Interest September 2022 - Trafford Leisure Staff Newsletter

CHIEF EXECUTIVE JO CHERRETT

Dear All,

I am delighted to see another jam-packed version of our staff newsletter Interest, it’s been a busy couple of months again and this was also at a time when Queen Elizabeth II, who reigned for 70 years, 7 months and 2 days sadly passed away on the 8th September. As you are all aware, our facilities were closed fully ensuring that those staff who wanted to watch the formal proceedings and pay their respects were able to.

Back in the late 70’s, at the grand old age of 7 I did meet the late Queen Elizabeth on a royal visit, and I am sure some of you will have your own memories. My mum had dressed me in a true union jack style outfit of red, white and blue – the red, white and blue top actually seemed bigger than me from looking at photos - I waited by the roadside in my hometown of Bournemouth for the queen to pass in her procession. Although I don’t remember this part of the story myself, my mum still takes great pleasure in embarrassing me with re-telling the story. Picture me sat on the side of the road, legs though the railings and HRH Queen Elizabeth pauses, looks down at me and asks, “Am I all right down there” to which I replied “yes, but you are rather late” – “please could you be on time next time”. By all accounts it provided a smile moment, and the Queen did advise back that she would try better next time. My mum was mortified…

A Couple of Updates

Turning my attention back to what has been taking place in the business, a fantastic shout out to team move Urmston and the wider support team who have achieved an unbelievable NPS score of 43!

The planning application has gone in for move Altrincham and we will know the decision in December, the focus continues on the Altrincham Transition plan for all of our team and customers, and a special thank you to all the staff at Altrincham who moved quickly and did what was needed to ensure the building could close for a couple of weeks whilst testing and essential maintenance took place to aid the full construction starting early January.

We kicked off a project at move Urmston last week with Manchester University MBA students which will run over the next couple of months. We are looking to see how Trafford Leisure could measure and prove a meaningful return on investment to Trafford Council beyond the financials of income and profit/membership numbers. The wider health and wellbeing impact and onward saving into wider health because of the great work you do. First impression was the students had grasped the objective very quickly and already mapped out the map of how they may tackle the project. I hope to be able to share more on this early next year.

A Trafford Leisure Board meeting took place last week, and the Directors of the Board wanted me to feedback a massive well-done to the full Trafford Leisure Staff Team. With a lot of hard work and determination from each and everyone of you we are in a really good place at the halfway point of the year. Well Done!

Finally, a date for all your diaries – save the date - Saturday 21st January 2023 – provisional date for staff awards/ celebration.

STAFF SURVEY RESULTS

PULSE SURVEY

PROMOTER SCORE

Do you work on a laptop or PC?

a message to all staff who use

laptops, please take

to install W11 if prompted to do so. If you do so in error, please contact OPTM – or your line manager - immediately and ask that W11 is uninstalled. Please do however, continue to install regular MSN software updates as required & when the time is right we will run this W11

WHAT’S NEW?

@ move Urmston TEAM MOVE SMASHES NPS SURVEY

Two years on from move Urmston first opening their refurbished doors and with a pandemic in the midst of it all, we have now been in a position to survey our customers and get some vital feedback in the form of an NPS score to show how we are doing operating with “fit for purpose” facilities.

What is the activity you attend when coming to Move Urmston?

likely would you

to recommend our company

a friend or colleague?

Firstly, what is NPS? Net promoter score is a widely used market research metric that typically takes the form of a single survey question asking respondents to rate the likelihood that they would recommend a company, product, or a service to a friend or colleague.

Depending on the score that is given to the Net Promoter question, three categories of people can be distinguished:

Promoters = respondents giving a 9 or 10 score

we can understand more about your score please could you explain below the main reason for the score you gave?

Passives = respondents giving a 7 or 8 score

Detractors = respondents giving a 0 to 6 score

Any NPS score above 0 is “good”. It means that your audience is more loyal than not. Anything above 20 is considered “favourable“, the source of the NPS system, suggests that above 50 is excellent, and above 80 is world class.

The

time

carried out an NPS for move Urmston was in 2018 which resulted in a score of -29, this reflected the backdrop of an outdated building

equipment,

it has given us a great

300 responses

email with

our new NPS

and actionable

move Urmston

This score is a real achievement, a few points away from “excellent”. This reflects a newly emerging team doing a fantastic job and giving excellent customer service. The data has also provided us with real insight into our customers, we are taking this data analysing and understanding how they came to their scores and delving into the comments and assigning actions across the business. Some of the points are “quick wins” and we can easily turn these into promoters of our business when we carry out another

LIFEGUARD COURSES

The pool at move Urmston has been busy hosting several National Pool Lifeguard Qualification training sessions. It’s great to hear the number of people we have taking part, gaining their NPLQ’s alongside a vital lifelong skill. Credit is due to Fiona Buckley and all the Trafford Training team for their continued efforts in delivering fantastic training courses!

