24 Hour Fitness Organization Analysis

The University of Texas at Dallas

Organizational Behavior
Dr. Kyle Edgington
November 20, 2014
Anthony Ayala, Cynthia Castillo, Lucy French, Tucker Hess, Loc Nguyen & Mayra Solis

24 Hour Fitness Organization Analysis

An organization is made up of several components that determine its success. Stress,
motivation, job satisfaction, commitment, and the team diversity are some of these components.
Analyzing how the employees of an organization cope with stress, what motivates employees to
perform better, the degree of job satisfaction amongst employees, the commitment that each
employee has to the organization, and the degree of diversity in the team allows us to understand
the reason why an organization is performing better or worse than expected. We have analyzed
24 Hour Fitness, and have paid close attention to each one of these key components to make
recommendations of ways to improve their overall performance as an organization.
History
24 Hour Fitness was founded in 1983 by Mark S. Mastrov. It was initially named 24 Hour
Nautilus and, in late 1990s, changed their name to 24 Hour Fitness in the country. It is the largest
privately owned and operated chain of fitness centers. The company is headquartered in San
Ramon, California. The company currently has clubs in 18 US states and has multiple
international locations as well. 24 Hour Fitness experienced major changes this year, with the
recent acquisition of the company by AEA Investors and announcement of their new CEO, Mark
Smith. The location in Murphy, Texas was opened in 2009 and has significantly grown over the
last few years.
Structure
24 Hour Fitness performs at high levels of work specialization, where each employee is
assigned to a specific department and is responsible for the same task on a daily basis. Special
circumstances such as lack of sufficient staff or higher degrees of work in a particular area do

require employees to collaboratively accomplish tasks outside of their normal responsibilities.

One of the main reasons this organization operates with high levels of work specialization is that
tasks are assigned to employees according to their experience, personalities, and certifications.
Certifications play a big role in allowing the organization to operate in a more flexible way when
it comes to task assignment. For instance, an employee must be CPR certified to be able to work
in the kids department. In a similar way a member of the personal training team must be
certified by the National Academy of Sports and Medicine. Employees from these two teams
consider their job to be very monotonous because the tasks that are performed within each
department are repetitive and consistent. However, members of the other two teams in the
organization, membership sales and service, have a little more variety in their assigned tasks. The
membership team is able to perform multiple tasks such as sales, customer service, and even
assist the service team; their jobs have more flexibility than those of the kids and personal
trainers team.
24 hours fitness operates as most traditional organizations following a specific chain of
command that determines to whom each person reports. The amount of supervisors and
managers on staff varies by location, but in the location that we examined each team consists of
an Assistant Manager and Department Manager, with the exception of the kids club team who
only have a supervisor on staff. Each team member reports to their assigned team manager, who
in return reports to the Club Manager. The chain continues with the Club Manager reporting to
the District Manager, who reports to the Regional Manager, and the flow continues until it
reaches the CEO of the company.
The organization operates with a rather wide span of control, where each Department
Manager is responsible for six to fifteen employees depending on the needs of each department.
The organization has done thorough research to ensure that each manager can efficiently manage

their subordinates without having too many employees that supervision becomes difficult, while
also ensuring that there are not too many supervisors that supervision becomes too dominant and
creates resentment among employees. As a result of such research, each supervisor has a specific
amount of employees that are under their supervision. The company works very hard to ensure
that the projected amount of employees under the supervision of a manager does not significantly
change, even when faced with certain circumstances that may make it appealing to do so.
Due to the amount of employees that are part of the 24 Hour Fitness, the organization has
a decentralized structure. The Club Manager holds control over important organization decisions,
but when it comes to the separate departments within the organization, he gives each Department
Manager the authority to make minor decisions that affect their department without consulting
him.
With approximately 400 clubs in the United States, 24 Hour Fitness strives to ensure that
every customer who walks through their doors is treated in the same respectful and professional
way regardless of the location they visit. To ensure consistency among locations, they have
created standard rules and procedures that are followed in all the clubs across the country.
Training is one of the most important components of the organization that allows them to portray
these standards. The forms that each customer fills out when receiving services are the same in
all the different clubs, and the procedures to follow when there is a health concern for a client is
also the same. Every location also has access to the same computer software that keeps track of
each clients information, membership details, and training information. Membership price is
also something that is consistent across the different locations. The organization is able to
provide a better experience to the client as well as the employee by putting these standard
procedures in place.
Mission

