My chef's been there at the club for many years.

00:20:19.224 --> 00:20:23.816
He's been with Westchester for 30 plus years, the Beach Club about 50,.

00:20:23.816 --> 00:20:26.098
He's been the executive chef at the Beach Club for about 15 years.

00:20:26.098 --> 00:20:27.882
So I spent a lot of time with him.

00:20:27.882 --> 00:20:29.845
You know, coming up with new ideas.

00:20:31.530 --> 00:20:33.096
We do stations on the weekends.

00:20:33.096 --> 00:20:36.159
Yeah, how many executive chefs do you have for the club too?

00:20:37.111 --> 00:20:42.195
So for the club itself there's we have an executive chef and he came to the club kind of the manager team.

00:20:42.195 --> 00:20:50.576
We all came in together for the most part and our executive chef, kerry, came in just a little bit after we all started so he came in with us so he oversees both properties.

00:20:50.576 --> 00:20:52.436
We have an executive chef at the Beach Club.

00:20:52.436 --> 00:20:57.521
Our formal restaurant at the Beach Club has its own chef and then the main club.

00:20:57.521 --> 00:21:03.227
There is an executive chef at the Sports House, which is our restaurant at the main club, and then there's a banquet chef.

00:21:03.227 --> 00:21:08.134
We have an executive chef to cuisine.

00:21:08.134 --> 00:21:08.654
We have a lot of.

00:21:08.654 --> 00:21:11.140
We have a big back house team, big team.

00:21:12.060 --> 00:21:23.355
That's, that's impressive, yeah, since, since you've been there, are there any, I'll say, innovation, any like innovations or changes that you know, you've implemented, that you're proud of?

00:21:24.659 --> 00:21:25.461
Yeah, let me think.

00:21:25.461 --> 00:21:28.594
I mean, it's really nice to have members.

00:21:28.594 --> 00:21:29.115
Yeah, I Brad.

00:21:29.154 --> 00:21:31.260
You know there's something, come on.

00:21:32.031 --> 00:21:33.817
Yeah, I mean we get very creative.

00:21:33.817 --> 00:21:36.978
Every Friday, saturday, sunday at the Beach Club we have a different food station.

00:21:36.978 --> 00:21:39.148
So Fridays we typically have a big lobster station.

00:21:39.148 --> 00:21:40.818
We've been going to the club for quite some time.

00:21:40.818 --> 00:21:43.270
Saturdays we've been trying to get a little more creative.

00:21:43.270 --> 00:21:45.575
This past weekend we did a soft-shell crab station.

00:21:45.575 --> 00:21:47.838
It's a huge, huge, huge hit with the members.

00:21:47.838 --> 00:21:49.622
They've never done that before.

00:21:49.622 --> 00:21:51.525
Sundays we usually do pasta stations.

00:21:51.525 --> 00:22:01.498
I've just done a lot of redesigning of a lot of our branding, a lot of our menus just looked a little bit tired at the beach club so I redid all the menus.

00:22:01.498 --> 00:22:05.615
This year I added an element in our snack bar called the Glover Reef Cafe.

00:22:05.615 --> 00:22:07.880
So a new espresso machine.

00:22:07.880 --> 00:22:08.501
So we're doing.

00:22:08.501 --> 00:22:11.256
We have a huge coffee program, frappuccinos, refreshers.

00:22:11.256 --> 00:22:16.115
I mean I think we're better than starbucks, but, um, I will say so myself, hard to be.

00:22:16.115 --> 00:22:18.599
Yeah, right, um, but we do.

00:22:18.599 --> 00:22:22.414
We're doing like protein smoothies, um, we're doing fruit smoothies for the kids.

00:22:22.734 --> 00:22:27.334
Yeah, I got a cool, actual, like, like, actual, like good style, like protein.

00:22:27.334 --> 00:22:34.171
Yes, shakes that are like it's not just, you know, because like and I'm just saying because, like it's easy to be like, oh, they're protein, but it's like.

00:22:34.171 --> 00:22:36.416
Or like you know, but super high.

00:22:36.416 --> 00:22:41.638
Are they actually like there's like, they're well crafted drinks well crafted yeah, well crafted protein.

00:22:41.659 --> 00:22:43.130
I have one with like a cold, like a cold brew.

00:22:43.130 --> 00:22:43.913
Lunch is my favorite.