NHS PARTY IN THE PARK

Craig Lomas and Adam Spence from the team at move attended the NHS’s ‘Party in the Park, birthday event at Golden Hill Park in Urmston, a great event all round. Here they are pictured at our move stand, looking good chaps!

EMPLOYEE

Ella SuttonElla Sutton

Clare RogersClare Rogers

WHAT’S NEW?

@

Golf Course &

INVITATIONAL

On Saturday 27th August, it was time for Altrincham Golf Club’s Annual Invitational Day to take place, and what a success it was. A fantastic turn out was followed by some brilliant golf, where the competition saw Stuart Mason and Alec Austin take home first place with 50 points!

WHAT’S NEW?

COMMITMENT TO INCLUSION WORKSHOP

Fran & Helena attended a “Commitment to Inclusion workshop” at the Seashell over in Stockport on Wednesday 10th August. They listened to all the good work they do within Seashell Active and their holiday programmes (CADS). They even took it upon themselves and volunteered at a couple of sessions with the CADS crew, where the children and young people took part in swimming, trampolining, the climbing wall and football!

A big happy birthday is in order for Fiona Buckley, our Learning and Development manager at Trafford Leisure! We hope you had a fantastic birthday, from everyone here at Trafford Leisure.

Further to the email sent to all on the 27th September we’re delighted to be able to introduce the Manchester Credit Union as a Staff Benefit to all our contracted staff As we’ve said before Manchester Credit Union (MCU) have been supporting the community of Greater Manchester for over 30 years. They offer savings accounts and affordable loans to members and are an ethical alternative to High Street Banks as they use the savings we manage to provide loans to members, so the money stays within the local community. The aim is to help you get back into a savings habit and become more financially resilient.

Their BEESMART service is very easy to set up. You decide how much you want to save each month (minimum £10) and we will arrange to set up a deduction from your salary directly through our payroll team to Manchester Credit Union, who place it into a savings account for you. I’ve attached a copy of their brochure for you to consider if this benefit is something you’d like to undertake!

They also have a dedicated website where you can read more – www.beesmartpayroll.co.uk.

Interested in enjoying this benefit of regular savings directly through payroll?

Please have a look at this link which has a short video to explain how you complete our application form on a desktop or mobile:

If you want to join all that is required is for

website

do the

NEW STAFF BENEFIT

also be interested

you can pay into it during the year

can be a huge help at a very expensive time of

with early

Interested in a Loan through Manchester Credit Union?

a savings

loan

on the home page of

a

affordable rate

rates are guaranteed, not

and, if you pay your loan

that if in the unlikely event of

do decide to join

an

death,

be

which

no application

would also benefit from free loan insurance

account.

have a

CHATBOT

The Customer Hub are evolving again using technology to help our customers, this time we have trialled a new Chatbot feature on both our Trafford Leisure and move websites, which launched at the beginning of August.

During this test and learn month, this has been a huge success, we have learnt so much using the technology which now allows us to get a response to a customer very quickly. We can correspond with up to 4 members in real time, from customers on the move or needing the information fast we have them covered.

Some of the main reasons a customer is using the chatbot over making a phone call:

• Registering for the first time

Enquiring about membership information & advice

Accessibility information

Centre information

Helping members with their accounts (pin reset)

Helping navigating through the website and app

We now have a great opportunity to provide this information very quickly, reducing the need to make a phone call or wait for an email response. Online chat is here to stay and will serve as an important tool allowing the Customer Hub Team to provide great customer service and journey for all our customers.

FINANCE TEAM PEOPLE

The second quarter of our financial year saw a period of calm as we settled down into our roles in the Finance Team. We are pleased to say that is has been business as usual!

You asked us to share more on our company finances and we listened. I am pleased to share that we successfully completed our first quarter of the financial year ahead of our budget.

Our income exceeded budget in the first quarter by £185K. A large part of this positive variance was due to the continuing growth of our wetside activities where we have seen an increase in swimming lessons, intensive lessons and casual swim across the board.

Bookings for dryside activities have exceeded and our fitness membership numbers have increased in the first quarter by 293. We remain cautious as we enter into our 2nd and 3rd quarters as we wait to see the effect that the economic climate has on our running costs and attendance levels as we move into the colder months.

The Income that our Leisure Centres, Golf, Football Development and Training staff worked hard to service is set out below, and we would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to all our staff for their contribution towards the services we have provided to our community in Trafford during the last quarter.

£ £ £ £££ £ £ £ £££

£

Our Commercial team have been working to bring our dashboards to life.

Memberships - We are now reguarly reporting on our memberships across the individual leisure centres and by membership type to provide data to use to make commerical decisions on where to direct our marketing resource and share best practices.