24 Hour Fitness mission is to help people improve their lives through fitness. Their goal
is to guide each person in the direction of their personal fitness goals, whether it is to become a
professional athlete or simply enjoy a healthier lifestyle. They walk alongside their customers to
provide support and create dependability. They strive to ensure that each person that walks
through their doors leaves with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.
Team and Diversity
In general, the teams within 24 Hour Fitness are all different in function and team
management styles. We explicitly reviewed four departments with distinctively different team
dynamics. The groups reviewed were the Front Desk/ Member Services, the Kids Club, Training
Group and the Management Team. The Front Desk employees are responsible for greeting
guests, signing up members, checking-in members, routing and answering general and specific
membership questions as well as accepting membership payments and selling merchandize
available at the club. The Kids Club workers are responsible for members young children for
1-2 hours as the members use the facility. Their responsibilities include supervising the children
and providing appropriate activities to keep the children engaged during the time of attendance.
The Training department is made up of certified trainers who work with individuals or in groups
to help clients/ members achieve their fitness goals through proposed diet plans and regular
exercise routine.
The Member Service Department works interdependently. Group members have tasks to
complete when assisting club members. Tasks include signing up, check in and answering
members or guests questions with regard to membership packages, group exercises sign ups
and individualized training sign ups. The group functions with a high degree of comprehensive
interdependence; the group members frequently rely on each other for informational materials

and resources needed to accomplish their tasks. This department exhibits the highest citizenship
aspects with group members covering for each other and also helping in other departments. The
group appears highly cohesive. Group members appear to be extraverted and very conscientious.
These types of character traits are vital in this department as they are often the first impression
any prospective member gets of the club.
Members of the Kids Club Department must be certified in Cardio Pulmonary
Resuscitation, CPR. Members have to have certain qualities to be able to be successfully
employed in the department. The goal of the department is to monitor and engage children;
therefore, members are highly skilled and have experience in caring for minors. There are several
members in this department who work in rotating shifts. The tasks and roles in this department
are of a pooled interdependence. On a busy day, several members work in the center with each
member responsible for a group of up to ten children or four infants assigned to their care. Due
to the certification requirements of this group, only certain employees of the club can work in
this group. Group members often get called in on their days off if the center is experiencing high
traffic. Because of the strict ratios, the center cannot admit more children and must halt
admission for the time if they cannot find an extra team member to cope with the influx.
The Training Group consists of eight Certified Personal Trainers. The trainers have up to
six or more clients at a time. The training group is very diverse with each trainer specializing in
certain training methods or certain client base. Trainers could also teach group exercise classes.
Trainers are tasked to sign new clients and to retain current clients by re-signing after completion
of a training period. Trainers have to meet set goals for total clients signed and retained. Part of
the trainers pay is commission based; they are paid 20% commission for added sales. Trainers
are highly competitive as they engage in pooled interdependence. Each team member has his/ her

own clients that they are responsible for and they often do not fill in for each other nor do they
work together. Each trainers work is highly independent of other group members. Other
incentives are offered to encourage competition amongst group members.
The management team has well defined member roles. A center has several department
managers, supervisors are part of management. The Club Manager reports to the District
Manager, who then reports to the Regional Manager. The management team is diverse in their
management styles depending on the department they each are responsible for, but they work
together in a reciprocal interdependence in that they often depend on each other to complete their
goals. Example; manager of the training department would work with manager of the
membership department to ensure that new clients brought in by training department are signed
up and set up successfully to meet the common goal of the club of increasing membership.
Stress
Within the entire company itself, there is a plentiful amount of stress. There are three
departments that seem to receive the most stress. These departments consist of Kids Club, the
Training Department, and the managers. Each employee that works in the Kids Club has to
supervise ten children. If the child is under the age of six, then he or she is considered as two
children. This alone can be a strain on the employee. It can be a challenge to supervise so many
children with no help. The employees seem to make the children their main priority and motivate
themselves to balance their work with their children. By doing this, they show the problemfocused cognitive method of coping.
In the Training Department, the trainers receive a lot of stress. The trainers have to be
CPR and AED certified and have a degree in Kinesiology, Exercise Fitness or an approved
Personal Training Certification to become a Personal Trainer. If the trainer wants to become a

