My end of year thoughts, local authority leisure, 2024.....

Sitting at a train station, it's hard to believe, it's Wednesday evening, 20th December. As anyone over the age of 40 will probably testify, a year definitely gets shorter as we get older!

Much of my time has been spent in glorious Lancaster, supporting the wonderful team at Salt Ayre. I regularly travel the UK, where it's a breath of fresh air to see two public leisure colleagues, in Rachel Williams (GM) Kyle Lewis (Commercial Manager) demonstrate incredible leadership and resilience to move their business forward. From delivering a complex organisational restructure, creating new revenue streams, to rolling with the many punches given out by their respective local authority, Rachel and Kyle have my total admiration. If it was easy, we'd all be doing it. So keep going guys and do make sure you take a moment to pause and reflect, just how far you have come????

The world we know now, is very different from the one pre-pandemic. The game has changed, the rules have changed. All staff members have to deliver. For every outstanding colleague, there are invariably several more, who are allowed to function at an unacceptable standard. (IMO) there has to be a fast-track system to move these people on. It is scandalous these colleagues are treated as a 'protected species' and ultimately, rewarded for failure. Sickness is also a real problem. According to ONS, it costs the economy billions (￡), and it saddens me when genuinely ill colleagues are drowned out by those 'on the box'. When you receive six months full pay, largely unchallenged, why would you come back to work? It's so unfair on everyone else who work bloody hard, and which leads to an incredibly demotivating, toxic culture.

I am really excited we continue to develop diverse talent. Future leaders who possess clear thinking, will embrace technology and will freshen things up. Trying to get that perfect fusion of experience and developing talent is difficult, but we must move away from the old pal's act, jobs for the boys mentality. We need different voices to be heard and expertise learned from other sectors, if we are to continue moving at pace and help attract a higher calibre of candidate to the industry (as opposed, to traditionally, losing so many of our best people).

It was tremendous to learn Sport England will invest ￡250m over the next five years, to those living in the most socially deprived UK areas. This can only be a massive positive and should be both applauded and supported. It will be fascinating to see what impact this will have, as 'you can only take the horse to the water' yet I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a bright outcome and greater investment, longer term.

On a personal note, I am really interested in human behaviour and generational patterns (i.e. copying what our parents do, our parents do what their parents did and so on). This week, I read a shocking statistic where in London 2022/23, the number of knife or sharp instrument offences stands at nearly 13,000, with the overwhelming majority of crimes committed by teenagers. Given the staggering amount of green space in London and public leisure facilities available, it does leave you scratching your head, is this really because of the lack of anything to do / or places to go. As I say, you can only take the horse to the water...

I am more passionate about service excellence, than I am about discounting. We know the financial consequences of service cuts, energy crisis and the cost of living, yet despite all this, there is still so much we can do to get our house in order first. We must continue to change customer perception (think big, you are so much more than just your average local council run facility) and continue to find new ways to elevate the member experience (we introduced a Spa & Fitness premium membership at Salt Ayre). Repeat business will come from service excellence, no amount of discounting will ever make up for a lousy experience.

Communication has to improve. Transparency has to improve. In tough times, of course nobody wants to pay that bit more, but if you asked 5,000 people if they would be willing to pay an extra ￡3 per month to keep their local swimming pool open, I guarantee you a minimum 90% would. Some of the local authority comms I've seen in respect of price increases, has been a total embarrassment. If you are only going to send out a couple of lines, without providing any background context, it's little wonder customers are handing in their cancellation notice.

I can't wait for next year. We have so many incredible public facilities across the UK, quality often comparable to a private operator (at a fraction of the cost). Positive energy is infectious, negative energy is contagious. Likeminded organisations who I support, always see significant gains, and if we can create more industry leaders like the great Malcolm Mcphail FCIMSPA who I had the pleasure of supporting at Life Leisure & KA Leisure & who simply 'gets it' - well that's even better. And as Malcolm would say, 'your record is your record', so none of us can stand still, we must strive to get better.

So here's to 2024, a year for decisive leadership, making the right decision at the right time, developing talent, removing dead wood, embracing external expertise and to encourage a different way of thinking. What we don't want is more of the same; more meetings, more steering groups, more committees, more pages of A4 notes, & feeling sorry for ourselves. If you are not making a difference, step aside.

And remember, it is everyone's job to sell. Not the actual transaction itself but the way we conduct ourselves, our daily behaviours, the standards we set, day in day out. Mediocrity isn't good enough anymore. Aspire to achieve greatness.

Thanks for reading my posts this year, it's much appreciated. We all have different views and ideas, that's why having a debate is so important. We need so much more of this.

Seasons greetings,

Jim

Robert Hawthorne Orangetheory Fitness Southwark Council Caddi Club British Army

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