Utilities – This is a cost of concern on a global basis and a very important cost for us at Trafford Leisure to keep under control. We have partnered with our Head of IT and Assets to build a utility dashboard to gain information on consumption across the individual leisure centres. This will provide valuable information on a timely basis so we can be as effiicient as possible with our consumption and ultimately costs during this period of uncertainty. Here’s a snapshot of the dashboards:

Summary of Memberships for

Leisure

move

£ £ £ £££

Business Reviews - As we begin to trade in a more stable BAU environment, we have re-introduced site business reviews. These monthly meetings will provide an opportunity for the Commercial Finance team alongside Head of Business Jon Francis to collaborate with the General Managers to tell the stories behind the numbers. There will be a discussion about the previous months results but a real focus on the future and how we can work together to drive the business plans forward. The first meetings took place at the end of August and early September and first indicators are that they have been a great success with lots of the discussions having action points that we can all work on to keep moving forwards together.

Bad Debt – We have been focusing on chasing in outstanding debt relating to bookings that were placed pre-covid and not being collected due to the break in the business during covid. A big thank you to the site administrators and management for your help with pulling in this debt where appropriate.

£ £ £ £££ £ £ £ £££

Block Bookings - We are now ensuring that our financial principles for taking block bookings are being adhered to, which is to collect monies via a monthly direct debit or if necessary taking full payment for bookings in advance should the direct debit option not be taken up.

WHAT’S NEW?

FIRST LOOK AT MOVE ALTRINCHAM!

If approved, move Altrincham will benefit from a 25m swimming pool, a 20m learner pool, a pool pod to improve accessibility, a combined lobby area with pool viewing and café, a wet village change, an inclusive changing places toilet and a health and wellbeing spa facility. There will also be a wellness assessment room, an enlarged fitness suite, fitness changing and dry change areas, two flexible studio spaces, an immersive indoor cycle studio, a four-court sports hall and storage, a gymnastics hub and staff rooms and offices.

On Tuesday 4 October the council closed Altrincham Leisure Centre for a short period of time to carry out essential maintenance and assessment in readiness for the appointed contractor to be able to start on site. Trafford Leisure will keep staff and customers of Altrincham Leisure Centre fully informed, and plan to re-open the centre two weeks after its temporary closure.

Gill CorcutGill Corcut

PerrySally Perry

Trafford Council has applied for planning permission for the large-scale refurbishment of the popular Altrincham Leisure Centre – branded move Altrincham – on Oakfield Road in Altrincham’s town centre.

WHAT’S NEW?

OliverJulie Oliver

McCallSam McCall

NEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Helena Taylor has recently stepped into her new role to help oversee the future developments of the business, here’s what she has to say: “I’m really happy to be moving into the development secondment with Trafford Leisure, I have been working in Leisure Management for 15 years and I’ve really enjoyed working with the wonderful team at Sale over the past 3 years. Altrincham has been waiting patiently for refurbishment and it’s really exciting to be involved in helping to bring this vision to life. In my first few weeks in the role I’ve already had my eyes opened by a different side to our business including all things bats, glazing, bike sheds and portakabins! The planning application for Altrincham has been submitted and there’s a lot to do over the next 18 months, like everyone else within our business, I’m proud to be a part of our move future.”

BABY SAVERS IS BACK!

In the next months we will be welcoming the return the Baby Saver Training Sessions, which will be taking place in Emma’s Sensory Room at move Urmston. Each session of Baby Savers consists of what to do if a baby/toddler stops breathing or is choking. Child First Aid is also covered and this gives people the opportunity to ask questions relating to anything on the topic of Children’s First Aid.

The sessions are taught by our fantastic fully qualified trainers, including practical sessions using approved manikins and you can also bring your baby along with you on the day in a carry-car seat.

They are open to parents, grandparents and all members of the community and the Trafford Training team have already recieved a large uptake in the sessions heading into November and December!

BIRTHDAY SHOUTOUT

IT FINALLY CAME HOME!

England Women’s First Team won the Euro 2022 tournament this summer, beating Germany 2-1 in extra time with a goal from Chloe Kelly, and to top it off it was all done on home soil. An incredible achievement which really emphasised the rise of women’s football across the country.

to our

Annette Cannon, our Systems Development & Support Manager, celebrated her birthday in September. A big happy birthday from all of us at Trafford Leisure, we hope you had a great day!