Master trainer, then they have to become NASM (National Academy of Sports Medicine)
certified. Having to meet these requirements and certifications can be stressors for the
employees. Once they become a Personal trainer, they begin to train clients.
Training the clients can be very stressful as well. Not only does the trainer have to note
the clients health conditions and match their name to their information, but they have to create
the best training program for their well-being. If they make the mistake and execute the wrong
training program for the wrong client, they can cause a serious health issue to that client and
possibly risk the company becoming sued for it. This department is all about time management.
The trainers need to figure the best way to manage their entire clients sessions and meet their
needs. The trainers also use the problem-focused cognitive method of coping.
The managers are the people that receive the most stress. They have to deal with any
problem that happens within any department. They also have to deal with angry and dissatisfied
customers. Besides all of these stressors, they have to go through the strain of deadlines the
entire company has to meet. The managers use the problem-focused behavioral method of
coping.
Organization Commitment
Organizational commitment is defined as the desire on the part of an employee to remain
a member of the organization. Companies ideally would like all of their employees to have a
strong organizational commitment in order to reduce voluntary turnover because this means they
would have to constantly be hiring new employees. Along with that, this commitment is directly
related to job performance, so organizations should do all that they can to make their employees
feel a sense of commitment so that their employees will perform better. Withdrawal behavior is
a sign that an employee is not committed to their organization and occurs when employees act a
certain way to avoid the work situation, which eventually ends up with them quitting and leaving

the organization. This section will focus on the overall organizational commitment of the
employees at 24 Hour Fitness, along with the different types of commitment the employees have.
Overall, 24 Hour Fitness seems to do a great job with keeping their employees committed
to the organization. Out of the three types of commitment, it seems that affective commitment
and continuance commitment are the most common at this organization. Most of the employees
were qualified before they started, so they don't seem to feel a normative commitment. It seems
that the employees work here because they want to or they need to; not because they ought to.
It was clear from the start that many of the employees, and especially personal trainers,
had an affective commitment to 24 Hour Fitness. One trainer said that he felt happy when he
walked in the gym. He explained how he liked everyone he worked with and that they were
friends. He would most likely feel a sense of sadness if he left the organization, which makes
him have a strong affective commitment. Having an affective commitment like this usually
causes employees to act with more citizenship behavior and go the extra mile to help out
coworkers. This is makes sense because, after all, they are friends, so why not help a friend out?
The personal trainers and employees said that they take breaks and work out together a
lot. This creates a sense of family within the work place which only makes their bonds stronger.
Aside from relations with coworkers, the personal trainers also have strong relations with their
clients. If they quit 24 Hour Fitness, and assuming they had good ethics, they would never see
these clients again. Similarly, the number of clients a personal trainer has at the organization
also may add to the employee's continuance commitment.
Many of the personal trainers at 24 Hour Fitness definitely feel a continuance
commitment because they worked so hard to get where they are and, if they quit, would most