00:22:43.913 --> 00:22:44.635
A lot of people like that.

00:22:44.635 --> 00:22:45.719
It's got like cold brew in it.

00:22:45.719 --> 00:22:47.645
And banana.

00:22:47.645 --> 00:22:50.053
There's a chocolate protein powder.

00:22:50.053 --> 00:22:52.760
Frozen avocado makes it really creamy too.

00:22:53.363 --> 00:22:59.671
Chia seeds I wanted to do peanut butter but we do no nuts at the beach so we have a lot of kids with allergies so I can't do any nuts.

00:22:59.671 --> 00:23:01.977
Nothing with peanut butter, nothing with almond milk or anything like that.

00:23:01.977 --> 00:23:04.531
But yeah, and cold pressed juices.

00:23:04.531 --> 00:23:05.914
That was a big thing we added to this year.

00:23:05.914 --> 00:23:09.262
But that program has been like a huge hit this year.

00:23:09.262 --> 00:23:14.060
Last year we added a permanent pizza oven outside which is open six days a week.

00:23:14.060 --> 00:23:17.076
Yeah, well, it is what does wood fire?

00:23:17.076 --> 00:23:17.778
But we have a propane.

00:23:17.778 --> 00:23:21.180
But it's a huge, huge hit.

00:23:21.180 --> 00:23:22.411
I mean we sell.

00:23:22.411 --> 00:23:25.512
Last year we sold, I mean, just this little station alone.

00:23:25.512 --> 00:23:26.193
I think we sold.

00:23:26.193 --> 00:23:27.134
How many pieces did we sell?

00:23:27.134 --> 00:23:28.856
I know it was like $70,000 worth of pizzas.

00:23:28.856 --> 00:23:33.260
I can't remember how many pizzas that is, but it was a lot of pizza, a whole lot of pizza.

00:23:33.580 --> 00:23:34.321
It's a lot of dough.

00:23:34.781 --> 00:23:35.663
It's a lot of dough.

00:23:35.663 --> 00:23:36.923
It's a lot of dough.

00:23:36.923 --> 00:23:37.964
Yes, Come on.

00:23:38.244 --> 00:23:39.846
Yeah, they love it, we're going to be here all night.

00:23:39.846 --> 00:23:45.357
Yes, that's nuts.

00:23:45.719 --> 00:23:50.433
So you have your pizza and you have your protein smoothies and your cold-pressed green juices, so we have to have a little bit of balance.

00:23:51.778 --> 00:23:52.200
Wow.

00:23:53.131 --> 00:23:53.392
What other?

00:23:53.653 --> 00:23:54.275
cool stuff.

00:23:54.275 --> 00:23:55.498
That's wild.

00:23:56.099 --> 00:23:56.721
That's wild.

00:23:56.721 --> 00:24:00.022
I think the moms are really happy.

00:24:00.022 --> 00:24:00.869
This year I got rid of it.

00:24:00.869 --> 00:24:03.353
You know those frozen icy machines like a 7-Eleven.

00:24:03.353 --> 00:24:04.976
Yeah, we had one.

00:24:04.976 --> 00:24:05.516
I got rid of that.

00:24:05.516 --> 00:24:07.018
I think the moms loved me after that.

00:24:07.018 --> 00:24:09.942
So that was a big thing getting rid of that.

00:24:09.942 --> 00:24:12.465
The kids hate me but they're like where's the IC machine?

00:24:12.465 --> 00:24:15.692
I'm like oh, yeah, it's broken.

00:24:15.712 --> 00:24:16.394
Why did you get rid of it?

00:24:16.394 --> 00:24:16.996
Was it time?

00:24:16.996 --> 00:24:18.096
Was it old, was it?

00:24:18.637 --> 00:24:18.979
complaints.

00:24:18.979 --> 00:24:22.464
Yeah, partly parents were like this thing is just all sugar.

00:24:22.464 --> 00:24:23.830
I'm like I totally agree.

00:24:23.830 --> 00:24:27.116
Partly it was just it was constantly breaking and the service was out of new jersey and they could.

00:24:27.116 --> 00:24:28.398
We could never get them to come up.

00:24:28.398 --> 00:24:30.383
It would break and I would have it.

00:24:30.383 --> 00:24:35.181
No one would come up for like three to four weeks and so like it just wasn't worth trying to keep that program going.