Our Head of People & Culture, Leanne Wheatley, has worked closely with the Marketing team to bring to life our Career Roadmaps. These have been created to give people an idea of the great career you can experience with Trafford Leisure, showing the variety of roles you can explore whilst obtaining several different skills and qualifications. As well as our general roadmap above, we have created three individual roadmaps to showcase some of the brilliant careers our staff have had so far. A big thanks to Heather, Jon and Annette for sharing this with us! Be sure to check them out on the website on our careers page:

MEET THE TEAM

Louise Baron

As we move forward with the Altrincham Investment programme we have had to add more resource to our stretched teams and with that I’m delighted to introduce to you Louise Baron who has joined us on a temporary 12 month contract as Interim HR Specialist. Whilst Louise will work with the development team for Altrincham, and has already visited a few times, she will also be supporting the business on a number of people related projects helping us to move forward with various improvement initiatives. Louise has over 20 years HR experience in a range of organisations and as a Level 7 CIPD qualified team member she is a very welcomed addition to our team. Please do take the time to say hello to Louise and welcome her to the Trafford Leisure family when you see her out and about!

Alex Hurst

We recently welcomed Alex back to Trafford Leisure as our one of our new Active Living Managers. Here’s what he had to say:

“It’s great to be back at Trafford Leisure after several years away. Having worked within different aspects of Sport, Health, and Fitness I am keen to bring my experience to the team and help to develop the Exercise referral programme.

It is a great opportunity to be a part of the Exercise referral scheme prior to its relaunch, the programme is at an exciting time to be involved in this aspect of the business and to work with the amazing team that are in place.”

Diane Hancox

We also welcomed Diane as one of our new Active Living Managers, here’s what she had to say:

“I am very excited to be taking on the role as Active Living Manager! Having recently joined Trafford Leisure as a Pilates Instructor at the Stretford Talbot Centre and Fitness Instructor at Move Urmston, I am looking forward to a new challenge. Initially, I will be assisting with the physical activity referral relaunch with a focus on the Central and North areas of Trafford. We have a fantastic team of physical activity referral instructors at Trafford Leisure who are passionate about getting more people active and I am looking forward to visiting each of the sites over the next week to meet each team individually, alongside Alex. Having previously worked for Trafford Leisure before, it’s great to be back!”

EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH

For those across our Leisure Centres you will be aware that we’ve relaunched the ‘Employee of the Month’ awards earlier this year following feedback received in the Staff Survey. With winners now receiving a voucher of £25, increasing from £20 in October 2022! We have been working on how we roll this out fairly across Trafford Leisure and we are working on a new process for nominating and receiving awards through the Employee of the Month scheme.

One change we are implementing is the frequency of these awards given so they reflect the numbers of staff in specific areas. So for example in our Leisure Centres we tend to have on average around 50 contracted staff (and we link the smaller centres with larger ones, so Partington is linked with move Urmston, The Grammar is linked with Altrincham etc) but in the support office we have around 25 staff and the Golf including the Hub is roughly the same so we have different frequencies for awarding Employee of the Month in these areas as per the below table.

We are working on developing an online nomination form for our people and further information on this will follow! We think its an exciting development which allows us to once again reward and recognise our people with a more simplified process!

BITESIZE TRAINING

To help upskill our managers following feedback from the Staff Survey we are developing a range of Bite Size Training modules. These modules will cover a range of people related topics ranging from having difficult conversations to absence management and the aim is to better equip all our managers to support and manage our people more effectively. We are planning to start delivering these modules in October and all our managers will be invited to attend these training sessions with the aim that these will become mandatory training modules in the future to build consistent skills and knowledge.

NOTICE BOARD

NEW STARTERS WHERE POSITION

Peter McLardy

James Asher

Shahrzad Dowlatshahi

Andrew Terry

Diane Hancox

Oliver Bernstein

Hannah Sharp

Abigail Green

Duvail Brown

Joseph Parry

Jack O’Brien

Jordan Wagster

Daniella

LEAVERS

Noah Bedford Sandra Booth

Louise Egan

Taylor

Barrett

Carroll

Chapman

Davies-Reeves

Molly Fannon

Gill

Jack Hollis

Charles Hollis

Beth Hyland

Matthew Johnson

Brandon Kilbride

Paul Murray

William Parkinson-Ramsbottom

Faith Robinson

Wendy McNeil

Moss

Mowe

John Naughton

Halima Hussein

Hanley

Hughes

Higginbottom

Sajjad Elhassan

DATE

01/07/2022 01/07/2022 01/07/2022 02/07/2022 04/07/2022 04/07/2022 09/07/2022 11/07/2022 11/07/2022 11/07/2022 11/07/2022 11/07/2022 11/07/2022 17/07/2022 18/07/2022 22/07/2022 25/07/2022 01/08/2022 01/08/2022 01/08/2022 01/08/2022 03/08/2022 08/08/2022 15/08/2022 17/08/2022 17/08/2022 22/08/2022 22/08/2022 22/08/2022 22/08/2022 24/08/2022 24/08/2022

WHERE POSITION