likely lose it all. At 24 Hour Fitness there are 3 different levels of Personal Trainers. Each level
is attained through the meeting of objectives and quotas such as sales or new clients. Once an
employee makes enough sales or gains enough clients, he or she is promoted to the next level of
PT within the organization, which also has higher commissions. If the trainer decided to quit 24
Hour Fitness and leave the organization, he or she would probably feel some sense of anxiety
about the cost that is associated with leaving. If they were to go work for LA or Lifetime
Fitness, they would have to start back up from the bottom.
Another point to make is that continuance commitment tends to create more of a form of
loyalty. When asked how loyal he was to his organization, a personal trainer said, "I would
never work out at another gym. There is no better gym. We are the best out there for the best
price." To clarify how embedded he was in the organization, the same employee said, "I wear
my 24 Hour Fitness shirt sometimes even when I'm not working. It is a good brand. In my eyes,
it's like polo." This is an absolute sign of the employee's embeddedness in the organization.
However, while the sense of continuance commitment is extremely strong in personal trainers, it
is not strong in all areas such as lifeguards.
24 Hour Fitness has a pool area and usually has two lifeguards on duty during the day
time and during aerobic activity. These employees receive no rewards or promotions based off
of how many people they save from drowning. In fact, they are not even hired by 24 Hour
Fitness. Oddly, most of them are sourced through different companies, so their organizational
commitment in general is not very strong. Being in the secluded pool area most of the time, they
don't get to build relationships with the other employees or even customers they are supervising.
It is important to note that the citizenship behavior that comes with affective commitment
doesn't exactly come with continuance commitment. If it means making more money and

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getting promoted, a personal trainer might not take time out of his day to help another personal
trainer. Similarly, if another employee's client complains about that employee and asks another
personal trainer to work with him, this personal trainer will most likely agree because this will
help him get promoted. This is how these two types of commitment may conflict and affect
citizenship behavior.
When personal trainers start competing with each other like this, it may cause some
employees to show symptoms of withdrawal. Everyone seemed to be relatively happy and busy
with work, though this does not mean the employees never day dream or act busy on the
computer when they are really thinking about something else. There was also a lot of gossiping
preset in the training department. This counterproductive behavior shows us that some
employees may not be as content as they seem. However, overall, a majority of the employees at
24 Hour Fitness seemed to have a very strong organizational commitment.
Motivation
The Club Manager stated that employee motivation is the key focus of any 24 Hour
Fitness location. The Club Manager is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the club
operations, and a specific aspect of their job description is to help both members and employees
to achieve fitness and personal goals by helping them take ownership of their commitments and
action to fulfill them. This comment perfectly aligns with the ideas of Goal Setting Theory, and
Goal Setting Theory appears to be the primary motivation technique at 24 Hour Fitness locations
since the manager is also extremely goal oriented. Thus, the Club Manager is essentially the
driving motivational force at club locations since they have the power to establish and measure
goals.

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As previously mentioned, the primary managerial technique used by both Club Managers
and Department Managers at any 24 Hour Fitness locations is Goal Setting Theory. All Club
Managers utilize specific, measurable, achievable, results-based, and time-sensitive goals when
managing service, membership, and personal trainer employees. Although the SMART acronym
is not used specifically, all of the aforementioned categories of employees are assigned specific
monthly goals that are difficult but achievable, and then the employees performance in relation
to these goals is measured for their evaluations. The results of these evaluations are then used to
determine the exact bonuses a 24 Hour Fitness employee will receive, and the employee bonus
programs at 24 Hour Fitness are one of the key motivational tools used by managers.
Specific examples of the use of the Goal Setting Theory include the facts that customer
satisfaction level goals are given to service members, membership employees are given sales
goals that they must try to meet, and personal trainers are given both volume and customer
satisfaction goals they must work towards. These descriptions of the goals used to motivate the
various departments at 24 Hour Fitness perfectly aligns with the principles of Goal Setting
Theory.
Additionally, employees are also routinely pitted in competition against one another in
monthly events that are meant to motivate employees. The sales department employees will all
compete amongst themselves to see who achieves the highest sales volume for a designated
period, service employees are pitted against one another to see who achieves the highest level of
customer satisfaction, and personal trainer employees compete with one another with respect to
customer satisfaction and volume. The winner of these interdepartmental competitions receives
both additional bonuses as well as recognition such as an Employee of the Month award.