00:24:35.181 --> 00:24:38.439
Um, we have lots of ice cream, though.

00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:48.065
The kids are fine, don't worry, there's plenty of sweet treats for them gotcha, it wasn't like like self-serve, like they can just go up and get it themselves, or was it like, yes, it was, it was a self-serve.

00:24:48.085 --> 00:24:52.296
Like they can just go up and get it themselves, or was it like yeah, so it was a self-serve, yeah, self-serve, but it was in our snack bar.

00:24:52.296 --> 00:25:13.040
So like I mean you had to pay for it, but you know kids would walk up and you know they tip their head back and, like I constantly catch kids doing that, like just right into their mouth, so yeah, when given the opportunity, yeah, as a 10 year old, yeah, and you know you're gonna get in trouble at like the club.

00:25:13.080 --> 00:25:14.626
Like yeah, like they know they can push the limit a little bit, like they.

00:25:14.646 --> 00:25:18.156
Oh yeah, these kids aren't dumb and then this, and then we have this snack.

00:25:18.156 --> 00:25:25.011
While you walk into this route, this area, and it's so busy and so sometimes it's hard to like keep up with, like the kids running around, you know there's so many kids running around.

00:25:25.011 --> 00:25:25.593
You don't know who's who.

00:25:25.593 --> 00:25:28.097
We have 1500 member, 1600 member families.

00:25:28.097 --> 00:25:29.560
So anyway, yeah, they can.

00:25:29.560 --> 00:25:30.963
They know they can push the limit a little bit.

00:25:31.089 --> 00:25:41.444
So it's a lot of that, yeah any, any cool ways, strategies you use to motivate your teams.

00:25:41.444 --> 00:25:46.340
I mean, I know, you know, because kids are a you, you know kids, utes are a unique breed.

00:25:46.340 --> 00:25:50.880
How do you, how do you motivate that age group Like?

00:25:50.880 --> 00:25:55.116
How do you Like what's your style, what's your vibe Like, how do you get them?

00:25:55.190 --> 00:26:00.295
Yeah, I mean, a big thing I like to do is I just listen to them.

00:26:00.295 --> 00:26:12.361
And this goes really in part with, like the young ladies and young men who are my shift leaders is we do a weekly meeting with them and we go around and I talk to them kind of about maybe some things that I'm seeing that we can improve on, and you know some of our wins.

00:26:12.361 --> 00:26:17.855
You know you always want to give them the wins too, and then I just listen to them like, hey, what ideas do you have?

00:26:17.855 --> 00:26:20.209
They usually have some really great ideas for how to improve.

00:26:20.209 --> 00:26:32.209
Um, and like I can kind of you know, I listened to them talking to the staff and like, speaking kind of in my tone or in my like I hear myself a little bit and then I'm like, oh, my God, that's so nice Like, um, I motivate them with gift cards with employee of the week.

00:26:32.209 --> 00:26:33.490
Um, I think that's a big.

00:26:33.490 --> 00:26:35.632
You know that's a big thing.

00:26:35.632 --> 00:26:36.512
Uh, we do.

00:26:37.233 --> 00:26:38.355
What does that program look like?

00:26:38.355 --> 00:26:41.278
Or what does that little motivator like?

00:26:41.278 --> 00:26:41.999
What's that little?

00:26:42.759 --> 00:26:44.821
Yeah, so any, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:26:44.821 --> 00:26:48.731
So any manager, supervisor can nominate someone for employee of the week and we do.

00:26:48.731 --> 00:27:11.824
I will do, like you know, between the whole club, you know between, like we have our, you know, our maintenance staff, our front house staff, our back house staff and aquatic 10 kids a week that we are kids or employees that we nominate from play the week and they get a nice little plaque, they get recognized in front of their department and we give them like a gift certificate, um, just a way to like you know usually for like 25 to 30 dollars, I think.

00:27:11.844 --> 00:27:13.308
There are um.

00:27:13.308 --> 00:27:18.807
Our members have an opportunity as well to go onto our website and they can give a five-star review to an employee.

00:27:18.807 --> 00:27:20.813
Um, and that happens a lot, and when?

00:27:20.833 --> 00:27:25.834
when they do that yeah, when the members do that On their phones like there's, like through the app, they could.

00:27:26.085 --> 00:27:27.067
Yeah, they could do it on the app.

00:27:27.067 --> 00:27:28.211
They can go right on the website.

