I promised last week to offer strategies for training club employees, but I’d like to postpone that another week. Instead I want to discuss the major issues of manager and supervisory training, since a poorly trained manager or supervisor can do far greater harm to your operation than a line employee by failing in any of the areas mentioned here.
- Managers and supervisors direct your front line employees. If they don’t have a complete understanding of their duties and your expectations, your service message and vision for the operation will not be passed consistently to employees.
- A management team with different leadership styles ranging from service-based, to military, to athletic, to collegial, to Neanderthal, will not interact with employees consistently or fairly — and consistency and fairness are touchstone issues in meeting the requirements of equal opportunity, discrimination, morale, and motivation. Ideally, an organization would have one management and leadership style, promulgated by the Board or General Manager and practiced uniformly by all managers and supervisors; anything less invites trouble.
- A club’s organizational values and culture require constant reinforcement to all employees and must be consistently emphasized in word and deed to employees. Without appropriate manager training and development, the example and message will be inconsistent and confusing.
- Managers and supervisors are your people with the answers. In addition to their job specific knowledge and skills, they must have a thorough understanding of all the club’s rules, regulations, work policies, member policies, administrative and accounting systems and procedures. Without training they cannot have a firm grasp of these complex and interrelated matters. Stop for a second and consider the problems that can be caused by two different managers giving conflicting direction or answers to employees or members.
- Managers and supervisors act as agents of the club. If they do not have an in-depth understanding of all the laws and governmental regulations affecting your club, the club is open to liability issues and litigation. Examples include: the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, Alcohol Law Enforcement regulations, Equal Opportunity issues, Sexual Harassment, Food Sanitation, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, and others. While you may have experts in each of these matters on staff, their knowledge must be shared with other managers to avoid what could become significant problems for the club. Throughout my career many of the most significant problems I faced were as a result of subordinate managers without a proper understanding of these important issues.
- Ethics training for all managers. Some think this isn’t necessary, but experience shows this to be a naïve assumption.
To expect that different managers with different backgrounds and experiences from a variety of operational disciplines — golf, golf course maintenance, accounting, personnel, facility maintenance, food and beverage, membership, activities, tennis, and aquatics — will have a common understanding of and approach to leadership and management is foolish.
Bottom Line: Without strong, stable, and consistent leadership and management at all levels of your club, your staff is a bunch of tribes, often at odds or in conflict — and this is no way to run a railroad, much less a club.
We’ll talk about strategies to train next week.
Thanks and have a great day!
Ed Rehkopf
This weekly blog comments on and discusses the club industry and its challenges. From time to time, we will feature guest bloggers - those managers and industry experts who have something of interest to say to all of us. We also welcome feedback and comment upon the blog, hoping that it will become a useful sounding board for what’s on the minds of hardworking club managers throughout the country and around the world.
Club Resources International - Management Resources for Clubs!
Instead of the traditional view that employees are easily replaceable elements in an organization, people who must be trained to do narrow, well-defined tasks and who must be closely watched and supervised at all times, the concept of empowerment says that today’s more educated and sometimes more sophisticated employees need and want to contribute more to their employer and workplace. Yet many clubs marginalize their employees by refusing to listen to them and by failing to let them contribute to the enterprise in any meaningful way.
1. Always keep an open mind. Try not to pre-judge situations or people.
As I began to dig deeper and deeper into the challenges of the club, Randy took to stopping by my office each morning. While I was anxious to learn as much as I could from him, each morning became a litany of complaints, usually that he did not have the necessary tools, staff, or time to take care of all the things for which his department was responsible. Frequently, he disparaged his employees and their lack of necessary skills. Further, I had the distinct sense that Randy was looking to me for solutions to his problems, both real and imagined.
Like Randy, John also stopped by my office each day for a few minutes. But he never complained; he only kept me informed of what he was working on. Sometimes he sought my permission to pursue a particular course of action or sought confirmation of his plans. With each passing day I grew less and less concerned about maintenance. Confidence in John and the job he was doing allowed me to turn my attention to other pressing matters.
When you blame no one else for the challenges you face, when you realize that where you stand today is the result of all your past decisions and indecision, you look to the true source of any difficulties. It is never the undefined “they.” It is always the ever present “I.”
Bob was the front desk manager of an older hotel. Hospitality was his profession, but running was his passion. Each day at lunchtime, regardless of the weather, he took a five-mile run. After running he used the employee locker room to change and shower before returning to work.
It seems that Michael’s meteoric success had been built upon a hard-nosed, bullying management style. He frequently flew into tirades if his employees did not perform to his expectations, yet he was a poor communicator, rarely meeting with his staff to explain his goals or desires. Further, Willard said he often berated his employees in front of others. 
Proactive in finding problems: Every organization has problems and some managers try to hide their problems. A sure sign that there are problems in an organization is that no one ever talks about them. Everything goes too smoothly and no one rocks the boat. It is a simple task to ask questions, to dig a little wherever one goes. Inevitably problems turn up. Often those most familiar with and vocal about problems are the line employees who deal with them every day. A significant step in solving problems is to place a major and positive emphasis on problem discovery. It’s the first step in problem solution.
Personal selling: Perhaps the greatest marketing tool available is the committed involvement of leadership in the marketing effort. By becoming actively involved in various organizations and actively selling the property at every opportunity, the leader promotes not only the operation, but himself/herself. Since many decisions are influenced by personal loyalties, this type of salesmanship is often the most far-reaching and effective.
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7. Training. There is much for employees to know in serving your members. You cannot expect that your employees will inherently know what to do unless they are systematically and consistently trained. Training gives your employees the knowledge and confidence they need. Confident employees are more apt to engage your members and provide higher levels of service.
Why, then, is poor service so often the rule rather than the exception? I have met many competent, hard-working, and professional general managers who voiced a clear and unequivocal service vision for their operations. They understood the need for well-defined standards, thorough training of employees, and constant reinforcement of 
While some front line supervisors demonstrated exceptional leadership skills, many did not. Often my biggest problems were created by supervisors who did not treat their employees properly, who did not communicate expectations, and who did not seem to understand or follow the most basic requirements of leading or managing people. These profound failings were crippling to the organization and required many hours of counseling, training, and, in some cases, terminations to remedy.