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Expectancy Theory is also used to motivate 24 Hour Fitness employees. Specifically, the
employees of 24 Hour Fitness locations are like a family due to the positive corporate culture,
and all of the employees help to encourage each other to achieve goals. Managers help to build
and develop this positive and teamwork oriented culture through the use of Saturday boot camps
that are used for both training purposes and also team building activities. Managers also
frequently work directly with employees to help them in any capacity, and they also publicly
praise employees for exceptional work behaviors and for meeting or exceeding goals. This type
of management technique motivates employees to work towards goals so they may receive
recognition and praise, and also so that they do not feel like they have let down their coworkers.
As previously mentioned, bonuses are also commonly awarded to employees and
especially membership ones that exceed goals and demonstrate exceptional workplace behaviors.
The fact that employees at 24 Hour Fitness link increased effort and achievement of their goals
with positive outcomes such as praise and bonuses indicates that managers are indeed employing
a form of Expectancy Theory to motivate workers.
Managers also believe a lot of employees deliver optimal effort because they believe in
the mission of 24 Hour Fitness, which is to help everyone achieve health goals and change
lives. Many of the employees take great pride in the positive effect that their service has on the
lives and overall health of members, and this idea that employees are motivated by the larger
purpose of the organization perfectly aligns with the concept of Psychological Empowerment.
Employee motivation at 24 Hour Fitness consists of Goal Setting Theory, Expectancy
Theory, and Psychological Empowerment. Goal Setting Theory appears to be the primary tool
used by Club and Department Managers, but Psychological Empowerment and Expectancy
Theory also play important roles as well. The reliance on Goal Setting Theory is not surprising

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since 24 Hour relies on membership sales for revenue and also needs to deliver fitness results to
customers in order to maintain the membership base, but the use of Expectancy Theory and
Psychological Empowerment also show that the company has created a positive corporate culture
that fosters motivation as well.
Job Satisfaction
Working for 24 Hour Fitness has a vast number of benefits. Not only one is getting paid
for their job, but one is also part of an organization that intends to help individuals health. It
seems that this is a company that motivates their team members in every way to reach their
goals. As a member of 24 Hour Fitness, one is able to have a relationship with the employees and
find out how they feel about their current position. After evaluating the organization and
questioning certain individuals about their job satisfaction with the company, one will understand
that 24 Hour Fitness is just like most other companies. By a company I mean keeping profits as
high as possible, but also try to keep their employees happy.
Everyone in the organization seems to be happy with what they are doing. Smiles here,
smiles there. However, not everything can go perfect with such enormous organization.
Managers may think that everyone within each individual club is satisfied with their
performance. Lets take a look at the management team for this specific 24 Hour Fitness
location; the service manager in particular, Cheron, explained that she has been with the
company because of the schedule flexibility, promotion availability, and most importantly the
people she works with, who make it a good environment to work in. When asked about her job
satisfaction with the company and her current position, Cheron promptly replied by stating I am
ok with my current position. The pay is not where it should be for the work I do. Based on her

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statement, it is clear that she is mainly satisfied with what she does, but it would definitely
elevate her job satisfaction heavily if her salary was higher.
Now lets evaluate one of the most important departments at 24 Hour Fitness, the kids
club. 24 Hour Fitness wants to take away the excuses for those that cant engage in a strength
training program; therefore, they offer the kids club, where parents are able to work out while
well-trained attendants take care of their kids. As you walk around the club, one can see that
almost all the employees are having fun, except a few of those that are working in the kids club.
After observing what happens in there, one can see that a few of these attendants look annoyed,
and frustrated. Lets face it, having one attendant responsible for ten kids can be a very hard job.
24 Hour Fitness really needs to take action in regards to attendant to kid ratio. It was a surprise to
find out that attendants get paid minimum wage. Most attendants do not last in this position for
over 6 months. The job satisfaction within this part of the organization seems to be very low, due
to the stress involved, low pay and lack of promotion opportunity.
Nonetheless, kids club attendants have other ways to grow within the company, which
are the training or membership departments. When it comes to the training department, these are
the guys that make everything happen. Personal trainers are the professionals that dedicate to
help individuals have a healthier life through fitness. It is clear from the first moments that
trainers are having so much fun training their clients, after all, they are dedicated to do what they
love.
Personal trainers at this particular 24 Hour Fitness have a high job satisfaction. Having
the opportunity to chat with one of the trainers it was possible to see why they are so satisfied.
Jeremy, a personal trainer stated that his satisfaction was very high, its fun and engaging with
great culture and great people. The income is inconsistent because its commission based. The