00:27:28.211 --> 00:27:36.907
We make it really easy so they can go on give a five-star review for an employee and then that employee gets like a $100 Visa gift card and they also get a plaque and they get recognized.

00:27:36.907 --> 00:27:41.613
Put that out into our employee newsletter too.

00:27:41.633 --> 00:27:43.836
So just just an employee newsletter.

00:27:44.415 --> 00:27:44.856
Yeah, we do.

00:27:44.856 --> 00:27:45.356
We have a.

00:27:45.356 --> 00:27:54.247
I think it comes out by by monthly yeah, by monthly um newsletter with our wins.

00:27:54.247 --> 00:27:58.123
We do an employee of the quarter, we do an all hands meeting every couple of months, um, where we ever the entire company's invited for lunch.

00:27:58.123 --> 00:28:04.847
Um, and Mark, our executive director, you know, he gives a really wonderful speech and we recognize probably two employees for the quarter as well.

00:28:05.809 --> 00:28:06.311
Oh, that's cool.

00:28:06.311 --> 00:28:08.175
Yeah, that is fun.

00:28:08.757 --> 00:28:08.938
Yeah.

00:28:08.938 --> 00:28:11.133
So lots of recognition, lots of listening.

00:28:11.133 --> 00:28:13.794
We do, like you know, employee ice cream day.

00:28:13.794 --> 00:28:15.890
We get food trucks.

00:28:15.890 --> 00:28:17.873
We have a big employee party on August 12th.

00:28:17.873 --> 00:28:24.315
We actually close the beach club for the day and all the employees can come and actually enjoy the beach club and so in the pool, hang out on the beach.

00:28:24.315 --> 00:28:25.685
You know we cook lunch for them.

00:28:25.685 --> 00:28:28.696
Last year was peter, director of operations, grilling and I was.

00:28:28.696 --> 00:28:31.365
He was grilling, I was cheesing the burgers.

00:28:31.365 --> 00:28:33.290
You know I was, you know I don't.

00:28:33.290 --> 00:28:36.038
It was, it was a lot but um, for 400 people, but it was.

00:28:36.038 --> 00:28:36.625
It was a lot of fun.

00:28:36.625 --> 00:28:37.509
We had a good time doing it.

00:28:37.509 --> 00:28:38.832
So we're gonna do it again this year.

00:28:40.837 --> 00:28:41.259
That's neat.

00:28:41.259 --> 00:28:46.270
Yeah, how do you, how do you gather with that many people Like how do you, what's?

00:28:46.270 --> 00:28:48.415
How do you get good feedback?

00:28:48.415 --> 00:28:50.948
Cause clearly you, you do that well.

00:28:50.948 --> 00:28:57.146
How do you get good, good feedback from from your, from your staff and also from your members?

00:28:58.349 --> 00:28:59.913
We do employee surveys.

00:28:59.913 --> 00:29:03.786
Um, we haven't done one in a a little while, but we did one at the end of last season.

00:29:03.786 --> 00:29:04.689
You know, we don't.

00:29:04.689 --> 00:29:07.526
We don't get a whole lot of people responding to it, which is always just, you know.

00:29:07.526 --> 00:29:09.471
I would love if we got more of a response last season.

00:29:09.491 --> 00:29:12.892
Give them gift cards yeah, exactly yeah to to fill them out.

00:29:12.892 --> 00:29:13.693
It was such a good idea.

00:29:13.693 --> 00:29:18.449
Um, I'm just trying to think.

00:29:18.449 --> 00:29:21.952
You know we use I use hot schedules to communicate with my staff.

00:29:21.952 --> 00:29:25.876
Um, I like to send out lots of, you know, little notes to them.

00:29:25.876 --> 00:29:27.439
You know we use, I use hot schedules to communicate with my staff.

00:29:27.459 --> 00:29:28.720
I like to send out lots of, you know little notes to them.

00:29:28.720 --> 00:29:30.961
Like you know, after the fourth it was, you know, I sent them a nice note about.

00:29:30.961 --> 00:29:42.356
You know, it was such a hard day for everybody and that day too, I broke everybody and nobody had to work unless they wanted to a double, so they all could either enjoy, maybe, dinner with their family or enjoy the fourth, you know, with their family in the morning or in the evening, so they weren't working a full day.

00:29:42.356 --> 00:29:45.688