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culture definitely makes a huge difference in an organization, and it seems that Jeremy is well
satisfied for that reason. Not having an inconsistent income can sometimes elevate stress levels.
Overall, 24 Hour Fitness has a great group of people who are really engaged in the
success of its members. They really do strive to provide the best fitness experience possible
while driving great member results. It is most likely that the influence for most employees to stay
with the company solely revolves around the environment established by those who they work
with. They seem to make an amazing team to the point that they are willing to stay, even when
taking a pay cut by doing so, in order to inspire a group of individuals. They have a high
satisfaction with the job itself.
Recommendations
After carefully analyzing the daily operations of 24 Hour Fitness, we have noticed that
there are many positive components present in the organization that are allowing the organization
to successfully operate. Job satisfaction and commitment are some of the areas where there is not
much room for improvement since all employees exhibit high levels of those two components;
however, there are certain areas where improvements can be made.
Stress seems to affect most employees within this organization. Stress is present
throughout the entire organization but it seems to affect those who work in the kids club the
most. These employees have to care for up to ten kids simultaneously and this can cause stress to
anyone. The responsibility is very high as well as the motivation very little in this area.
Other departments also have very high levels of stress but these employees have ways of
coping with the stress that do not involve withdrawal behaviors and there is more balance
between the degree of stress and incentives present. Measures should be taken to ensure that the

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number of children one individual has to take care of decreases to ensure that these individuals
do not involve in withdrawal behaviors as the only motivation they have it to get promoted to the
other areas in the organization. Higher opportunity for growth should also be implemented to
ensure that the turnover rates in the organization, specifically in the kids club decreases.
Since the organization encourages competition, they should pay very close attention to
the behaviors that some employees exhibit in addition to performance. Counterproductive
behaviors such as gossiping appear to be an issue in the organization, particularly in the training
department. Establishing clear rules for employee behaviors is a solution that will potentially
increase employee motivation and prevent conflict from arising or expanding. Not setting clear
standard of how employees should treat one another and allowing employees to engage in gossip
during work hours may drive down the motivation of some employees as well as create a
negative atmosphere in the workplace.
Another recommendation is having clear sales goals for each individual in the membership
department. There was a lot of stress present in this department because some individuals were
exhibiting withdrawal behaviors of not contributing to the team goals. Since the sales goals are
currently assigned to the team as a whole, some individuals free-ride on the efforts of others.
This causes a lot of stress to those individuals who are contributing to the success of the team.
Some individuals expressed that they were not contributing to their full capacity because they did
not feel that it was fair that some individuals received the same amount of rewards without
putting in any effort. Rewarding all individuals for the contribution of some and punishing all
individuals for the lack of contribution of others is causing counterproductive behaviors that can
potentially have a negative effect on the overall performance of the organization. By
implementing personal goals, all employees will be encouraged and challenged to be more

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involved in meeting their personal and department goals. This would also enable managers to
fairly evaluate each employees performance.
In Conclusion, 24 Hour Fitness has many components that have allowed it to successfully
operate. Employees of the organization are very satisfied with the company overall and most
exhibit high levels of commitment to the organization. The organization motivates their
employees through Goal Setting Theory, Expectancy Theory, and Psychological Empowerment.
They have implemented challenging incentives to ensure that each employee gets motivated by
their accomplishments and their future goals. 24 Hour Fitness employees exhibit high levels of
stress but also have found efficient ways of coping with it. The structure of the company allows
each employee to know who to go to when issues arise or when advise is needed. Furthermore,
each employee considers fellow coworkers as members of a family, which allows strong
cooperation amongst them to get tasks accomplished. 24 Hour Fitness ensures that every one of
their employees gets rewarded for their contributions and shows high interest in the success of
their employees.